Mexico: Local Drug Cartel Forces Residents To Pay for WiFi or Die

A small, local drug cartel in the Central Mexico state of Michoacan has employed a new way of extorting residents, and that is to pay for the makeshift WiFi they installed in the village or be killed.

Local media has called this makeshift WiFi service "narco-antennas," The drug cartel would set up mostly stolen internet antennas in a town with stolen equipment and provide internet. However, residents of the town are then forced to subscribe under the threat of death.

The Michoacán state prosecutor's office told The Associated Press that the local drug cartel, known as the Los Viagras cartel, which is not as big or well known as the two biggest organizations fighting over the state, is charging between 400 and 500 pesos ($25 to $30) a month. With this extortion scheme, the cartel usually earns around $150,000 a month.

Prosecutors stated that the Mexican villagers are terrorized "to contract the internet services at excessive costs, under the claim that they would be killed if they did not." So far, no death in regards to not paying the internet fees has been reported yet.

Currently, Michoacan is a battleground between the much larger Familia Michoacana and the invading Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG). However, these smaller cartels like the Los Viagras have lately been branching out and creating monopolies of their own that do not directly compete with the bigger cartels. This includes extorting villagers for an internet connection by force.

Mexico Authorities Confiscate Illegal WiFi Equipment Set Up by Local Drug Cartel

Authorities in Mexico have actually acted on these extortion methods and seized some equipment that the cartel has been using for the scheme. They also arrested at least one individual in connection to extorting people as part of this nefarious modus operandi.

According to BNN, the stolen equipment being used originally came from Telmex, a Mexican internet company owned by tycoon Carlos Slim. The company's labels were still visible when the police seized the stolen equipment, though it is unclear whether the company would be getting its equipment back as they would likely be used as evidence.

Mexico Drug Cartels Dabbling in Communications Technology Is Nothing New

Drug cartels in Mexico may be known more for making and trafficking illegal narcotics, but they have been known to branch out to other industries in the past, and back in 2011, one even tried to make its own national radio system.

This national radio system was set up by the Zetas drug cartel which created it as a way to alert the cartel whether police or the military are coming. They would hire a normal person to become a lookout known as a "halcon," or hawk, and radio the cartel to inform them that authorities are headed their way.

Mexico has since dismantled this system, which ranged from professional-grade towers to handheld radios, It allowed the cartel to conduct encrypted conversations without depending on the official cellphone network, and it made not just the Mexican government concerned, but also the US.

This article is owned by Latin Post.

Written by: Rick Martin

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