Shell-shocked and tense: inside the Mexican tourist town where ‘El Mencho’ made his last stand

Tapalpa deserted and scared by day of terror in which feared drug lord’s reign came to an end during military raid Two days before one of the world’s most powerful drug lords was killed while trying to flee a chalet in the hills outside Mexico’s second biggest city, the Tapalpa Country Club posted an advert on Instagram inviting lovers to visit a place where they could “inhale peace [and] exhale stress”. “Date idea: Escape to Tapalpa,” read the message, advertising romantic private cabins, pi...

By Tom Phillips and Analy Nuño in Tapalpa, Photographs and video by Emilio Espejel