Investigative reporter and editor Javier Valdez Cárdenas was fatally shot on May 15, 2017, near the editorial offices of Riodoce, the investigative weekly he co-founded in 2003 in the northern Mexican city of Culiacán. He was 50 years old.

According to news reports and statements by Sinaloa state Attorney General Juan José Rios, Valdez was shot around noon, shortly after he left the offices of Riodoce. Unknown assailants blocked his way, dragged him out of his car and shot him at least 12 times. Valdez died shortly after. The attackers fled in his vehicle, which was later found abandoned not far from the scene of the crime, state and federal authorities told CPJ in the days following the murder. They also told CPJ that Valdez’s laptop computer and mobile phone had been taken.

Riodoce magazine focuses mostly on organized crime, corruption, and regional politics.

Valdez was also the correspondent in Sinaloa for La Jornada, a Mexico City-based newspaper, and gained widespread national recognition for authoring a series of books that chronicle the Mexican underworld and the victims of Mexico’s drug war. He was a 2011 recipient of CPJ’s International Press Freedom Award.

As one of the few investigative magazines in the state of Sinaloa, Riodoce and its reporters have been a frequent target of threats and sometimes of violence, according to news reports and its reporters. Sinaloa is the home state of some of Mexico’s most notorious drug lords and the base of operations of Sinaloa Cartel, one of Mexico’s oldest and most powerful drug trafficking organizations. Since its inception, the magazine’s fearless reporting, has often placed it at odds with powerful criminal and political interests, according to media reports. In 2009, a grenade was thrown at one of its editorial offices, but no one was hurt, according to news reports.

Javier Valdez told CPJ in March 2017 that he was concerned for his safety. His newspaper La Jornada reported one day after his murder that he had received anonymous death threats since February, without specifying their nature.

At a press conference on April 24, 2018, police named the alleged accomplice to the 2017 murder as 26-year-old Heriberto ‘N’, alias “El Koala,” and said that Valdez was killed for his reporting.

Source: Committee to Protect Journalists