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Podcast: The Daily
Episode: The Sunday Read: ‘Who Hired the Hitmen to Silence Zitácuaro?’
Description: On Oct. 19, 2021, Armando Linares López was writing up notes from an interview when his cellphone buzzed with an unknown number. Linares, 49 and stocky with black hair that was just starting to show gray streaks, ran an online news site in a small Mexican city called Zitácuaro. He knew his beat so intimately that calls from unfamiliar phone numbers were rare.But the man on the other end spoke in a way that was instantly familiar. Linares had come to know that pitched, menacing tone from years of run-ins with every kind of Mexican gangster....