The crime that haunts Mexico, sowing fear, disrupting life: extortion

MEXICO CITY — Faced with threats, a shop owner closes the clothing store that has been in his family for generations.

The leader of a citrus growers’ association is kidnapped and murdered after he rejects the mafia’s demands for a profit cut.

Angry peasant farmers are tired of bribing against cartel thugs in a bloody showdown.

In Mexico, these real-life incidents all stem from a specific crime: extortion.

Gang takeovers are common in Mexico, and many people are victimized: street vendors and taxi drivers, restaurateurs and farmers, factory owners and mine operators. They are all forced to pay taxes to criminal gangs, sometimes to the same drug-trafficking cartels.

“This is a very sensitive crime because of its social impact,” Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said last week. “It doesn’t just affect one person, it affects everyone.”

Sheinbaum has launched a high-profile crackdown against extortions, but his efforts face formidable challenges. Experts say extortion is a multibillion-dollar racket and perhaps more lucrative than drug trafficking. This is sometimes called “invisible crime” because many victims do not report threats for fear of retaliation.

Those targeted often face a dire choice: accept ultimatums to hand over cash, property or other assets, or face death, a threat that routinely targets family members as well.

“Of course, I can say, ‘I won’t pay: They can go kill me,'” said Antonio, a flower grower outside Mexico City who donated about $600. piso derecho [protection] With each flower harvest, that amount doubles during holiday seasons, including this month’s feast of the Virgin of Guadalupe. “But I can’t let them kill my children or take my wife.”

Like other victims who spoke to The Times, Antonio, a 56-year-old father of four, asked that only his first name be used for security reasons.

“We live in terror,” he said. “We have to work for these criminals. And no one from the government is helping us.”

Farmer Jesús Cuaxospa works on his farm growing cempasúchil flowers in San Luis Tlaxistemalco, on the outskirts of Mexico City, in October.

(Claudia Rosel / Associated Press)

According to the report, Mexico and two other Latin American countries, Colombia and Honduras, are among the five countries most harmed by extortion. Global Organized Crime IndexAnnual ranking by a Geneva-based research group. Somalia and Libya are in the top five.

In addition to its devastating impact on individuals and families, extortion also leads to extreme social costs: displacement, a deep sense of insecurity, and the disruption of local economies.

In Mexico, powerfully armed extortion gangs are accused of fixing prices, seizing industries, unions and transportation routes, operating construction sites and even setting prices for foodstuffs, construction materials and other items.

Sheinbaum regularly boasts about his administration’s success in reducing violent crime, especially homicides, by a third since he took office last year, according to official figures. But he acknowledges that racketeering is on the rise, although there are no precise measurements for such an under-reported crime.

Calling the elimination of usurpation “one of the biggest challenges” facing Mexico, Sheinbaum vowed to strengthen enforcement, toughen penalties and step up measures for anyone who receives threats.

He advocates for a constitutional amendment that would make racketeering a federal crime and place the responsibility for catching violators on law enforcement, not individuals. Prosecutors will be able to pursue cases without the need for victims to file complaints.

Since the launch of Mexico’s “National Anti-Extortion Strategy” in July, authorities say police have arrested more than 600 suspects and made more than 100,000 calls to an expanded toll-free extortion hotline. Authorities have also moved to block cellphone access in Mexican prisons, where gangs specialize in “virtual kidnappings” by calling people outside and demanding ransom for allegedly kidnapped loved ones.

“Don’t answer a phone number you don’t recognize,” Sheinbaum warned people last week.

In one notorious case, authorities said a prison gang targeted 14 nurses sent to Mexico City during the COVID-19 pandemic. Prisoners using cell phones warned nurses to stay in their hotel rooms and not say anything; They were supposedly under surveillance. His accomplices contacted his relatives demanding cash. However, the police got wind of the plan. No money was paid and no one was injured.

Security forces are on guard following the operation on a butcher shop allegedly linked to a terrorist organization. La Familia Michoacana cartel in Sultepec, Mexico, in July.

