Cartel Kids

If ever there was confirmation needed that in Latin America (as well as elsewhere), the drug war has nearly been lost (at least in its current format of making all drugs illegal) ....

 

Cartel Princess

..... its the news from Mexico that the 'Cartel Kids'  - the children of the drug barons who have killed so many - are now 'graduating' from education, and making their own marks in South American life.

 

Obviously, with the fabulous wealth that an illegal drug empire affords their parents, these 'Cartlets' are well set up to follow 'legitimate' careers in the world of Fashion, Media, Entertainment, Law, and other high end, high profile professions. But of course there is always the sticky question of where their wealth and privileges have come from.

However, unlike in Western countries, where the parental occupations of being high profile criminals maybe something of a handicap, in Latin America, having a drug cartel leader as parent has not necessarily been a career handicap up until now.

But then one little airhead went a step too far .... Melissa Plancarte, daughter of Enrique Plancarte, who is one of seven leaders of the 'Knights Templar' drug cartel, which is based around Michoacán in western Mexico (and has killed thousands), decided that she could boost her putative singing career (where she is professionally known as 'Melissa'), by posting a few pictures of herself on 'Instagram'.

 

Stupidly, she decided that one of the outfits she should depict herself in, was that of a dress covered in the insignia of her father's drug gang .... Oops, this was just too much in an area where vigilante groups are fighting part of a three way war between the 'Cartels', 'The Army/Police' and themselves, to try and rid areas of the country of the scourge that is the drug gangs. Her pictures provoked a storm of protest on social media, and have added to the vigilantes supporters ongoing social media campaign against the cartel leaders and their families.  

Now before I moralise on too much on the fact that a drug barons daughter can use that position to gain public prominence, I freely admit that I can't say for certain that having a Mafia parent has necessarily impaired the careers of too many US American 'Mafia children', and that for all I know, many of the top lawyers or media personalities in the USA, owe their careers, to their Mafia parents giving them the best start in life that drug money can buy in the way of education etc ... however, I suspect that wherever that's the case, the individuals concerned have kept this fact very low profile in their CV's ......

Unless of course they were following on in the same 'career' as their dynasty patrone .....