The legend of Jesus Malverde grows in Mexico
By David Agren, in Mexico City

The following article first appeared in Atención, August 24, 2007.

Alfredo Aguilar farms sugar cane in rural Sinaloa, a western Mexican state famous for agriculture and more recently, smuggling. The red-headed father of two says he’s not a narco, but like many in Sinaloa, he attributes miracles to the legend of Jesus Malverde, a shadowy figure known widely as the patron saint of narcotics trafficking.

During a visit to the Malverde shrine in the state capital of Culiacan, Aguilar, like many Malverde adherents, dropped a few pesos in the donation box, but it was small change compared to the large gifts left by some visitors—namely narcos.

“Narcos pretty much sponsor this place...if something in the shrine needs fixing, they'll make sure that it’s done,” Aguilar says after spending about 30 minutes at the shrine, where he entered a small capilla (chapel) housing a Malverde bust and gave thanks to Malverde for saving his rocky marriage—something he says was a miracle.

Like many paying a visit, he insisted Malverde was for all people—not just narcos.

And like many in western Mexico, Aguilar believes strongly in the legend of Jesus Malverde, a mustachioed bandit from the hills of Sinaloa state who, like Robin Hood, reputedly stole from the rich and gave to the poor until his death by hanging in 1909. Narcotics traffickers claim him as their own and donate heavily to maintain his shrine in Culiacan, which is home to a powerful drug cartel of the same name.

Malverde has long been somewhat popular in the northern border region and in Culiacan, but more recently, Malverde’s influence has been gradually spreading into more populous regions of Mexico and the broader popular culture.

In addition to the Culiacan shrine, a smaller shrine was recently built on a sidewalk in Mexico City’s tough Doctores neighborhood. A martini bar in the capital’s chic Condesa district adopted the narco saint’s name and Cerveceria Minerva, a Guadalajara-area microbrewery, launched a six-percent beer named for Malverde. A piece inspired by Malverde recently won acclaim at a major art fair. The Mexican military even placed a Malverde bust in a wing of its drug museum, which focuses on the army’s ongoing battles against narcotics trafficking.

The surge in popularity ironically comes at a time when the country is locked in a violent struggle against well-armed drug cartels, which have been battling over smuggling routes to the lucrative US market. Narco violence has claimed more than a 1,400 lives in the first six months of 2007, according to the Grupo Reforma newspapers.

Malverde’s followers, however, deny that he was narco. In Mexico City’s tough Colonia Doctores, Maria Alicia Pulida Sanchez erected the Malverde shrine after her teenage son recovered from an automobile accident more quickly than expected. Already a strong believer in Santa Muerte, or Saint Death, she prayed to Malverde after a friend picked up a bust at Mexico City’s Mercado de Sonora, a market famous for peddling all types of herbal remedies and witchcraft paraphernalia.

She credited her son’s recovery to Malverde, who she acknowledges has a shady background. “He was a thief, but at the same time, he was a thief who helped his community,” she says.


As dusk fell on a quiet Sunday in Mexico City’s Colonia Doctores, a group of men in blue jeans loaded a life-size statue of Jesus Malverde along with a similar statue of San Judas, the patron saint of lost causes, into the bed of a Ford pickup truck for a spin around the neighborhood. On the third day of every month, some 30 to 70 adherents gather at the sidewalk shrine to pay homage to the bandit-turned-unofficial saint, who they attribute miracles to and in many cases ask for intervention.

A similar scene is carried out in Culiacan on a regular basis at the Jesus Malverde shrine, which stands near a railway line and a McDonald’s outlet and appears on maps distributed by the municipal tourism board. On May 3, the supposed anniversary of Malverde’s death, the shrine throws a party complete with banda groups playing narcocorridos—songs glorifying narcotics traffickers—and despensas (giveaways) of food, household items and toys. Throughout the year, the shrine reportedly funds charity projects—like paying the funeral expense for those lacking money.

The event attracts “all sorts of people...famous people, important people, poor people (and) rich people,” according to Doña Tere, an elderly woman, hawking Malverde busts at the shrine. “He's a saint for everyone.”

He’s also well liked by some influential people in Culiacan. Legend has it the state government wanted to get rid of the shrine to build a new legislature, but the outcry was so loud the government relented and paid for a new shrine’s construction nearby.

As might be expected, Malverde’s appeal, according to researcher Arturo Navarro Ramos of the ITESO university near Guadalajara, is mostly confined to “marginalized people” like Pulida Sanchez, who makes a modest living by running an informal business in a rundown part of town and doesn’t send her teenage children to high school.

“He makes it possible to live life on the margins,” Navarro says, pointing to narcotics traffickers as another example of a marginalized group.

“Malverde facilitates the view that people can be saved while not giving up their improper activities.” The non-recognized saint also “covers a need that isn’t being met by the Catholic Church,” he adds.


The Catholic Church doesn’t recognize Malverde; details of his life are sketchy and even the date of his hanging is disputed, which would make sainthood only a remote possibility at best.

The church’s relationship with narcos also has been criticized. The church recently had to begin scrutinizing the sources of large donations—which presumably came from narcos—after the former bishop of Aguascalientes suggested that the dirty money given to the church could be put to good use.

Whether the church accepts Malverde or not seems to matter little to the people visiting the shrine in Culiacan, where images of the bandit are accompanied by both the Virgin of Guadalupe, a revered figure in Mexico, and San Judas and sometimes Santa Muerte (Saint Death) too, another unofficial saint with a strong following in Mexico City. Besides leaving donations, many visitors also often leave Polaroid photos with pithy notes. Wealthier visitors, including some from the US, sometimes pay for permanent plaques, which usually give thanks for vague things like “favors received” and “success in business.”

Regardless of Malverde’s shady reputation or status with the Catholic Church, sugar cane farmer Alfredo Aguilar insists he’ll keep coming back to the Culiacan shrine, commenting, “There have been a lot of miracles.”

David Agren, born in Germany, raised in Chilliwack, BC, and now living in his adopted home of Guadalajara, has been covering Mexican news since January 2005. His articles have been published by the Herald Mexico, World Politics Watch, the Calgary Herald and the Ottawa Citizen, to name a few. He blogs on Mexican affairs at agren.blogspot.com.