Dissident Spotlight: Anabel Hernández

Anabel Hernández has drawn the ire of Mexico's president over reporting on the ruling political party's ties to the cartels.

Anabel Hernández has faced assassination attempts for telling the truth about Mexico’s leaders. Source: Verso Books

Anabel Hernández has spent almost 30 years covering the troubling ties between Mexico’s ruling political party, MORENA, and groups like the Sinaloa Cartel. She published a book in May 2024 called The Secret Story: AMLO and the Sinaloa Cartel.

AMLO is the abbreviation and popular nickname for Mexico’s last president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador. The United States investigated those ties in a previously unreported inquiry. The New York Times reported that an inquiry was never opened to protect the relationship between the United States and Mexico.

However, Hernández has published those links instead. She has also implicated Mexico’s current president, Claudia Sheinbaum. Aztec Reports breaks down some of her evidence:

“According to her sources, she has discovered that the current ruling party is an enabler of the Sinaloa Cartel and has secured a network of high-profile politicians to empower its operations, including President Sheinbaum and Sinaloa Governor Rubén Rocha Moya, who has been previously accused of having ties with the cartel.”

Consequences Hidden Behind Headlines

Earlier presidents (allegedly) ordered Hernández’s assassination over her coverage of their criminal ties. She has survived each attempt on her life, showing how much courage and grit it takes to publicly describe a criminal government’s inner workings.

As of this writing, Sheinbaum hasn’t ordered another assassination attempt on Hernández. Hernández still fears for her safety. In New York, as she left the court trial of former drug lord Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada, a group of protesters accosted her. She suspected they were members of MORENA.

Sheinbaum has also called Hernández’s work “fiction” in terms that echo Trump’s invocation of “fake news.” Even if she doesn’t stoop as low as her predecessors, Sheinbaum is part of a system of corruption that has entangled Mexican politics for decades.

Favorable coverage Sheinbaum receives in American media for standing up to Trump shouldn’t overshadow the work that journalists like Hernández do in uncovering the criminal ties of their countries’ leaders.