The website of the weekly newspaper Riodoce was taken down by a cyber attack. The DDoS attack follows the murders of two unidentified twitter users in Nuevo Laredo and the slaying of two workers of an Internet news site and blog. All occurred in the same state, Sinaloa, which is a hub for organised crime in Mexico.

According to Riodoce’s Director, Ismael Bojorquez Perea, the distributed denial-of-service attack attack began last Friday at noon. The publication is known for its incisive reporting, it recently received New York’s Columbia University Maria Moors Cabot Award for ‘heroically’ struggling to report the news in the face of increasing violence from organized crime.” The newspaper covers Sinalo’s drug trade but has always managed to avoid provoking the wrath of drug traffickers. The newspaper covers crime in a simple and stark manner, but ignores some details that could cause problems for the weekly. It has now been three days since the website riodoce.com.mx disappeared from the web.

Riodoce found out about the attack when their US-based internet host Dreamhost, warned them about a “big attack”  that also affected some of their other clients. The internet hosting company is now refusing to host Riodoce.

Sinaloa, where Riodoce was founded in 2003,  is home to the Sinaloa Cartel, but has recently been hit with a wave of unprecedented violence due to battles between different organised crime groups. A major massacre occurred in this northwestern state last week. The Sinaloa Cartel is one of the most established organised crime groups in Mexico. Its leader, Joaquin Chapo Guzman Loera, is among the richest men in Mexico.