Gangs Use Violence to Control Guerrero Meat Industry David Gagne - InSight Crime
go to original April 25, 2017

Four butchers were killed at this market in 2016 (El Universal)

Criminal groups are coercing butchers at a food market in western Mexico to buy meat from them at elevated prices and are killing those who do not comply, a new report finds, illustrating one of the many ways predatory crime hinders economic activity in Latin America.

Criminal groups supply most of the 60,000 kilos of meat sold every week at a market in the city of Chilpancingo, Guerrero, according to a report by El Universal. The criminal groups buy the meat at 50 Mexican pesos per kilogram and sell it to the market's butchers for 60 pesos per kilogram, for earnings of 600,000 pesos (roughly $32,000) each week.

One of the butchers told El Universal that competitors offer lower prices than the criminal groups, but that buying from a competitor carries the risk of violent reprisals. Four butchers were killed in the past year alone, according to El Universal. Two vendors who worked at the market were also killed last year.

Most vendors close their shops by 4 p.m., before it gets dark. They would normally stay open until 8 p.m., according to El Universal, but they fear more attacks, and few customers are willing to shop at the market during the evening.

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InSight Crime is a foundation dedicated to the study of the principal threat to national and citizen security in Latin America and the Caribbean: organized crime. We seek to deepen and inform the debate about organized crime in the Americas by providing the general public with regular reporting, analysis and investigation on the subject and on state efforts to combat it.

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