Turns out, some pretty wild stuff’s been happening in the gaming world. You know how we’re all into playing ‘Grand Theft Auto: Online’ and ‘World of Warcraft’? Well, turns out, some not-so-cool things are going down there too.

Picture this: Drug cartels are using these games as a secret spot to sell drugs and even find new recruits. It’s like they found this sneaky way to do their shady business right under everyone’s noses. Can you believe it?

But get this, the police are onto it! Some police forces are forming special squads just for gaming. They’re leveling up their gaming skills to bust these cartels and stop them from using these games as their hideouts.

There’s this dude, Benjamin Shultz, who’s all about studying these things. He says these cartels have gotten super tech-savvy and are using platforms like ‘X’ to get their message out there. The Sinaloa Cartel, for instance, had this massive following on ‘X’ where they’d post all kinds of stuff making their criminal activities look cool.

They even had this forum in Mexico City to talk about how to deal with this whole situation. They’re realizing that these online games are like the perfect place for these bad guys to do their thing because it’s harder for the cops to keep an eye on everything.

Think about it: In these games, you can talk to almost anyone without many rules. The messages are tricky for the police to catch, especially when these traffickers use emojis or emoticons to talk in code. Sneaky, right?

The police in Mexico noticed this first, finding cases where teenagers got recruited while playing games like ‘Garena Free Fire.’ They’d get offered money just to keep an eye out in Mexico City. It’s scary how this isn’t just happening in one place—it’s all over.

Now, there are some ideas floating around. They’re talking about educating both parents and kids about these risks in gaming. Also, the people who make these games might start using fancy tech stuff like artificial intelligence to keep an eye on things. The goal is to make sure everyone, from the cops to governments worldwide, knows what’s up with this whole new trend.

So, yeah, it’s pretty wild. But it’s cool to see people trying to figure out ways to keep our gaming world safe, right?