Avocados are all the rage right now, be it as a spread for bread or a face cream. In Mexico, drug cartels control a billion-dollar 'superfood' business and scare a whole region as Franz Viohl reports from Uruapan.....MUCH MORE
The "global capital of avocados" lies nestled among gentle hills, with plantations filling their slopes. In downtown Uruapan, a central Mexican town of 300,000 inhabitants, there's no sign of hectic activities on this winter day.
Elderly people are having a chat near the local church; indigenous women are selling wooden toys. But the calm is deceptive.
Over the past couple of years, Uruapan has turned into one of Mexico's most dangerous cities. Mexico's Inegi stats agency logged 297 killings in 2018 alone — a number that would normally only be reached in war-torn areas.
Latest killing just a couple of weeks ago
Silvia Martinez doesn't have to think long to tell me why the situation is as it is in Uruapan. The 52-year-old is an executive with one of the largest avocado exporters that sends dozens of truckloads of the fruit to the United States daily.
"The latest killing happened just two weeks ago, with a distributor found dead near his car," Martinez recalls (her name was changed to ensure her safety). She's trying to hold back her tears. She's afraid of somebody holding her at gunpoint. Her home town used to be a quiet place, she says," but now the narcos completely control the place, and whoever puts up any resistance to them will be eliminated."
The Mexican state of Michoacan, where Uruapan is located, accounts for 40% of avocados grown globally. The largest part of them goes to the US. In 2018, Mexico exported avocados worth $2.7 billion (€2.4 billion) to the United States. Right now, a kilogram (some 5 avocados) costs around $1.40 in Uruapan, whereas in a US grocery store the price is $1.30 — per avocado.
That sort of big business has not gone unnoticed by the drug cartels. Javier Oliva, a political scientist from Mexico's national university, UNAM, says there's an escalating conflict in Michoacan between the competing Jalisco Nueva Generacion and Los Viagras cartels.
Cocaine, marijuana and other drugs are still their core business. "But there's rising competition, and the number of criminal cartels has jumped from four big ones in the past to now 250 criminal units in Mexico." New sources of income are always welcome. According to Oliva, criminal activities include the theft of oil, simple robberies, prostitution, the trade in human organs and the protection racket — and now avocados....
Previously:
October 2019
Four Mexican Cartels Battling for Control of Avocado Trade
From Borderland Beat (caution: they cover cartels, it can get gruesome), October 5:...
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Borderland Beat has been on this particular story since at least 2013's:
In August the story was:
Chivis Martinez Borderland Beat from Reforma
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| Body lies next to hamburger stand--and hanging above |
Avocado businessmen and restaurant and bar owners asked the CJNG for help through WhatsApp chats to eliminate "Los Viagras", who extorted them.
Nine of the bodies - 7 men and 2 women - were hung on a vehicular bridge of the Industrial Boulevard, one of the main avenues of the city. Another seven bodies - 6 men and one woman - were thrown dismembered on that same avenue and others were left in black bags on the same boulevard.For years, extortion has ravaged producers in this area of Michoacán.Just on June 14 avocado packers in the entity reported that they Viagras were robbing four trucks per day with cargo.....
August 2019
Bullet Riddled Bodies and Your Avocado Toast
From the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, August 13:...