(Alfredo Estrella/AFP via Getty Images)

Sheinbaum’s anti-extortion campaign faces a major obstacle: Without a major cultural shift, many victims will be hesitant to take legal action because they do not trust the system.

“Making a complaint is not an option because you never know if the authorities are in collusion with criminals,” said César, co-owner of a restaurant in downtown Mexico City.

He said about two years ago he started receiving threats from one of his partners’ cell phone. The callers had the names of their spouses and children. The partner was nervous but did nothing at first.

“Then one day two South Americans came to the restaurant,” César recalled.

Their message: Pay $2,500 a week to “be allowed to work in peace.”

His partner soon left the restaurant and the city.

Management has not heard from the hoodlums since.

Still, like many business owners, César tries to keep a low profile; His and his co-workers’ names are not displayed in the restaurant. Staff were instructed not to chatter to anyone.

“Yet we live with uncertainty and constantly worry that these guys will come back,” César said. We know that we can be victimized at any moment.

The latest victims, whose cases have shocked Mexico, include a successful young butcher entrepreneur in the state of Tabasco and a female taxi driver in the state of Veracruz. According to reports, both were found dead after rejecting extortion threats. The driver, 62-year-old Irma Hernández, a retired teacher, was kidnapped and forced to make a jihadist-style video; In this video, surrounded by armed men, he begged his fellow taxi drivers: “Pay the money.” cuota [fee] …or you’ll end up like me.”

Avocado growers have received so many extortion demands from criminal gangs that some have hired private security forces, like this one that patrolled Tancitaro, Michoacán, in 2019.

(Gary Coronado/Los Angeles Times)

But sometimes fed up signs oppose.

Two years ago corn and bean growers in the impoverished hamlet of Texcapilla got tired of paying an annual conservation fee of nearly $200 per acre planted and decided: No more. Peasant farmers armed with machetes and shotguns confronted enforcers of the dominant cartel in the region. La Familia Michoacanaon the football field outside the school. By the time the brawl ended, 14 people were dead, including 10 gang members and four farmers, authorities said.

Carlos Manzo, the former mayor of Uruapan in Michoacán state, also backed down. Sheinbaum accused his government of not doing enough in Michoacán, where gangsters have long plundered the booming avocado sector and other industries.

“We are surrounded by criminal groups committed to extortion and murder,” Manzo told a crowd in May. “But we will face them.”

Manzo was assassinated at a Day of the Dead celebration in Uruapan last month.

Less than two weeks earlier, Bernado Bravo, the leader of regional lime growers in Michoacán, had also been shot and killed. Bravo has repeatedly condemned extortion demands.

With so much at stake, it’s no wonder some potential victims flee.
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Vicente’s family ran a men’s clothing business in downtown Mexico City for more than 80 years. She didn’t think much about it when men started calling and demanding money about four years ago. Then one day three men came to the shop.

“They told me that if I didn’t pay, I would lose my security, and if I didn’t have security, something might happen to my employees, if not to me, then to my family,” Vicente recalled.

Like many targets, Vicente hoped the threat would disappear. But menacing strangers kept barging in, increasing their demands from $500 a month to $1,000 a month, $2,000 a month, even $10,000 a month.

His sons urged Vicente to go away: No matter how loved he was, this job was not worth a bullet to the head. Although reluctant, Vicente eventually agreed. Due to the closure, 15 people, most of whom had been working for a long time, became unemployed. Some started selling clothes from street stalls.

Vicente says he never reported the extortion attempt: like César, he was afraid someone from law enforcement would reveal his name and address to the mob. He tried to put his experience behind him. But it wasn’t easy. Three generations of family life revolved around this shop.

“Because I refused to pay tribute, I had to close the business that my grandfather founded in 1936 and that I continued with my father,” said 67-year-old Vicente. “It was very painful. It was very painful.”

McDonnell is a staff writer and Sánchez Vidal is a special correspondent.