There is a steady flow of visitors to the chapel dedicated to Jesus Malverde – widely considered the ‘narco saint’ – in the northern Mexican city of Culiacan, Sinaloa. A folkloric figure, Malverde was a bandit who used to rob from the rich to give to the poor and both locals and visitors from far and wide come to ask him for favours and blessings.

But there is a new addition to the Malverde busts, key rings and trinkets for sale here: a miniature statue of the drug lord Joaquín “el Chapo” Guzmán. Wearing a bullet proof vest over a bright pink shirt, Guzmán is holding the Mexican drug-traffickers’ weapon-of-choice, an AK57, in his hands. His face, defiant, holds a genuine likeness to the man just…