Shawn Ryan Show: Cartels, Ukraine Drones, and the New Transnational Crime Network

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Let's talk about this conversation between Shawn Ryan and Katarina Szulc. She's a reporter who's made this fascinating transition from traditional journalism into cartel and war reporting, working out of Mexico City on Borderland Dispatches. What really strikes me is how she connects stories from Ukraine, Mexico, and the borderlands into one cohesive picture. Right, and that's the key insight here. She's showing us that organized crime isn't just a local threat anymore. It's a transnational system. Szulc mentioned Ukraine was one of her year's highlights because she was drawn to stories that weren't being fully told. But her main focus is Mexico, covering cartels, political corruption, and the people caught in between. The case that really grabbed my attention was the murder of Valeria Marquez, the TikTok influencer and beauty pageant contestant who was killed while live-streaming. Can you walk through what Szulc explained about that? It's incredibly complex. The U.S. sanctioned a high-ranking CJNG figure tied to the killing, while Mexican authorities initially denied the findings. More recently, officials arrested another major suspect known as R1 for a different murder, and now they're searching for his son, who's accused of ordering Marquez's assassination. That brings up something controversial. Szulc has actually interviewed fugitives before. What's her take on the ethics of that?

She argues that if journalists can find these people, it raises hard questions about whether law enforcement truly wants to arrest them. In her view, cartel power persists because these organizations are woven into the economy and protected by officials who benefit from the arrangement.

She describes these interviews as a kind of media performance, like cartel PR, where suspects want to "clear their names" or project strength. Building on that point, she also explains why CJNG hasn't collapsed despite all the pressure. It's fascinating. She compares it to a Fortune 500 company, with sub-cells, commanders, and local bosses that preserve loyalty even when leadership shifts. That decentralized structure helps them hold territory and keep functioning across Mexico.

She visited Culiacán and saw multiple crime scenes within hours. The real tragedy, she says, isn't just the violence itself, but the families living with permanent loss. The discussion gets even broader when you look at their business model. Trafficking, extortion, fuel theft, even avocados. Szulc talks about how cartels recruit through the "Romeo method," forcing women into trafficking networks, and she notes the role of American guns and stolen fuel markets.

And there's the technology angle too. Pegasus spyware has been used to track journalists and honest politicians. But here's where it gets really chilling. Near the end, she returns to Ukraine and mentions intelligence services flagged fighters training on FPV drones who were later linked to cartel recruitment.

So skills learned in one war can be exported into another? That's terrifying.

Exactly. Her final message is blunt and consistent: cartels are adaptable, international, and deeply embedded. Fighting them will require far more than slogans or labels. It's going to take systemic change on both sides of the border.