Anonymous Hackers Threaten Mexican Drug Lords

Wednesday, November 02, 2011
Mexico’s Zetas drug cartel has a new enemy: the hacker collective known as Anonymous.
 
Angry over the alleged kidnapping of one of their members, Anonymous has threatened in a video to expose the identities of Mexican police, taxi drivers and journalists cooperating with the Zetas unless the person is released.
 
Anonymous’ strategy is a “problem,” writes Robert Beckhusen at Wired’s Danger Room. “At the very least, it’s worth noting that taxi drivers working as lookouts or mules for the cartels does not mean the drivers do so willingly. As targets for extortion, exposing their identities could mean deadly reprisal attacks, such as what occurred during a wave of violence in the resort city of Acapulco in February that left a dozen taxi drivers and their passengers dead—some decapitated by machete-wielding assassins as their cars were set ablaze.”
 
The video and its proposed action have split supporters of Anonymous and there are even suspicions that the video is fraudulent since no details are given about the alleged kidnapping.
 
Going after a drug cartel is just the latest ambitious effort by Anonymous, which previously targeted Visa and MasterCard for their anti-WikiLeaks actions.
-Noel Brinkerhoff
 

After a Kidnapping, Hackers Take on a Ruthless Mexican Crime Syndicate (by Damien Cave, New York Times) 

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