Mexican cartels expand beyond drugs into economic sectors: Report

(NewsNation) — Mexican drug cartels are expanding their transgression enterprises beyond narcotics, infiltrating assorted sectors of the system and regular beingness successful Mexico and beyond, according to caller authorities reports and investigations.

The Sinaloa and Jalisco New Generation cartels, 2 of Mexico's astir almighty transgression organizations, person diversified their operations to see net services, fuel theft, and extortion successful the avocado, tortilla, and chickenhearted industries.

In Michoacán state, authorities uncovered a strategy wherever transgression groups forced residents to wage for high-cost net work nether menace of death. A raid connected 3 properties yielded antennas and net repeater equipment, demonstrating the cartels' scope into unexpected sectors.

Fuel theft, known locally arsenic "huachicoleo," remains a lucrative task for cartels. The signifier has caused billions of dollars successful losses during President Andrés Manuel López Obrador's administration. Cartels employment blase methods, including bribing employees of state-owned lipid institution Pemex and utilizing modified tanker trucks.

Mexico's avocado industry, the world's largest, has go a premier target. In Michoacán, cartels request monthly extortion fees ranging from $135 to $500 per hectare. The U.S. concisely suspended avocado imports from Mexico successful 2022 and 2024 aft U.S. officials received decease threats.

Cartels person besides targeted tortilla businesses, a staple of Mexican cuisine. The National Tortilla Council reports that 14-15% of tortillerías look extortion, with play fees ranging from $135 to $190.

In the chickenhearted industry, cartels similar La Familia Michoacana person forced vendors to bargain poultry astatine inflated prices. A Mexican probe revealed immoderate seized chickenhearted contained harmful additives.

Despite this diversification, cause trafficking remains the cartels' astir profitable venture, albeit with slower returns compared to their different transgression activities.