Borderland Beat was started in 2009 by "Buggs" (Alex Marentes), a retired Albuquerque Police Department officer and former active duty and reserve U.S.

Realizing the dangers of reporting on his personal blog, he created Borderland Beat and hosted it on Blogger, a platform owned by Google.

They sometimes work in collaboration with other media outlets and think tanks (such as Small Wars Journal and InSight Crime) by sharing their news articles for references and by allowing them to partially or fully republish their material.

[10] Although not initially trained in journalism, Buggs created Borderland Beat out of a "necessity to inform" readers about the drug violence in Mexico, considering the censorship by traditional media.

As readers began to contribute in the articles' comments sections, Borderland Beat created a forum for users to share drug cartel news and updates.

[13] Borderland Beat has reporters and informants based in Mexico who provided "boots on the ground" for many of the news articles published by the blog.

[15] Borderland Beat never had a physical office where drug cartels could carry out an attack, another factor that made it an attractive platform for crime reporters.

[17] In March 2010, Borderland Beat wrote an article titled "War on Information in Mexico", which covered violence against journalists and the rise of social media as a platform for news sharing.

[15] As bloggers started becoming a target by organized crime groups in Mexico, several international media outlets interviewed some of the BB reporters to share their experiences.

[21] Borderland Beat broke the story after one of their sources confirmed to them that Chino Ántrax was killed in a shootout in Culiacán along with his sister Ada Jimena Aréchiga Gamboa and brother-in-law Juan Garcia Espinoza.

[21][22] In November 2022, Borderland Beat was the first media outlet to report that drug trafficker Edgar Valdez-Villarreal "La Barbie" was no longer in Bureau of Prisons custody.

[21][25] Borderland Beat reporter "MX" published an article in June 2020 giving an overview of his criminal career and release from U.S. prison earlier that year.

[21] In the lawsuit, Valencia Cornelio's defense complained that Borderland Beat violated Blogger's privacy policy by publishing personal information about him.

That CDL included the "...driver’s license number, address, sex, height, weight, date of birth and signature of [Valencia Cornelio].

[33] In 2020, the San Diego Reader called Borderland Beat "one of the best resources for current and accurate information on Mexico’s bloody drug wars".