Bill Gates trumpeted his numbers-driven approach to philanthropy at a Manhattan meeting with six reporters and writers, including myself, Wednesday afternoon, where he laid out his wish list for how to improve data-gathering efforts to address social, health, and economic problems around the world.

“What I went through was real. You know, the feelings, the pain, the sorrow—that was all real, and that’s something that I can’t fake.” So said Notre Dame football player and Heisman trophy finalist Manti Te’o in a television interview with Katie Couric recently. By now you know the saga: Te’o was describing his feelings for his girlfriend, Lennay Kekua, an attractive young woman he claimed to have met in 2009 after a football game at Stanford University, where she was supposedly a student.

It was the killings that initially drew me to the idea of exploring the U.S.-Mexico border. According to government figures, there were 47,515 drug-related killings in Mexico between late 2006 and late 2012, though many experts put the death toll much higher. Every aspect of Mexican life is affected by organized crime and its endless struggle for control of the distribution of marijuana, methamphetamine, cocaine and heroin. Most of the drugs are destined for the United States and Canada.

The city of Monterrey located in the border state of Nuevo Leon is considered the main entry route to several major drug trafficking plazas including Nuevo Laredo and Reynosa—a forward-operating base for the Zeta drug cartel and a port of entry to their area of influence for their smuggling routes in the northeast. It also serves as a first line of defense against any incursions into their territory. Monterrey is Mexico’s second richest city with much of its wealthy economy directly tied to trade on the border.