Just because you rap about drug cartels doesn't mean you have immunity from them. Authorities in Mexico are now offering state protection to famed regional Mexican singer Natanael Cano and other artists after a drug cartel in northern Mexico publicly threatened them, prosecutors tell the AP. Photos of a banner threatening the lives of 23-year-old Cano, a singer of corridos—a musical genre often linked to drug cartel violence—and several other artists in the Sonora region circulated on social media over the weekend. "This is the last time you will receive a warning, just in time for you to cut the crap. Mind your own business," the banner read. "If you don't heed this warning, you will be shot."
The banner was signed by "Jalisco Matasalas," a group within a faction of the Sinaloa cartel known as the Chapitos, which has sowed terror in northern Mexico in recent months in a bloody power struggle. Per CBS News, the Chapitos—which counts among its members the sons of drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman—"have used corkscrews, electrocution, and hot chiles to torture their rivals while some of their victims were 'fed dead or alive to tigers,'" per a US DOJ indictment.
The cartel accused the singers of "financially helping" a rival gang known as Los Salazar. Per the Latin Times, the banner was found Friday hanging at a high school in Hermosillo, in the state of Sonora. The Sonoran Prosecutor's Office on Tuesday said that it had opened an investigation. "Protective measures have been issued in accordance with the law for these individuals, and we will monitor their enforcement with support from various public security institutions to prevent any attacks against them," said Sonora Attorney General Gustavo Salas at a presser. The Times notes that even though Cano's songs have mentioned drug trafficking, it's the first time he's been called out by a cartel this way. (More Mexican cartel stories.)
,
uBlock 
,
and
Ghostery 
)
