Dante/Introduction

The life of an orphaned street urchin is nasty, brutish and short, even if it is in Mexicali as opposed to Tijuana or Ciudad Juarez. Such was Dante’s childhood, marked by abuse, deprivation, and exploitation. A kid can be useful to the cartel as a runner or a lookout, however, especially a smart, desperate one. Having miraculously survived to his teenage years, Dante became a sicario, then ran a block for the Mexicali cartel, afterwards a maquiladora that packaged drugs for export to the United States. Informed by maquiladora manufacturing practices, the Mexicali cartel’s product was very, very good, ranging from carefully refined (and uncut) Colombian cocaine, pure blue methamphetamine, and potent heroin extracted from desert poppy fields. The cartel even set up facilities for manufacturing designer MDMA, as the market in southern California was deep. Promotion comes easy in an organization with high attrition, whether it’s from the federales, rival criminal syndicates, or greedy rivals, and soon Dante was at the right hand of the Mexicali cartel patron, supervising drug quality and purity. Unfortunately, one of those greedy rivals but a bullet in his scalp, leaving him for dead.

As the subdural hematoma from the bullet wound was evacuated in a Mexicali hospital, he Descended.

One month later, he ascended to the head of the Mexicali cartel, now known as “Hermosa Muerte” through the region.