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go to original February 20, 2014

The story of how vigilante militias took their western Mexican towns back from Knights Templar meth lords — for now. (GlobalPost)

APATZINGAN, Mexico — Businessman Carlos Halabe at last feels safe enough to describe the terror his city endured under the thumb of Mexico’s Knights Templar gang.

“They controlled all social and economic life here,” says Halabe, the 42-year-old head of the chamber of commerce in Apatzingan, a city of 120,000 people in the citrus-growing lands along the Pacific coast of Michoacan state (map).

“They killed many business owners, kidnapped people who objected, obligated us to close businesses, collected very high extortion,” he says. “This was utter hell.”

Apatzingan was once ruled by the Knights Templar, which officials say also runs meth-smuggling routes.

But the gangsters seemingly evaporated from the city on Feb. 8, when anti-Templar militias marched into the city backed by federal police. Hundreds of soldiers and cops now patrol the city’s streets, while militia gunmen man checkpoints on its outskirts.

A wary calm reigns here, as it does in nearby towns freed from the Templars' grip over the past year. Federal officials have declared victory. They’re moving to essentially deputize hundreds of the militiamen, converting the untrained armed civilians into local police.

Read the rest at GlobalPost

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