The shots rang out just before 10am. A motorcyclist roared past a modest building behind the old railway station here, firing three times. Minutes later, the gunman unloaded on a storefront a half-mile away, wounding a teenager.
builders, trucking companies, gas stations and a host of other businesses, including producers of the country’s staple food – the corn tortilla. They’re embedding themselves in local governments to maximise that control. That has made Mexico’s elections increasingly violent.. At least 34 people running for office in this election have been killed, according to the consulting firm Integralia.
The expanding criminal grip on the economy is starting to have a spillover effect at the US border. Detentions of Mexicans at the US border – including asylum applicants – have tripled since 2019, reaching about 717,000 last year. People leave the country for many reasons, including better-paying jobs. But an increasing percentage of Mexican migrants say they are fleeing violence and extortion.
When the first gang turned up about three years ago, asking $15 a week to “protect the neighbourhood,” tortilla shops paid up. The criminal group quickly wiped out petty theft.LoadingNow, gangs in the Cuernavaca area are hitting up tortilla makers for as much as $1350 a month. But the cartels didn’t collapse. They splintered. Today, Mexico has two cartels with a nationwide presence , but also hundreds of smaller groups. In the past four years, the security firm Lantia Consultores has identified at least 87 regional armed groups and 586 gangs.Fred Ramos for The Washington Post
The rise of the mini-cartels is evident in Cuautla, a sunbaked city of 150,000 people nestled amid sugar-cane fields 30 miles south-east of Cuernavaca. A downtown park features a towering statue of Emiliano Zapata, the insurgent who famously attacked the city during the Mexican Revolution. The following day, the co-ordinator of the truckers at Cuautla’s sugar mill was shot dead. Two weeks later, a prominent local butcher was killed, after complaining to local authorities about extortion.Tortillerias are especially vulnerable to extortion. They do brisk sales; the average Mexican eats 165 pounds of tortillas a year. Nearly all customers pay cash.
“They realised what a good business this can be, especially given that the price of drugs has dropped,” said one of the agricultural leaders. The Mexican president has defended his “hugs, not bullets” policy, noting the reduction in homicides and a decline in other major crimes such as kidnapping. In January, López Obrador announced that the percentage of Mexicans who said they felt “unsafe” in their city had dropped to its lowest level in a decade. “People feel like things are getting better,” he said. Still, 59 per cent of city dwellers reported feeling unsafe.
But the crime economy doesn’t only thrive because of dirty cops. In many cases, the gangs have political cover. “Drug traffickers are totally involved in the elections,” said Castro, the bishop.newspaper published a bombshell – photos of the Morelos governor, Cuauhtémoc Blanco, with the leaders of three crime groups. Blanco, a member of the ruling Morena party, told reporters he hadn’t known they were gangsters. “I take photos with everyone,” he said.