The story of Rosalia, a mother and Guerrero sicario boss

Translated by El Profe for Borderland Beat from La Silla Rota

          

The testimony of Rosalia, a young sicario in Guerrero who leads a double life as a mother and gunman boss

Mexico City (La Silla Rota) .- It is early in the morning when you hear the engine of a truck parking in the street. The last details are set, the fruit in an old plastic container, eggs Mexican style and a box with a puzzle.

A tall woman with long dyed blond hair gets down from the truck. Her skin is light brown. She has an unusual attractiveness. Her name is Rosalia and she works as a sicaria for Los Ardillos in Guererro. She shows a story published by the NY Daily News in which it is assured that the real names and exact locations have been modified for security.

She wears Dolce and Gabbana sunglasses, which she will later confess are imitation, "because her children always break the originals.” She has a toned body, the product of several hours a day in the gym or maybe the occasional visit to the surgeon.

Two children come down from the back of the truck. The girl is Veronica and is eight years old. Her round face with dark complexion shows a smile when she gets out of the truck. She has long brown hair, she is very disheveled in a white colored dress and she wears a tight pink blouse with a Hello Kitty print. Her short denim skirt reveals legs that have been invaded by mosquito bites.

Next to her is Santiago, who is smaller and barely reaches six years of age. Does not smile, says hello out of obligation. He does not look very happy to be there on a Saturday morning when he could be doing other things in the house.

Their mom refers to them as "the chingaderitas.” She always tells them this when she wants to get their attention or when she wants to fill them with affection. They smile when they hear "chingaderitas, come this way."

Rosalia and her children enter the house. Veronica and Santiago do not want to enter the room on the first floor and they do not want to play with the puzzle either. They prefer to take the remote control and sit in the mahogany chairs just a few meters from the table with a flowered tablecloth where Rosalía is sitting on a wooden chair. She cares little that her children are aware of the conversation, of their day to day.

The beginnings in Narco

She was only nineteen when she had her first contact with drug trafficking. Veronica's father had recently died and she had no money to rent an apartment. She lived in a room with no furniture. She and Veronica, then very small, slept on the floor every day, and only a few cardboard boxes and blankets were responsible for not leaving them out in the cold of the night. “Really fucking ugly that place.“

Her incursion in drug trafficking began when an ex boyfriend of hers, a triggerman, introduced her to his employer. Rosalia's task was to go every day to collect the fees from the farmers who planted marijuana and poppy in the mountains. It was a very tiring job, she says that there were times when she wanted to start crying out of despair. She did not have enough time to sleep. And much less to spend time with Veronica.

She did not want her daughter to have contact with the world she then became apart of. She did not want her daughter to see the R-15 that accompanied her on her trips through the mountains. Nor did she want Veronica to be present when she had to commit her first homicide "to a bastard who wanted to fuck with the boss.”

She went to the mountains and her employer told her that in a house of his, they were going to take him to a man who had to be killed. Her children, who are only a few steps away, do not flinch, their faces do not show a reaction to what her mother said, they have become accustomed to Rosalia's life.
That was why she left Veronica, when she was younger, in charge of Malena, a woman who had
always wanted to have a daughter, but whose genetics were only capable of male children. Malena is the only person in Rosalia's life who is not part of the narcotics payroll. Her brother was Rosalia's first husband, who died of cancer when Veronica was just a baby.

This woman cared for Veronica for several years and loved her as if she were her own daughter. She took her to school every day and enrolled her in soccer classes in the afternoons. Rosalía almost never went to see her daughter's house, but she sent her money and clothes regularly.

"She sent us only clothes from the United States for the girl, right now she’s very chubby, but when I took care of her she was very thin, Rosalia feeds them with pure junk food, and look, how the creature walks with that miniskirt" says the woman who looked after Veronica for almost three years.

Group of women at the service of the narco

A short time later, Rosalia began taking some of her friends from the gym to other drug dealers, only so they could pay them with favors afterwards. Seeing how much the drug traffickers enjoyed being with her friends, she began to train young people to go to drug parties on the ranches.

But, before becoming head of sicarios, she decided to try her luck as a bride to some drug traffickers. Malena, the woman who took care of Veronica says that she changed boyfriends very often "because they were killed every so often.“ When Rosalía is asked how many organized crime men she has maintained some kind of relationship with, she remains silent for a few moments and says that with about eighty. "Eighty? That’s very few, easily could have been double, if you see them killed every once in a while. She must have been sorry to say it,” says Malena.

With one of them it was with whom she had her second son, Santiago. When she gave birth, she told Malena that now she would take care of Veronica. She no longer wanted to be separated from her children now that she had a better standard of living.

Growing up with a sicario mother

Veronica, who until then had led a life that revolved around school and football classes in the evenings, was immersed in a reality in which the cuerno de chivo in the living room of her house was the most common. She began to realize what her mother was doing, getting into luxury vans that Malena and her husband could never have offered her. But neither she nor Santiago have questioned those activities so far. They keep a knowing silence.

Just a few days ago, Santiago’s teacher asked him what his mother does. He just kept quiet and said: "I do not know, I'll ask her.” "He played the fool and didn't say anything," says Rosalía with laughter.

Now, they live with their mother's partners. No one has been able to say "dad" because organized crime has not allowed them to live with them for more than a few months. Yes, all drug traffickers who have gone through their lives thanks to Rosalia, have filled them with gifts such as toys and designer clothes. "I tell them that if they want the chicken, they're also going to want the chicks...The drug traffickers are very affectionate men ..." Rosalía states.

Veronica and Santiago have learned not to trivialize violence because they are victims of collective violence, which floods the area where they live, or because the media bombards them with bloody images, but because in their home they have been taught that it gives them food to eat and much more.

"If you are going to hang with a narco, make sure it’s not a dumbass sicario without dough.”

Series like The Mafia dolls, The Lord of the Skies, and Narcos have become Veronica's favorite television shows. The girl comes to the flower tablecloth table where her mother tells in great detail how she prevented the military from arresting a capo in the mountains by going to bed with the “biggest military boss.”

She is not frightened by what her mother says, her face does not change. Shut up and listen. Tell who your favorite characters are from the series’ you watch. The one she likes the most is Brenda, from The Mafia dolls. A poor but very beautiful girl who falls in love with a Colombian boss nicknamed "narizón.”

"I tell her to watch these series’ so that she learns and does not get screwed up when any bastard starts talking to her, if she's going to be with a narco make sure he's not a dumbass sicario who doesn’t have money."

It has been almost four hours since the sound of the truck engine was heard. Veronica is already impatient, she finds nothing on television that catches her attention. Santiago, self-absorbed, is sitting in the mahogany chair watching his sister flip through the channels.

The time to leave has come. Rosalia says that she is going to buy her biggest weakness: designer bags. As soon as they hear that, Veronica and Santiago run to their mother, ready to leave.

I ask Veronica: "What do you want to be when you grow up?" The girl of only eight years who enjoys watching drug trafficking series’ responds quickly and without hesitation: President! Rosalía begins to laugh while she walks to the door and only exclaims: Son of a bitch! to steal millions!”