A Bloody End For An Anti Drug Crusader

It was a coldblooded hit. According to eyewitnesses, the killer was a man in his 20s who came into the Meson Asturias in Jackson Heights, checked that de Dios was there and left. A few minutes later he returned, hooded, and pumped two bullets into de Dios’s head. Police didn’t know who ordered the execution but were focusing on a drug connection. The 48-year-old, Cuban-born de Dios had repeatedly attacked the narcotraficantes. In his book on the Medellin cartel he named the kingpins; as editor of the New York daily El Diario-La Prensa, and in his newly launched magazine Crimen (Crime), he described the work of local drug operatives.

If de Dios really was killed on the orders of the drug lords, the murder represents a chilling escalation in a war the cartels have long carried out against journalists inside Latin America. More than 50 have been killed in Colombia alone in the last 10 years after the Medellin cartel declared war on the press. Last week that war may have made its way to New York.

title: “A Bloody End For An Anti Drug Crusader” ShowToc: true date: “2023-01-09” author: “Mary Vega”

It was a coldblooded hit. According to eyewitnesses, the killer was a man in his 20s who came into the Meson Asturias in Jackson Heights, checked that de Dios was there and left. A few minutes later he returned, hooded, and pumped two bullets into de Dios’s head. Police didn’t know who ordered the execution but were focusing on a drug connection. The 48-year-old, Cuban-born de Dios had repeatedly attacked the narcotraficantes. In his book on the Medellin cartel he named the kingpins; as editor of the New York daily El Diario-La Prensa, and in his newly launched magazine Crimen (Crime), he described the work of local drug operatives.

If de Dios really was killed on the orders of the drug lords, the murder represents a chilling escalation in a war the cartels have long carried out against journalists inside Latin America. More than 50 have been killed in Colombia alone in the last 10 years after the Medellin cartel declared war on the press. Last week that war may have made its way to New York.