Staff News for Mexico City

We're excited to announce that Paulina Villegas has joined the International desk as a reporter in the Mexico City bureau.

Paulina has established herself as a powerful chronicler of Latin America's drug wars, taking readers from secret drug labs to crime scenes of shootouts, from hidden smuggler dens to bustling police stations. She has beaten the competition not just on the news but also on the ways it has shaped policies and transformed lives across Mexico, Central America and the United States.

When cartel gunmen laid siege to Culiacán in 2019, she rushed in to report on the chaos, delivering coverage that became the backbone of an Emmy-winning documentary . When the drug lord El Chapo escaped prison through a tunnel in 2015, she learned what it took to pull it off. With Azam Ahmed, she spent 19 months following one of Mexico's deadliest assassins, documenting how he helped a local police officer dismantle his own cartel.

Then, as smugglers found a new drug - fentanyl - to feed an insatiable American market, Paulina traveled with Natalie Kitroeff to a cartel stronghold to expose how gangs cook the drug , lure chemistry students into crime and test their product on people and animals. That groundbreaking series won an Overseas Press Club Award.

"Paulina is one of the most relentless reporters I've ever worked with," says Natalie. "She is the best combination of fearless and kind, uncompromising and deeply empathetic. She has a magic ability to make anyone open up to her, and she's the person you want by your side in the stickiest situations."

Paulina first began working for The Times in 2013 as a reporter-researcher in our Mexico City bureau, then joined The Washington Post in 2020, covering Latin America and breaking news from D.C. She returned to Mexico and The Times on a temporary assignment in 2024. Now, we are expanding the bureau and making her return official.

As U.S. relations with the region enter uncharted territory, with President Trump threatening tariffs and military force in his push against opioids and migration, we expect Paulina to be all over the beat. She will also pursue stories on a wider set of subjects, as she always has. In 2015, she landed her first front-page story for The Times with an investigation into government corruption in Mexico. She has also covered presidential elections, earthquakes, cowboy traditions , radioactive waste and the toll of tourists on housing and turtles . More recently, she traveled along the U.S.-Mexico border as Mr. Trump began his crackdown this year, and tracked stranded migrants to packed shelters in southern Mexico.

Please join us in welcoming Paulina back to the team.

- Phil, Greg and Lauren