Working in customs in Mexico puts your life on the line. Karlo Villalpando, who was a high-ranking official in customs south of the border, lists just a few of the murders: a port director in Veracruz kidnapped and his body dumped; an assistant in Coahuila assassinated on the job; a worker held in a cartel safe-house, until eventually shot in an army raid.
“There’s a lot of people who have lost their lives doing the right thing,” Karlo tells me.
There are also a lot of people doing the wrong thing. Karlo estimates that in some ports, more than 50 percent of staff were working for the cartel. Narcos offered rates to a director of 4,000 bucks for each truck to cross inspection-free, which means a whopping $80,000 per week.
It’s brave, and risky, for Karlo to talk openly on a podcast about this as corruption still very much goes on, despite Morena putting the army and marines in charge. This means officials not only take money for cocaine loads but for the precursors of fentanyl and crystal meth, which translates to the deaths of a lot of American users. (And yeah, there is also corruption on the U.S. side as I document here).
Yet while we know about corruption in Mexico, it’s highly useful to comprehend better how it actually functions. Crucially, we need to understand that not every single cop or customs worker is on the take. It was intense at times talking with Karlo about this, but despite all the very bad downsides, I actually finished with a bit more hope there are people in Mexico who can turn this around. You can also hear a pure audio version of the episode here.
Karlo now works giving advice to companies on how to stay safe, and out of legal trouble, in Mexico. More details here:
https://elevo-advisors.com/what-we-do/enterprise-risk-and-intelligence/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kvmexus
Copyright Ioan Grillo and CrashOut Media 2026
