I'm Linda Presley and this is assignment on the BBC World Service from the state of Sinaloa,

home to one of Mexico's most powerful bloody drug cartels.

When we visit the city of Kulia Khan, its wide sunny boulevards aligned by trees in bloom with intense yellow blossom.

It feels sleepy, quaint, until we reach a shopping street close to the cathedral.

So our driver is just pointing out...

The women sitting under individual parasols, wearing tight clothes generally, very long hair, a lot of

makeup. Some of them look as though there wouldn't be strangers to a plastic surgeon's operating

theatre. And they're very young women, Uli. Yeah, very young.

Pasolesees Escamilla, a Mexican journalist.

And as we drive by, fists full of American dollars are waved at us from manicured hands,

tempting us to stop and change money.

It's like an entire block.

So the guys here, you think, are the minders, right?

Yeah.

It's quite a weird vibe for the exchange dollars.

But it's illegal in Mexico, isn't it?

Yeah.

It's very illegal.

And so the story here is that what happens is that the drug money that's made in the United States,

obviously paid in dollars, the dollars come back to Sinola.

And this is one way that the money is laundered. The dollars are changed for pesos. So this is money laundering,

Kulia Khan style. It's the start of our journey for assignment exploring Nacocultura,

...