How a person’s life is built, how it unfolds, and at what moment a young man transforms into the man he is destined to become—these are age-old questions, perhaps impossible to answer fully. A human being is the sum of circumstances, accidents, wounds, affections, and absences. Sometimes, it is years of small choices that ultimately push someone toward a place they never imagined inhabiting. Here, I offer a glimpse into the private life of Paulo, a man I met in prison whose life seemed composed of contradictions: violence and generosity, toughness and tenderness, loyalty and waywardness.
He had been a human smuggler, a trafficker, and a criminal. I met Paulo at the Northern Men’s Preventive Prison in Mexico City. By December 2014, he had already served four years. He was a tall, strong man with prominent veins tracing his skin and enormous hands; he could easily have passed for a wealthy man. He would threaten people—telling them that the next blow would come with a closed fist rather than an open-handed slap—insisting they deserved it.
He ended up in prison because, near the center of what was then the Federal District, he shot a man in the leg who owed him money. He claimed he had been forced to teach the man a lesson to command respect. He didn’t recount this boastfully, but rather reflectively—perhaps because, beneath that intimidating exterior, there was a different person. Paulo was a good-natured man who was always ready to help; he loved to cook—preparing meals quickly—and was a lover of fine food. He could mimic the *norteño* border accent and spoke broken English, disregarding verb tenses entirely. He would laugh heartily—an inward, silent laugh that left him soundless for a few seconds, as if the laughter were choking him. He never stopped talking; he was a walking compendium of anecdotes.
He lived in a different dormitory—a different cellblock—yet he spent most of the day with us. He had arrived at the invitation of one of the inmates from cell 4-2 in Annex 3. At first, several of us were wary. In prison, trust is a currency too costly to part with easily. Little by little, he earned his place. First tolerance. Then trust. Finally, friendship.
Before living among us, he had held significant positions within the prison’s informal economy. For a time, he managed a restaurant in the visitation area and also coordinated the conjugal visit section. His size, personality, and ability to connect with others made him a natural leader. He liked money. He liked it a lot. But he liked drugs even more. His favorite phrase: “a champion’s breakfast: a toke and a line.” Marijuana and cocaine. The drugs that had led to his ruin, both outside and inside prison.
A kilo of “Black Scorpion” brand cocaine.
Paulo ended up taking refuge in our cell. For him, the cell became a sort of recovery ward—a place to get away from his destructive self. There, he slept, cooked, ate, and tried—at least for periods—to stay away from excess. However, to understand who Paulo was, one had to look much further back. His story begins in the late nineties, when he drove a little black car—a four-door sedan—through the southwestern part of the district.
The car, though small, was handsome and elegant; it carried a certain neighborhood status, featuring aluminum rims and a sunroof. And it was precisely behind the wheel of that little car that an eighteen-year-old—convinced of his own invincibility—made a decision that would forever alter the course of his life. One night, a man made him an offer: a kilo of cocaine bearing the “Black Scorpion” stamp—a mark of quality and reliability known in Mexico City’s working-class neighborhoods—in exchange for the car. Paulo tested the product. He accepted. He turned that one kilo into two.
He sold a portion of it in a single deal. Weeks later, he bought another car, but a few days on, someone posing as a cocaine buyer set a trap for him. Paulo pulled out his gun, wounded three men, and escaped. A woman who knew him called his mother; she told her that Paulo had lost his mind, that he had wounded those guys, and that people were already hunting him down to kill him. “Mom, how could they kill me when I’ve got the power?” he said to her.
It was late—very late—so his mother let him sleep. She tried to sleep herself but couldn’t, and as soon as dawn broke, she woke him up:
“Paulo, let’s go.”
“Where to?”
“To the airport; if you stay here, they’re going to kill you,” his mother told him.
Paulo gave her some money and told her to keep the new car. They both showed up at the Aeroméxico counter.
“Destination?”
“The next flight.”
“Hermosillo, Sonora.”
He hugged his mother. After giving him her blessing, she watched him walk away past the security checkpoints—perhaps feeling the satisfaction of knowing she was saving his life. Perhaps, in that moment, she also realized she couldn’t change her son’s past, but there was still time to save his future.
Without realizing it, Paulo had just crossed an even more dangerous border. He carried his eighteen years, a suitcase of clothes his mother had packed, fifty thousand in cash, and a bank card. Hours later, he landed in Hermosillo and left the airport. For the first time, he felt the weight of loneliness. No one was waiting for him. He didn’t know a single street or a single name, nor did he have a place to go. He took a shared taxi to Nogales. He didn’t know why.
During the journey, he observed a landscape completely different from the one he knew. Mexico City faded from his mind, gradually replaced by an immense, dry, dusty horizon. The border desert seemed endless. And, feeling a touch of disappointment, he thought that perhaps he could start over there.
In Nogales, he walked to a cheap hotel; he didn’t ask for a room right away—the first thing he did was order a huge *milanesa* and pay a week’s rent in advance. Then he opened and closed his room door and lay down on the bed. He felt safe. He thought about what he had left behind—never knowing if the guys he’d wounded had died or not—but he fell asleep hoping to find a new life.
From migrant smuggler to opium trafficker on the Nogales border
Nogales operates on a different logic. It is a city where borders do more than divide countries; they separate two ways of understanding life. Between Mexico and the United States lies an invisible territory governed by money, risk, and necessity. There, everything seems to carry a high price: a backpack, a migrant, a kilogram of drugs—even a man’s life. It took Paulo less than 48 hours to find out. From here on out, I’ll keep the story brief and concise.
