Photographer Anthony Suau documents the surging influence of the drug cartels in Northern Mexico and the efforts by police to maintain law and order
Armed
The Mexican military patrols San Pedro, a rich neighborhood in Monterrey. This unit is stationed not far from a church where a wedding ceremony for members of a wealthy family was taking place.
Checkpoint
Members of the Mexican military search the luggage of bus passengers at an anti-drug stop at El Desengaño in northern Sinaloa.
Inspection
All cars, trucks and buses traveling north through El Desengaño are searched thoroughly for drugs. At least 75% of the Colombian cocaine which enters the United States passes through Mexico.
Amnesty
In Linares, the Mexican military operates a "food for weapons" program. This young man has brought three very old weapons. Owning a gun in Mexico is illegal.
Cold-Blooded Killing
A DJ at a dance club is found dead in his car on a road outside of Culiacan, shot four times.
Monuments to Evil
Many of the elaborate mausoleums at this cemetery in Culiacan house the remains of drug traffickers killed in the area.
Inside the Mausoleum
Pictures of drug traffickers stand beside crosses and other offerings.
The Streets of Monterrey
The Federal Police patrol the northern Mexican city, once considered amongst Mexico's safest, but now plagued by murder and drug crime.
Federal Police
Members of the Policia Federal Preventiva (PFP) patrol Monterrey. The force, created in 1999, works together with the military to fight the drug cartels.
Bada-Bing South
A pole dancer works at one of the 400 table-top dance bars in the city of Monterrey.
Execution
Francisco de Jesús Ibarra, 33, was found dead in a canal on the outskirts of San Pedro, near Culiacan. The nature of the killing—Ibarra was beaten and shot in the head — suggests that his murder was drug-related.
Grieving Relatives
Members of Ibarra's family watch as his body is retrieved from the canal.
Victim
More than 300 people have been killed in drug-related murders in Culiacan this year.
Crime Spree
Drug murders are virtually daily events in Nuevo Laredo. The headline on this story translates as "Beheaded"
Donation
In a chapel devoted to the so-called patron saint of drug smuggling — the legendary bandit Jesús Malverde — a coffin leans against a wall. It will be given to a family who cannot afford to buy one.
Saint of Death
Drug traffickers in Nuevo Laredo often come to this shrine, dedicated to Santa Muerte, the and patron of lost and desperate causes.
