Homicides and much of the high-impact crime rate are declining, a reason for celebration after more than 15 years of almost uninterrupted increases. Yet at the same time, a shadow is spreading: the shadow of extortion, a crime practiced by mafias for which authorities seem to have no answer. Where once drug production and trafficking dominated as the main criminal enterprise, extortion schemes are now taking over and becoming increasingly sophisticated.
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According to information obtained by EL PAÍS, the criminals were asking for two pesos for every kilo of lemons picked and an additional two pesos for every kilo sold, an amount Bravo was trying to lower. The guild leader was also trying to get the criminals to allow them to pick lemons more than three days a week, a recent imposition used to try to control the market price of the citrus fruit. It was in this context that the extortionists murdered Bravo. The criminals reportedly lured him to a town near Apatzingán, killed him, and took his body back to the municipality where his office was located.
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More than a criminal group, Los Viagra are in fact a family clan, one that grew in the wake of North America’s preferred security strategy: tracking down kingpin or crime bosses. The plan assumes that beheading criminal structures reduces their capacity. In reality, what has happened over the years is that, in Mexican regions like Michoacán, a myriad of criminal groups have emerged — often fighting one another — and have turned the economic relations of the societies they inhabit into a source of income. Drug trafficking has thus become a secondary option. Extortion is simpler than moving drugs: it requires no large logistical networks and can easily be disguised as part of the frictions of the productive economy.
That is what happens in Michoacán, as well as in other states, where multiple criminal groups coexist, none able to fully dominate the others. In Guerrero, for instance, different armed actors rooted in distinct municipalities and regions are fighting for control. In these battles, they tap into legal markets — such as poultry production and sales, transportation, or public works — to finance themselves.
As Dr. Beatriz Magaloni, coauthor of Living in Fear: The Dynamics of Extortion in Mexico’s Drug War, explains: “When drug-trafficking organizations control their territories, they can behave like benign bandits and offer help to their neighbors. But as these groups violently compete for control of territory and smuggling routes, they turn on citizens to extort them and extract resources.”
The solution does not appear simple, because over time crime has become interwoven with the economy, creating complex networks that are difficult to untangle.
From the article:
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