Day 1 (marijuana). He walked into a place displaying a real estate rental sign. He spoke with the owner. He exchanged glances with the secretary. They told him to wait. He waited. The rental agent drove him around in his pickup truck, showing him the area around Nogales. He told him that, appearances aside, there was plenty to do in Nogales. Paulo asked to see apartments in a nice area; he didn’t want anything dangerous. The man told him not to worry. Encouraged by the hospitality, Paulo asked where he could buy a “little something to smoke.” The man didn’t understand.
“Marijuana.”
“Let’s go see some friends.”
They went. He introduced him as his friend from Mexico City. They gave him a large bag of potato chips filled with weed.
“It’s nothing, buddy; we’re here to help you with whatever you need.”
They headed back. On the way, the owner told him that if he liked the secretary, he could take her out—she didn’t have a boyfriend. He also said he could lend him the truck if he wanted; he’d taken a liking to him.
Day 2 (cocaine). Paulo and the real estate owner get into the truck, heading for the new apartment. This time, the man takes him to see another friend to buy some “coke.” He leaves him there, telling him not to worry—he’s among friends—and suggests they have a few beers; he gives Paulo his number and tells him to call when he’s ready so he can come back for him. The new friend places some cocaine on the back of Paulo’s hand, between his thumb and index finger. He snorts it. They drink beer and chat:
“What brings you around here?”
“Just visiting. Is there anything to do around here?”
“Want to smuggle people? *Pollitos*?”
The following days (coyote). The safe houses where they kept the migrants were right across from the border wall. They would cut new holes in the fence to get people across. “The further in you took them, the higher the price went. There were options for one hundred, 150, two hundred, 250, and three hundred dollars.” Paulo took charge of them as soon as they arrived at the safe house. He fed them, took them to the *Pulgas* (as the border flea markets are known), bought them clothes, and dressed them in a trendy, upscale style. Then, by phone, he would arrange to meet their relatives in the grocery aisles of supermarkets located inside the United States.
In the meantime, Paulo would wait in hideouts near the supermarkets; as the appointed time approached, he would lead the migrants to the designated store and ask them to wait in a different aisle. He would meet his clients, collect payment, and tell them which aisle to go to in order to find their relatives. Finally, taking advantage of the emotion, happiness, and hugs of the reunited loved ones, he would slip away.
More days (trafficker of opium gum, marijuana, and cocaine). It turned out that one day, one of the *coyotes* Paulo worked with disappeared. Four weeks later, he reappeared wearing a jacket, trousers full of pockets, and boots. Border Patrol had detained him with bags of opium gum. When asked what was in the bags, he said he didn’t know; all he wanted was to cross to “the other side,” and the people he’d paid had told him they’d get him across but that he had to stuff those packages into his pockets. He was sentenced to thirty days in prison and the bags were confiscated. Paulo already knew what to say in case he got caught. He was paid five hundred dollars for every package he smuggled across.
More days (burrito vendor). In Nogales, he had befriended the owner of a burrito stand—burritos being a typical snack in the border states, wrapped in flour tortillas. The man took a liking to him because he saw he was alone:
“Don’t you want a job?” he asked him one day.
“Doing what?”
“Here at the stand; you just have to take the money and keep your eyes peeled, because people around here will rob you blind,” he said.
Now he had three jobs. It worked. On one hand, he could pass as the burrito stand cashier, and on the other, he offered customers services for smuggling migrants and delivering drugs.
The trafficker who learned to make a living walking between two countries
He always said there was a lot going on at the border, and it was true; on another occasion, Paulo recounted being out on the street with a sex worker, smoking crack, when suddenly some members of Grupo Beta—a federal government migrant-aid group—showed up. They arrived accompanied by the municipal police.
“You guys are fucked now!” they warned them.
Their eyes nearly popped out of their heads. Then the Beta agents and the municipal officers looked at each other and burst out laughing: “Hey, look, here’s this fucking package for you to sell—you get a cut!” On the border, illicit opportunities often appear before legitimate ones, but the money never comes alone. It always brings risk with it. And the easier it seems to earn, the higher the price one ultimately pays.
As the years went by, more deals followed. More money. More guns. More drugs. More narrow escapes. The border eventually taught him that any illicit fortune is fleeting and that money earned easily always demands a disproportionate price. Sometimes the cost is one’s freedom. Sometimes one’s family. Sometimes one’s life.
For a long time, Paulo believed he was untouchable. He had survived shootouts, deceptions, betrayals, and chases. He smuggled people and drugs, making money at a speed few young men his age could even imagine. Each new score reinforced the same illusion: the belief that fate would always be on his side. But fate has infinite patience. It never forgets; it simply waits.
And in the end, I think he understood that. That is why, when I think of Paulo, I don’t first recall the young man who traded a car for a kilo of cocaine, nor the smuggler who guided migrants across, nor the trafficker who learned to make a living walking between two countries. I remember the man with huge hands who prepared breakfast for the entire cell. I remember his laughter, which held an almost childlike intensity. Paulo discovered—too late—that he still retained a shred of humanity.
And perhaps that is why I decided to write about him—about the man I met when everything else had already been stripped away. Because, ultimately, Paulo’s story is not about drug trafficking. It is about the extraordinary capacity of human beings to lose themselves.
Source: Milenio
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