Cuautla, Mexico: The shots rang out just before 10am. A motorcyclist roared past a modest building behind the old railway station here, firing three times. Minutes later, the gunman unloaded on a storefront a half-mile away, wounding a teenager.
The assailant was from the feared Acapulcos gang, the authorities later concluded – an offshoot of a heroin-trafficking cartel. But the targets that November morning weren’t rival drug dealers or police informants. They were tortilla shops.
Juan de Dios’ Tortilleria Renovación in Cuautla, Mexico. Credit: Fred Ramos for The Washington Post Small businesses stamping out warm tortillas have long been a fixture of Mexican neighborhoods. Now, thousands are being threatened by armed groups, part of a transformation in organised crime that’s rippling through Latin America.
Cartels are playing a growing role in the region’s economies, from infiltrating seaports to extorting small businesses – and gaining increasing political power. Drug-trafficking rings have expanded so rapidly that nearly every Latin American mainland nation has become a major producer or transit corridor for cocaine, according to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime. But criminal groups are also branching out into other illegal enterprises.
In Mexico, they’re shaking down fishermen, chicken vendors, builders, trucking companies, gas stations and a host of other businesses, including producers of the country’s staple food – the corn tortilla. At least 15 per.
