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The
Defense Department said Thursday that since the start of
President Claudia Sheinbaum’s administration on Oct. 1, it has
sent 300 soldiers and 360 Guard officers to several lime-growing
townships.
In August, more than half of lime packing warehouses in the
lowlands of Michoacan closed temporarily after growers and
distributors said they had received demands from the Los Viagras
and other cartels for a cut of their income.
The department said the troops were visiting packing houses,
escorting trucks transporting the fruit and providing security
at wholesale markets in the main producing areas around the
towns of Apatzingan, Aguililla and Buenavista.
It said that in just over a week, the troops deployed to
Michoacan had seized 10 guns and two grenades.
Limes are an absolute staple of Mexican cuisine. The Michoacan
state government had acknowledged the producers' shutdowns in
August, but claimed it was largely because growers were unhappy
with the prices they were getting.
While limes might seem to be an odd target for drug cartels,
they have been a source of income for the gangs for much of this
century.
In 2013, lime growers founded and led Mexico's biggest vigilante
movement. Cartels at the time had taken control of distribution,
manipulating domestic prices for crops like avocados and limes,
telling growers when they could harvest and at what price they
could sell their crops.
It's not just limes; there is mounting evidence that drug
cartels are distorting parts of Mexico’s economy, deciding who
gets to sell a product and at what price — and in return they
are apparently demanding sellers pass a percentage of sales
revenue back to the cartel.
In July, the Femsa corporation, which operates Oxxo, Mexico’s
largest chain of convenience stores, announced it was closing
all of its 191 stores and seven gas stations in the border city
of Nuevo Laredo, across from Laredo, Texas, because of gang
problems.
The company said it had long had to deal with cartel demands
that its gas stations buy their fuel from certain distributors.
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