Óscar Fled Mexico Because Of Drug Trafficking ... In The US The Tentacles of Crime Reached Him

"Sol Prendido" for Borderland Beat

"It makes me sad because I know that these people know no limits, they have no bottom for their monetary ambition," he told El Sol de México

“I believed that I had made it out, that I would have a new beginning and could take care of my family. I was not afraid to start from scratch, I was afraid that they would kill me or my children, but nothing stops those guys. They found me and now they want me to continue paying them or they will hurt my family who stayed behind in Mexico, ”says Óscar with a broken voice.

Fear made him hesitate to tell his story. He asked not to use his real name or state his hometown. "Don’t even mention the state," he said. He also doesn't want to say where he is now. He just wanted to share that he is from western Mexico, from the border area between Jalisco, Guanajuato and Michoacán, territory that the Jalisco Nueva Generación Cartel disputes with other criminal organizations.

“One day they called me on the phone. I answered because the number was from my hometown. I thought it was a relative who changed phone numbers and wanted to know how to come here. When I left I told them that I would do my best to start bringing them over ”.

But he wasn’t a relative. The voice on the phone told him that he had abandoned the business for them and that now he had to pay or there would be consequences for his family who was still in Mexico.

"I couldn’t believe it. I immediately thought of my aunts. They are two elderly ladies and that's why I didn't think they were going to mess with them. They are the only thing I have left of my mother's family and I wouldn’t be able to bear it if something happens to them because of me ”.

Good fortune

Oscar started his business in 2009. His family was not rich, but he wasn’t lacking either. As a teenager he had worked in the kitchen of one of his aunts and then in a butcher shop, so from a very young age he became familiar with food preparation, from the choice of ingredients to the seasoning.

“My aunts taught me how to prepare food and a friend of my dad's how to choose meat, cut it and sell it. That encouraged me to start a restaurant. From what I saved in those years and a little money that my mother left me when she died, I bought my place. At first one of my aunts helped me, but she was already very old and her eyesight was beginning to fail, so she withdrew and sent me to some ladies who had already worked with them and knew her seasoning. From there, everything was successful ”.

Word spread and the truckers who were traveling on that road were going to eat. At all hours there was food, stews of pork, beef, chicken, some varieties of fish were the delight of travelers. At all times the place was full and there were even occasions, many times, when people had to wait in line.

That's where Oscar's problems began. “The truckers always came looking for something else, and well, we all know who moves what. He never wanted to get involved. I heard of a man whose business had been closed for drug dealing, so he would send them to the gas station or outside the Oxxo, there was always someone who sold ”.

He tells how he was once approached by a subject while with his wife. It was around 2013-2014. She tended the box while he cooked. “He was kind. He tried to convince us to sell meth and powder (methamphetamine and cocaine), but we said no. He insisted on good terms, said that we would never have to worry about money and that it was safe since the police only looked for the big traffickers, they didn’t bother small businesses and that if they did, with about three thousand, four thousand pesos they would gladly look the other way”.

But the answer was no. The pretext was that the business was a family place. “Yes, there are a lot of truck drivers, but there are also many families with children and I didn’t want such an environment here. Apparently, they understood and no longer bothered us.

There were months of peace. The business continued to prosper despite the fact that the situation in the area was becoming very tense. Clashes, shootings, robberies of trucks; suddenly the bodies of murdered people appeared. That seemed not to matter to Óscar, who already at that time sold, in addition to food, handicrafts and typical sweets in a section of his restaurant, which was already a favorite among locals to stop and eat there.

“A friend brought us tequila from Meritito Tequila, we sold sweets from the Lagos de Moreno area, we had strawberries from Irapuato and cajeta from Celaya. We were doing well and it was selling even though it was cheaper to buy those things where they originated, but then people had a craving and didn't want to deviate just to go for a basket of strawberries, I should’ve realized that it attracted the criminals ”.

He learned to identify the members of the cartels. Entire groups of men who arrived in vehicles, sometimes they didn’t even bother to hide their weapons. They walked into the restaurant with their rifles on their shoulders and reluctantly asked for food. The year was 2015.

One day one of them said that he would come every Friday for the protection fee. He didn’t threaten, nor did he raise his voice, nor did he say what the consequences would be for not paying. “He mentioned a number and he didn't even let me speak. I did the math and it came out to 25 percent of what the restaurant made per week. They knew very well how much money was coming in and going out of here, they had studied us well and I was very afraid. My wife said pay them, we'll still have enough. I regret it now, we should have left at that time ”.

Every week they arrived on time, they asked for their food that they no longer bothered to pay for and when they received it, it was also accompanied by a bag with the money.

For about four months that gave us peace of mind again, but things quickly deteriorated. Fewer truckers and fewer families were arriving, except on vacation. But more and more hitmen, drug traffickers, spies arrived.

In the same way that they came to demand their extortion, they began to sell drugs on the premises. “They didn't ask, they came with a backpack and said, this is going to be sold at 200, these at 250 and these at 500 pesos. Envelopes with white powder, weed and pink colored rocks. "You have to sell everything in a week and what isn’t sold you pay out of your own pockets," they told me. "

Contrary to what the first trafficker offered Óscar, he didn’t tell him anything about profits for him and he didn’t want them anyway. “Everything about the sale of drugs was for them, there were always some boys outside the premises seeing who came and what was sold. Spies who were only there to monitor drugs.

