--- title: Sicarios: How the Killers Spread Across the Americas | TIME description: Sicarios: How the Killers Spread Across the Americas canonical: https://time.com/video/DRJibQkS/ og:title: Sicarios: How the Killers Spread Across the Americas og:description: Sicarios: How the Killers Spread Across the Americas og:url: https://time.com/video/DRJibQkS/ og:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/DRJibQkS/poster.jpg?width=720 og:type: video.other twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Sicarios: How the Killers Spread Across the Americas twitter:description: Sicarios: How the Killers Spread Across the Americas twitter:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/DRJibQkS/poster.jpg?width=720 --- # Sicarios: How the Killers Spread Across the Americas > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ## Video: Sicarios: How the Killers Spread Across the Americas [Watch (HLS stream): Sicarios: How the Killers Spread Across the Americas](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/DRJibQkS.m3u8) (2:27)  _Published 2015-10-22. Sicarios: How the Killers Spread Across the Americas_ --- Jul 27, 2023 7:00 PM UTC --- ## More From This Series [All Videos](https://time.com/video/) [Massive Cyberattack Spreads Disruption Across Europe](/video/YY6B8f5S/) ### Massive Cyberattack Spreads Disruption Across Europe [Protests Against Donald Trump Spread Across the U.S.](/video/khg4IaAa/) ### Protests Against Donald Trump Spread Across the U.S. [TIME Raw: Protests Spread Across Colleges](/video/GzgF8rfX/) ### TIME Raw: Protests Spread Across Colleges --- ## Transcript [ FOREIGN ] Execution style hits, shoot outs, corpses dumped out in the streets. Latin America and the Caribbean are home to 43 of the world's 50 most violent cities. [ UNKNOWN ] many of those murders. A drug cartel assassins, known here as Sicarios. The first Sicarios worked for the Medellin Cartel in Columbia, which made billions of dollars selling cocaine to Americans in the late 70s and 80s. The Medellin Cartel worked the slums to recruit thousands of young men and some women. Their assignment? Murder in broad daylight, often using motorcycles. [ SOUND ] They took their name from the Latin Secari, zealous in Judea. Assassinated Romans with daggers. Washington led the war on drugs which hit Columbian cartels hard. [ INAUDIBLE ] The thrill can kill. The drug dealers need to know that we want them out of our schools, neighborhoods, and our lives. [ BLANK_AUDIO ] So, they turned to other countries to traffic including Mexico and Honduras. Cartels grew in these areas, recruiting their own armies of sicarios to protect their huge profits from cocaine, heroin, crystal meth, and marijuana. The total death toll is astounding, with hired guns claiming tens of thousands of victims from Mexico to Honduras to Columbia. They often target rival drug dealers But both the cameras and the security forces [ UNKNOWN ] have killed many innocent civilians. Governments tried to clamp down with military offensives, but they likely failed to stop the bloodshed. [ FOREIGN ] Real [ UNKNOWN ] have also taken to social media, posing in videos with rifles or posting pictures of themselves on Twitter. and Instagram. But despite thousands of sicarios ending up in jail or dead, there is no shortage of new recruits. 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