Hal Hodson
speaker
137 appearances
2 recordings
1 series
first heard Jun 2026
last heard 22 Jun
Hal Hodson’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 2 in all, peaking in Jun 2026 with 2.
Appearances
The Intelligence from The Economist · Kicking and screaming: protests at World Cup · 11 Jun 2026
podcast
It's the third most dangerous country ever to host the World Cup after South Africa and Brazil.
In May, the average was forty-four people murdered every day, and the most powerful drug gangs in the world control not just their own business, but entire swathes of territory in Mexico.
They extort legitimate businesses from
Money, they can shut down entire cities.
It was actually only in February this year that gangsters brought Guadalajara itself, one of the host cities, to an absolute standstill.
After a Mexican government operation had resulted in the death of El Mencho, a renowned gang leader, the leader of the Jalisco new generation cartel.
The gangsters basically came out in the street.
And took over the city and shut it down.
And so they have shown very clearly that they have enormous power to do what they like.
They clearly have the capability to massively disrupt the World Cup.
But the key thing to remember is that they almost certainly won't, because all that would bring them is trouble.
They're far more likely to quietly exploit the World Cup rather than getting involved to make some kind of big demonstration or make a political point.
Which would only really be likely to bring the government and even the American government down on their heads.
It's not out of respect for the game, no.
They see a business opportunity the same as anyone.
The World Cup is going to bring enormous numbers of people into the regions that they control, and they have an opportunity to sell those people drugs or prostitutes or to run fraud operations to steal money from them.
What's in their interest is to exploit the World Cup, just like legitimate businesses want to use the World Cup.
to make money.
They don't have an interest in messing around and disrupting it and causing problems.
So the idea that the gangs pose a security threat to the World Cup is probably misplaced.
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