MEXICO CITY – Muckraking journalist and women’s rights advocate Lydia Cacho told Efe on Friday that she fled Mexico after receiving an especially chilling death threat.

Cacho, who lives in the Caribbean resort city of Cancun, said she left the country immediately after receiving a threat last Sunday over the security system at her house.

The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists publicized the threat earlier this week, relaying Cacho’s account that an unfamiliar voice came over the system’s speaker and warned her “not to mess with us” or “we will send you home in little pieces.”

“As soon as it happened I became worried. One always feels horrible hearing something so grotesque,” Cacho told Efe, adding that she grew even more alarmed when her security consultants said the source of the threatening broadcast was probably within 5 kilometers (3 miles) of her home.

The threats are apparently coming from some of the alleged criminals she identified in her latest book, “Esclavas del poder” (Slaves of Power), which focuses on sex trafficking and its victims, she said.

Cacho has been the target of threats since 2005, when she published a book, “Los demonios del Eden” (The Demons of Eden), that exposed pedophile rings in Mexico operating under the protection of politicians and business leaders.

For revealing the crimes of Lebanese-born Mexican businessman Jean Succar Kuri and others, Cacho was also the victim of psychological torture and police abuses, which she revealed in another book titled “Memorias de una infamia” (Memoirs of an Infamy).

Mexico, where nearly 80 journalists have been murdered since 2000, is considered one of the most dangerous countries in the world for members of the media. EFE