'I'm a woman, I'm single. And I love Mexico': Mystery blogger reveals why she risks assassination to expose drug cartels

Blog del Narco revealed to be the work of a twenty-something woman who lives in the north of Mexico
Reports on gruesome reality of Mexico after many journalists murdered
Contributor to the blog has already been killed
Fearless writer operates under the pseudonym 'Lucy'
Describes the blog as her passion, her life and her 'boyfriend'


As the brutal drug war which has claimed over 80,000 lives still rages, one anonymous blogger has been providing Mexicans with something they can't get elsewhere - an inside view of their country's debilitating narcotics battle.
With over three million hits a week and over 120,000 followers on Twitter, Blog del Narco is renowned for its fearless coverage at a time when mainstream media are feeling pressure and are frightened away by the nation's deadly cartels.
The identity of the courageous reporter, who lives under the constant and real fear of a violent and gruesome death, has long been a mystery, as many postings include graphic imagery and depict crime scenes accessible only to military or the police.





An anonymous, twentysomething blogger is giving Mexicans what they can't get elsewhere ¿ an inside view of their country's raging drug war




Writing what no one else dares to: The fearless blogger refuses to bow to the violent threats from the cartel
However, a new investigation by The Houston Observer has revealed that, in fact, the author is a young, single woman in her twenties, with no children and only a deep love of her country and the belief that her blog helps draw back the veil on her nations vicious fight against drug barons.
'I don't think people ever imagined it was a woman doing this,' said the blogger to Rory Carroll who works for the British newspaper The Guardian in Los Angeles.
'Who am I? I'm in my mid-20s, I live in northern Mexico, I'm a journalist. I'm a woman, I'm single, I have no children. And I love Mexico.'



This marks the first time that the blogger, who decided to use the pseudonym Lucy, has spoken to the press. In the past she has used a male colleague who helps her with the technical side to engage with short email conversations with reporters.
Speaking through an anonymous intermediary, Lucy told The Guardian that she uses her blog to keep her compatriots informed of what is really going on between the cartels, the police, the military and the public.
'I'm in love with my culture, with my country, despite all that's going on. Because we're not all bad. We're not all narcos. We're not all corrupt. We're not all murderers. We are well educated, even if many (foreign) people think otherwise.'
The undifferentiated content suggests that all sides are using the blog — drug gangs to project their power, law enforcement to show that it too can play rough, and the public to learn about incidents that the mainstream media are forced to ignore or play down.





Operating from behind a thick curtain of computer security, Blog del Narco is Mexico's go-to Internet site at a time when mainstream media are feeling pressure and threats to stay away from the story




Many postings, including warnings and a beheading, appear to come directly from drug traffickers. Others depict crime scenes accessible only to military or police
Since the blog was launched in 2010, Lucy has lived in constant fear of being captured and killed by the cartels, who are infuriated by her insistence of depicting the true horrors of the drug war which has been estimated to have displaced over a million people across Mexico.
She brings up the sad example of a couple who were found hanging from a bridge in the Mexican border city of Neuvo Laredo after being disemboweled and mutilated by their attackers.
Lucy revealed to The Guardian that the couple were her erstwhile colleagues on the website.
'They used to send us photographs. That was very hard, very painful.'
The motive for the gruesome attack was to explicitly warn her not to criticize Mexican drug cartels on the internet.
Next to the battered bodies was a sign reading: ‘This is going to happen to all those posting funny things on the internet, You better (expletive) pay attention. I’m about to get you.’
The woman, thought to be in her 20s, was tied to the bridge from her feet and hands as her body dangled topless with her innards protruding.





The undifferentiated content suggests that all sides are using the blog ¿ drug gangs to project their power, law enforcement to show that it too can play rough




The violence has made Mexico one of the world's most dangerous countries for journalists, which explains why Blog del Narco cloaks itself so heavily in anonymity
The man’s body, also believed to be in his early 20s, was hanging from just his hands.
However, despite living with the all-too real threat of assassination, Lucy has now produced a book, 'Dying for the Truth: Undercover Insider Mexico's Violent Drug War'.
It highlights her first year operating the blog during a year in which almost 20,000 people lost their lives.
Over the past three years, Lucy has had to move home every month to live in basements, running scared from cartel members so powerful they hold corrupt politicians in their pockets.
Indeed, the website comes under constant cyber-attack from members of the government who want to shut down the gruesome but truthful site.
Drawing their material from members of the public, those who she knows and even drug gangs, Lucy told The Guardian that only her close family know that she is the author behind the infamous blog.
The mainstream Mexican media frequently attacks the site, calling it free publicity for the wealthy cartels.