He never thought of going to the police. He knew that reporting was a death sentence. Sometimes a municipal patrol would arrive along with a truck of hitmen. "There you don't even think about it, you know they're in collusion." 

Whenever patrols or trucks with federal agents were going to arrive, they knew in advance because the spies would disappear.

He knew that the only way out of that situation was to run away and he started saving for it.

With great sacrifices they saved the little money that they had left to get their visas and then their tickets. It was the middle of 2018 and the share was already 40 percent of the profits. There were weeks that all the money earned was barely enough for the right to operate.

The escape

The family earnings no longer came out as before. He went from buying prime meat to buying medium quality scraps and steak. The criminals themselves mocked him. "'What happened to you, Oscar? Before you gave me good meat and now you serve me just scraps. ' It made me want to tell them that it was their fault, that they no longer let me buy the good stuff. But I preferred to shut up. He did know how they were going to take a comment like that ”.

A cousin in the United States made it easy for him to get out. He put money in his account and arranged the work visa process. "We wanted to apply for asylum, but my cousin told me that this was very risky and that it didn’t guarantee that they would let us through."

Despite the fact that during the Trump administration immigration policies were tightened in the United States, the truth is that there were certain facilities to obtain work visas, as long as they were requested by an employer, whether citizen or legal resident, from there. That is why the visas didn’t take more than a few months.

First, his wife and his children went to “watch over a cousin who had died there,” a pretext that Óscar himself used a few months later.

After four years of fear and anxiety, in January 2019 Óscar and his family had a new opportunity in the United States. In one of those cities that are home to thousands of countrymen and where they prosper thanks to their food businesses, the construction or maintenance of houses.

Cities like Los Angeles, Chicago, Salt Lake, Phoenix or San Antonio.

Oscar returned to his business, food. His cousin introduced him to a countryman who owned a restaurant, Memo, who was doing well, but he was struggling to find a good cook.

Oscar wanted to work, but he didn't want to be an employee, so without thinking, he offered Memo to buy a part of the restaurant and take care of the food. He spent all of his savings plus a sum borrowed from his cousin, but again he had a business.

The American nightmare

Oscar's American dream lasted two years. At the end of January 2021 he received a cell phone call from him. He was calling from an unknown number, except that it was the area code of his homeland.

"‘ What a miracle it is to hear from you my little Oscar, how you are doing there in the land of gringos, ’I immediately recognized the voice. It was the Boss, or at least that's what the small time drug dealers who went to my business called him. The same one who demanded a 25 percent share of the restaurant's profits and then took the drugs for me to sell them there. The one who claimed that I had only served him meat scraps ”.

He recounts with embarrassment and a bit of humor to ease his own stress that he literally wet his pants when he first heard the Boss on the phone. 

He didn't know what to answer, but it wasn't necessary either. The criminal told him that he was going to take care of his aunts, but that it was going to cost money. How much can you pay? The Boss asked Oscar, who told him almost without thinking the same amount he was paying just before fleeing.

“You’re doing better financially dumb ass. Now you earn in dollars, you earn more than that misery you were offering”, said the subject, who only added that, if he knew what was convenient for his aunts, he would put more into that protection fee. He let him think about it and told him that he would call him in a few days.

Oscar immediately called his aunts. They didn’t answer. He tried again and again until he succeeded. Agitated, he asked them how and where they were. Her aunt Mercedes, Meche, the oldest and who stopped working at the restaurant because she was losing her sight, told him that everything was fine, but she sensed that something was wrong. So without letting Oscar explain himself, she asked him not to worry.

"Male and I are old, son. Don’t you worry about anything. Soon we will die and you will no longer have to worry about us. You have your life there and don't worry about us. Don't come back to this town that suffers so many misfortunes, ”Aunt Meche told him.

Óscar says that he offered to take them with him, but that they refused to leave their home. “They are very stubborn. Foolish and stubborn as mules. That was my mother, ”he says while trying to hold back a cry that sounds like nostalgia.

“I don't know if it's to reassure me or if it's true, but Aunt Meche tells me that they haven't looked for her, nor threatened her and that she hasn't seen strange cars or things like that near her house. They are the only thing I have left of my mother and I couldn’t bear it if something happens to them because of me ”.

A few days later he received the call from the Employer again. He asked for a figure, I gave it to him, and he said it wasn’t enough. They were negotiating for the first time, something the narco trafficker never let him do when he was in Mexico.

To avoid suspicion, the criminal opened bank accounts in the name of each of the aunts where he receives the 2,500 dollars that Oscar sends each month. Always in small quantities and on dates that the Boss decided at random.

Oscar doesn't know how long he will be able to pay before facing bankruptcy again, but for now, he refuses to leave his relatives at the mercy of criminals.

“It makes me sad because I know that these people know no limits, they have no bottom in their monetary ambition. I know of two friends from the area where I grew up that are going through the same thing. I don't know if it’s with the same drug dealer or with another, but they have to send a share of money so that they don't hurt their relatives there. One left his wife and his little boy behind because he had no way to bring them with him. It’s all very sad ”.

In January 2021, Oscar weighed 110 kilos and was in relatively good health. He now weighs less than 85 kilos and he cannot eat many things that he likes, such as meat or cheeses, because he immediately has indigestion or acid reflux. He is losing his hair and his stress keeps him from sleeping. He only thinks about his aunts and how guilty he will feel if something happens to them for not paying.

El Sol de Mexico