For decades, prisons across Latin America have served as a refuge for drug cartel leaders and other criminal figures, allowing them to continue running their operations from behind bars.
From the Southern Cone to the U.S.-Mexico border, countless criminals have managed to operate with impunity from within their prison cells. That is also the case of José Antonio Yépez Ortiz, known as "El Marro," the alleged leader of the Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel, who authorities say continues directing his organization's criminal operations from a high-security prison in Durango, Mexico.