In at least one case Blog del Narco may have led to a major arrest ¿ of a prison warden after a video posting detailed her alleged system of setting inmates free at night to carry out killings for a drug cartel
In the past the blog has provided links to Facebook pages of alleged traffickers and their children, weapons, cars and lavish parties, as well as photos of Mexican pop music stars at a birthday party for an alleged drug dealer's teenage daughter in the border state of Coahuila, across from Texas.
'The girl wrote to me and told me, in a threatening way, to take down her photos,' said her male colleague to the Associated Press in 2010. 
'But as long as I don't hear from her father, I won't take them down.'
But, the blog provides Mexicans with an inside view into the world of the Sinaloa cartel and the battling Zeta and Gulf cartels.
With President due in Mexico in early May to discuss the nation's drug battle with new Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto, Lucy is adamant she will not cease her activities.
THE FEARLESS MEXICAN MAYOR WHO DEFIED THE CARTELS - AND PAID WITH HER LIFE 
Another fearless woman who took on the country's ravaged violence was Maria Santos Gorrostieta.
She was elected mayor of Tiquicheo in 2008 and served until 2011.
Hailed as a heroine of the 21st century, she defied Mexico's powerful drug gangs and threats on her life by declaring war on Mexico's organised crime.
Immediately, she received threats. 
The first assassination attempt came in October 2009 when the car she was travelling in with her first husband Jose Sanchez came under fire from gunmen in the town of El Limone. The attack claimed his life but Gorrostieta lived.
The next attempt on her life was just three months later, when an masked group carrying assault rifles ambushed her on the road between Michoacan and Guerreo state.
The van she was traveling in was peppered by 30 bullets. Three hit her.
This time her wounds were more severe, leaving multiple scars and forcing her to wear a colostomy bag. She was left in constant pain.
But with unimaginable courage – and despite being a marked woman – she remained defiant to the very end.
Finally, she was ambushed by a car in the city of Morelia as she drove her daughter to school in November last year.
The 36-year-old was hauled from her vehicle and physically assaulted before getting into her abductors' car, according to newspaper El Universal.
For the next week, her frantic family waited by the phone for a ransom call that never came. 
Gorrostieta’s body – stabbed, burned, battered and bound at wrist and ankle – was finally found eight days on dumped by a roadside in San Juan Tararameo, Cuitzeo Township.
'We have thought about quitting the blog thousands of times. But we haven't, because we have to get the message out. They have stolen our tranquility, our dreams, our peace,' she said to The Guardian.
Telling the newspaper that she knows the revelation she is a girl will stun Mexico, her devotion to her blog is admirable as she vowed to continue it - no matter the cost.
'My only boyfriend is the blog. A whole phase of my life – boyfriends, going to parties, hanging out with friends – I've missed it. 
'Getting married, having babies – there's not been time to think of any of that,' she said to The Guardian.
Mexico has been ravaged by violence for years.
In 2003 a land dispute between the Sinaloa and Gulf cartels that set off a wave of violence that has left thousands dead and spread brutal violence across Mexico.
That year, then-Gulf cartel leader Osiel Cardenas was arrested and accused drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, sensing weakness, tried to move in on Nuevo Laredo, unleashing a bloody battle.
The city of tree-covered plazas and hacienda-style restaurants was transformed as the Zetas, then working as enforcers for the Gulf cartel, and Sinaloa cartel fighters waged battles with guns and grenades in broad daylight.
Killings and police corruption became so brazen that then President Vicente Fox was forced to send in hundreds of troops and federal agents, and the only man brave enough to take the job of police chief was gunned down hours after he was sworn in.
The Zetas won that fight and have since ruled the city with fear, threatening police, reporters and city officials and extorting money from businesses.
They broke off their alliance with the Gulf cartel in 2010, worsening the violence across northeast Mexico.
But last month, 14 mutilated bodies were found in a vehicle left in the city center.
Some media outlets reported that the Sinaloa cartel took responsibility for those bodies and in a message allegedly signed by its leader, Guzman, said the group was now back in Nuevo Laredo 'to clean' the city.
More than 50,000 people have been killed since the Mexican government began a crackdown on narco-trafficking in 2006.