Inside A Clandestine Rehab Center At The US/MX Border
Clandestine rehab centers, also known as ‘anexos’' serve as cartel recruitment centers for sicarios, stash houses or shadow graveyards.
TIJUANA, México.— We’ve been going uphill for at least 20 minutes now on an unpaved road and ‘The Castle’, a cartel-run clandestine rehab center, begins to emerge at the top of the hill. It is a five-storey abandoned building. The washed white color on the outside walls contrasts with the green and brown of the hill where it sits.
As we park our car right in front of ‘The Castle’ a group of four to five men wearing balaclavas, fanny bags and talkies surround us.
—Wait here, don’t get out of the car, my source tells me before jumping out to talk to the men.
The existence of clandestine rehab centers in Mexico came to light in 2009, after 18 men were brutally murdered inside one of these places at the Mexican border city of Ciudad Juárez. At the time local authorities said the victims were members of a drug cartel hiding inside the place and targeted by a rival cartel.
Today clandestine rehab centers, also known as ‘anexos’, are widespread across the country, serving as cartel recruitment centers for sicarios, stash houses or shadow graveyards where criminal organizations can disappear people without no one ever knowing.
This is the first time anyone has been granted full access to one of these places.
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