Officers study drug saints, not just sinners
Two days after the Virgin of Guadalupe’s feast day, dozens of area law officers gathered in San Antonio on Tuesday to soak in intelligence about more nefarious icons.
They have names like Jesús Malverde and Santa Muerte, or holy death, and San Simón, Guatemala’s “man in black.”
They stand in contrast to more traditional venerated images in Mexico like the Santo Niño de Atocha (a centuries-old Christ child statuette credited with miracles) and St. Jude. But the drug underworld uses even these, albeit for a different purpose — protection from the law or to justify violent acts, said Robert Almonte, U.S. Marshal for the Western District of Texas.
Almonte said some criminals even offer human victims as sacrifices to Santa Muerte, the unofficial patron saint of drug traffickers who looks sort of like the Grim Reaper, creepy and skeletal.