MEXICO.- On Friday of the first weekend of last February, there was an announcement in the municipality of Telolapan, Guerrero: there would be no bread. The reason: crime groups prevented firewood collectors from passing if they did not give them money in exchange . Around those same dates, dozens of fishermen from San Carlos stopped taking fish for similar reasons.
At the same time, the National Service for Agrifood Health, Safety and Quality (Senasica) acknowledged threats against Mexican producers after the announcement by the United States that he would not buy avocado from Mexico if he did not guarantee the safety of his threatened inspectors so that they would approve poor quality products.
In the south of the State of Mexico, a restaurateur whose name he reserves himself for security reasons, denounces that the criminal groups force him to buy beers, soft drinks and the products of the basic basket with the approval of the authorities who do not want to intervene. Storekeepers in Ixtapan de la Sal confirm it: they have to buy the groceries from them to resell.
“ Currently the real business of organized crime is based on the control of the territory, supported by two aspects: corruption and violence”, warned Carlos Hernández of the Association of Certified Specialists in Financial Crimes.
”Once you have possession of the territory, through fear-violence and corruption, you can generate an environment of impunity that allows you to traffic anything, sell anything Whatever it is, whiten whatever it is and that is why I do not believe that the legalization of illicit substances can produce an immediate change.”
The process that follows is simple: a criminal activity generates economic profits that must be integrated into the legal economy through the financial system when buying companies, goods or generate services.
According to the risk analysis provided by the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU), money laundering in the country comes mainly from three main phenomena: organized crime, corruption and the level of illicit resources generated in the country.
Producers
In the smallest towns and cities of the country, the The violent death of a producer is behind a refusal to collaborate with organized crime gangs, sometimes local; others, from the cartels.
According to a report generated by the General Directorate of Phytozoosanitary Inspection of Senasica, federal field inspectors are victims of threats and intimidation. It does not recognize any deaths, as it has occurred with trade inspectors.
Among other cases, the death of Adrián Lima, of 21 years old and a student at the Cerro Azul Technological Institute in Veracruz, shot to death.
Senasica recognizes only five cases against its inspectors. All in Tamaulipas and before 2012. The first case occurred in Reynosa. The victim was an agricultural specialist who verified merchandise regulated by the Ministry of Agriculture and did not allow the entry of live insects that an alleged member of the Zetas intended to traffic.
In the second case, which occurred in the same city, the inspector had surveillance functions for goods regulated by the Secretary of Agriculture. They took pictures of him and threatened him at his house. His superiors forced him to leave the city to avoid his death.
With the third victim there was an attempted kidnapping so that the inspector would release some llamas that the army had seized. In the fourth and fifth cases, the threats occurred due to the detention of exotic birds.
Activists say that these figures are infinitely higher, but the State does not want to admit it and the victims do not want to report fear of reprisals.
“What the criminals do is involve local ninis boys to do the job dirty and parents and relatives protect them because they are not going to report their own children or friends”, specifies the restaurateur in the State of Mexico whom criminals force to buy beers and soft drinks.
From north to south
In recent months, two Catholic priests have raised their voices to denounce the modus operandi of the groups that have control of the economy and the territory from north to south.
In Baja California Sur it was Bishop Miguel Ángel Alba. He said in a public event that drug traffickers had control in fishing and removed the rumors about it from anonymity.
“Today the gangs no longer seek drug control, they seek absolute control of our communities, they take away from our fishermen the fruit of their fishing and give them crumbs of money in exchange” .
Previously the local press had disclosed that an organized crime gang linked to a local leader nicknamed “El Tiburón” is holding Puerto San Carlos and the private fishing community, coupled with the purchase of inputs and the collection of flat and extortion.
They ask fishermen and their families for sales percentages or they buy shellfish at prices below the market, species such as generous clams, abalone shrimp, lobster and sea cucumber… and, if they do not want to sell them, they kill them.
“My husband preferred to leave the market, they are not letting them take out any of the shrimp there, one of his cousins was picked up, no he wanted to pay for a flat and they boarded it, just over the weekend he disappeared and they found him all beaten up. They also found a guatero (illegal fisherman) dead months ago, they say he was going into the sea without warning in the morning,” a complainant told the local press.
In Guerrero, the Bishop of the Diocese of Chilpancingo-Chilapa, Salvador Rangel explained that since the elections last June that the criminal groups that had historically controlled drugs have once again taken control of natural resources such as the mining or wood, the routes for the distribution of beer and soft drinks.
Via telephone, the Teloloapan resident who documented the lack of firewood for bread tells this newspaper that they are forcing all those who produce or sell and buy from criminals. do you sell tortillas Only they can provide the corn. Did you plant corn? You can only sell them to them and so on. Absolutely everything.
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