San Mateo Province is a Bolivian province located at the foot of the Andes mountains, with Rosario serving as its capital. San Mateo consists of several canyons rich in vegetation due to heavy rains. Traditionally, the economy was based on coffee growing and cattle breeding, and Rosario was the center of the province's coffee culture. The rural province was initially spared by the Santa Blanca Cartel during the Bolivian Drug War, but the spread of the Kataris 26 rebellion from Itacua to San Mateo led La Plaga to occupy the province, convert Rosario into a prison village, and transform a maze of narrow canyons into prisons to hold fleeing villagers and all residents suspected of complicity with the rebellion. El Pozolero dissolved many of these prisoners in acid to dispose of them, causing hundreds of "disappearances". In 2019, American special forces liberated San Mateo from cartel control and forced El Pozolero to work towards identifying his hundreds of nameless victims.
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