Mexican Drug Cartels Have Technology Departments Staffed With Kidnapped Engineers

The Mexican Drug Cartels are a couple of billion-dollar organizations requiring secure communications and logisitcs, so it would make total sense for them to have thriving IT departments. They do, but it looks like they’re staffed with engineers who have been kidnapped. According to a report from Mexican news site Animal Politico, 36 engineers and technicians have simply vanished in the past four years, never to be heard from again. Most Mexican kidnappings include a ransom, but these guys have just vanished–and they include at least one IBM employee. And what are these kidnapped engineers doing? Apparently, the Zeta cartel communicates through a decentralized radio network. For instance, there was a radio network in Northeast Mexico that included 167 radio antenna alone.

Wired’s got the whole story, including details about specific engineers who have been kidnapped.