'Angel of the Poor' smiles on Mexico's deadly drug trade

He's a big seller, Malverde. These days he's arguably the pagan patron of Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. With a thin black mustache and satisfied smirk, he sits atop a wooden throne, thick green wads of American dollars in each hand.

Wandering through a chaotic market in the city of Juarez with impossibly crowded stalls, there are so many colours, shapes and sounds that nothing sinks in. But on a shelf heaving with religious icons, the sight of Malverde bookended by Virgin Marys and a couple of Jesus icons is enough to make a nave passerby perform a sudden cartoon stop and double take.

Malverde has had a lot of titles; "Angel of the Poor" is one of the nicer ones. But here in Juarez they consider him the patron saint of drug traffickers.

That makes him a busy little wooden character in Mexico especially here, on the northern border with the drug hungry United States, right across from El Paso, Texas.

It's claimed that one in five people here work in the narco industry and it is wildly violent. More than 10,000 federal troops and police can't seem to stop the bleeding. At nearly a dozen murders a day, Juarez regularly competes for the dishonour of being labelled the most dangerous city in the world outside of a war zone. And as the wider economy gets worse, the drug trade gets more recruits with ever more sad consequences.

It is a lucky child who manages to make it to adulthood here unscathed.

'More power than the witches'

With a deep breath and a slightly weary smile, the stall owner explains that Malverde and his cowboy-hat-wearing comrade San Simon aren't new saints. Malverde may have been around since the early 1900s. San Simon might just be older, although both of them seem to get makeovers every few decades.

Their roles have shifted too, from helping the honest but poor to the crooked and rich.

These days, those in the ugly business of trafficking look wherever they can for luck. That makes San Simon especially useful in Juarez.

If traffickers don't want to cart around the statue, they can just buy a candle with the prayer printed on the back. This "oracion" calls for San Simon to have "more power than the witches" and "to protect from enemies."

That's surely a helpful prayer but, really, the statues are the heavy lifters of luck.

And if the trip across the Rio Grande and back has happened without bullets or arrest, then thanks are definitely owed to San Simon. At the base of the statue is a hole into which, according to the stall owner, a grateful trafficker is to put a little cocaine or marijuana as an offering.

There is a strangely sharp pin that sits in the corner of San Simon's mouth. It looks like a badly designed cigar at first, but on closer inspection it seems the pin is there to hold a real lit cigarette or small cigar in place. That is supposed to allow San Simon to enjoy a smoke while presumably the dealer counts his loot and his dubious blessings.

Is it a quirky aberration? Nope. Not here. In this market, in the centre of Juarez, San Simon and Malverde outsell Guadeloupe and the Virgin Mary five to one. The only more popular figure is the patron saint of death, a tall grim reaper available in a rainbow of colours.

Not your average souvenirs

And if that isn't enough to take in, then there's the small, curtained, room at the back of the stall. It's a place the owner says he wanted to create for his customers who felt the need to pray.

I'm not sure what I expected in there, but a voodoo doll with a photo of a cheating girlfriend pinned to it and strapped to the "patron saint of death" candle was definitely not on my list of possibilities. It's hard to say which was more arresting; the voodoo doll or the human finger attached to a type of rosary. This too was wrapped around a saint of death icon. "From an assassin," says the owner.

So as you can see, souvenir shopping in Juarez can be tricky.

But when you eliminate all the other choices pirated CDs printed by the drug cartels looking to diversify (a no-no), tortilla makers (no thanks), small clay pots (got 'em), colourful t-shirts of a Juarez that looks happier than any image of the real thing (nope) that leaves Malverde and his macabre posse.

The purchase is made. Now, how to explain this to customs ?