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Subject: Tostadas

shadow27 17.11.20 - 06:47am

The newcomers, members of a criminal group called the v*agras, were almost certainly clearing the forest to set up a grow operation. They wouldnt be planting marijuana or other crops long favored by Mexican cartels, but something potentially even more profitable: avocados.

Mexicos multibillion-dollar avocado industry, headquartered in Michoacan state, has become a prime target for cartels, which have been seizing farms and clearing protected woodlands to plant their own groves of what locals call ''green gold.'' * +

shadow27 17.11.20 - 06:50am
More than a dozen criminal groups are battling for control of the avocado trade in and around the city of Uruapan, preying on wealthy orchard owners, the laborers who pick the fruit and the drivers who truck it north to the United States.

''The threat is constant and from all sides,'' said Jose Maria Ayala Montero, who works for a trade association that formed its own vigilante army to protect growers.

After seizing control of the forest in March, the v*agras announced a tax on residents who owned avocado trees, charging 250 dollars a hectare in ''protection fees.'' * +

shadow27 17.11.20 - 06:51am
But they had competition. Rivals from the Jalisco New Generation cartel wanted to control the same stretch of land - and residents were about to get caught in the middle of a vicious fight.

In May, a convoy of pickup trucks loaded with Jalisco fighters raced into the woods and an hourlong gun battle broke out.

Juan Madrigal Miranda, a 72-year-old professor who runs a small nature center in the area, cowered on the floor of his small cabin as bullets flew overhead. * +

shadow27 17.11.20 - 06:53am
His fear eventually gave way to anger at the growing power of the criminals, 10 of whom died in the forest that day.

''Around the country, the cartels want land, forest and water,'' Madrigal said. ''Now they are fighting for the keys to life.''

Homicides are at an all-time high in Mexico, which has long been home to the worlds most powerful and violent narcotics traffickers. Yet much of the killing today has little to do with drugs.

Organized crime has diversified.

In Guanajuato state, the homicide rate has nearly tripled over the last three years as criminals battle for access to gasoline pipelines, which they tap to steal and sell fuel. * +

shadow27 17.11.20 - 06:55am
In parts of Guerrero state, cartels control access to gold mines and even the price of goods in supermarkets. In one city, Altamirano, the local Coca-Cola bottler closed its distribution center last year after more than a dozen groups tried to extort money from it. The Pepsi bottler left a few months later.

In Mexico City, bar owners in upscale neighborhoods must pay taxes to a local gang, while on the nations highways, cargo robberies have risen more than 75 percent since 2016. * +

shadow27 17.11.20 - 06:57am
In Michoacan, where there have been dozens of cartel splits over the last dozen years, organized crimes invasion of the avocado industry is a microcosm of what is happening elsewhere in the country - and a potent illustration of how the government has unintentionally fueled more violence.

Many people here now long for the early 1990s, when just one family trafficked drugs through the region and the state was largely at peace.

The Valencia family was known as a benevolent force.

It built churches, gave money to the sick and averted violence by paying local authorities to ensure easy shipment of marijuana, heroin and cocaine to the United States. * +

shadow27 17.11.20 - 06:58am
But by 2000, trafficking groups from other parts of the country had grown envious of the Valencias, in particular their control of the Lazaro Cardenas seaport on Michoacans Pacific coast.

The Gulf cartel, based in the eastern state of Tamaulipas, went to battle with the family, sending in its paramilitary force, the Zetas.

Formed in the late 1990s by deserters of an elite Mexican army unit, the Zetas embraced a new philosophy when it came to the drug trade. Instead of simply controlling strategic points along drug transport routes, they sought to minimize risk by also commandeering businesses along the routes. * +

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