Page 12 - IAV Digital Magazine #586

iAV - Antelope Valley Digital Magazine
MEXI-
CO CITY (AP) — A cartel in the embattled central Mexico state of Michoacan set up its own makeshift internet antennas and told locals they had to pay to use its Wi-Fi service or they would be killed, state prosecutors said Wednesday.
Dubbed “narco- antennas” by local media, the cartel’s system
involved
internet antennas set up in various towns built with stolen equipment.
The group charged approxi- mately 5,000 peo- ple elevated prices between between 400 and 500 pesos ($25 to $30) a month, the Michoacán state prosecutor’s office told The Associated Press. That meant the group could rake
in
around $150,000 a month.
People were ter- rorized “to con- tract the internet services at exces- sive costs, under the claim that they would be killed if they did not,” prosecutors said, though they didn’t report any such deaths.
Local media iden- tified the criminal group as the Los
Viagras
cartel. Prosecutors declined to say which cartel was involved because the case was still under investiga- tion, but they con- firmed Los Viagras domi- nates the towns forced to make the Wi-Fi pay- ments.
Law enforcement seized the equip- ment late last week and shared
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/W3J0RKjDd-M
photos of the makeshift anten- nas and piles of equipment and routers with the labels of the Mexican internet company Telmex, owned by power- ful Mexican busi- nessman Carlos Slim. They also detained one per- son.
Mexican cartels have long employed a shad- ow network of radio towers and makeshift internet to communicate within criminal organizations and dodge authorities.
But the use of such towers to extort communi- ties is part of a larger trend in the country, said Falko Ernst, Mexico analyst for Crisis Group.
Ernst said the approximately 200 armed crimi- nal groups active in Mexico no longer focus just on drug trafficking but are also
“becoming de facto monopolists of certain servic- es and other legal markets.” He said that as cartels have gained firmer control of large swaths of Mexico, they have effectively formed “fief- doms.”
Ernst said gangs in some areas are charging taxes on basic foods and import- ed products, and noted they have also
infiltrated Michoa can’s lucrative avocado
business and lime markets as well as parts of local mining industries.
“It’s really become sort of like an all around game for them. And it’s not spe- cific to any partic- ular good or mar- ket anymore. It’s become about holding territory through violence,” he said. “It’s not solely about drugs anymore.”
iAV - Antelope Valley Digital Magazine
Mexican Cartel Forces Locals To Pay For Makeshift Wi-Fi Under Threat of Death