Javier Valdez Cárdenas is a Mexican reporter and author who received several international awards for his writing on drug trafficking and organized crime in the Mexican Drug War.In 2003, he and other reporters from the daily newspaper Noroeste founded Ríodoce, a weekly dedicated to crime and corruption in Sinaloa, considered one of Mexico's most violent states.Valdez Cárdenas is also the author of several books on drug trafficking, including Miss Narco, which chronicles the lives of the girlfriends and wives of drug lords, and Los morros del narco: Ninos y jovenes en el narcotrafico mexicano ("The Kids of the Drug Trade: Children and teenagers in Mexican drug trafficking").He received CPJ International Press Freedom Awards in 2011.