The Broke Ass Cartel Extorts Citizens For Every Tree That Provides Shade

"Sol Prendido" for Borderland Beat

Cartels charge a new “tax” per tree to protect themselves from the sun in Tamaulipas

Los Ciclones and Los Metros, divisions of the Gulf Cartel, impose fees on families for each tree that shades a home in that hot area.

Starting in March, a cool house in times of drought or heatwave is a privilege that only a few will be able to enjoy on the border in Tamaulipas, where the cartels devised a new criminal tax.

Three inhabitants of that region – two in the municipality of Valle Hermoso and one in Río Bravo – contacted MILENIO to reveal that the criminal groups Los Ciclones and Los Metros, divisions of the Gulf cartel, already charge families for each tree that shadows a home in that hot part of ​​Mexico.

“I'm clear about when this happened, because it was the day after my husband's birthday: March 27th. Some people arrived who said they were from 'La Empresa' (Los Ciclones) and told us that from now on they were going to charge for the trees in the houses. They forced their way in and they told me four, even a small one that shadows the dog when it lies on the ground, out there in the cold,” complains Graciela, whose real name has been changed at her request.

What is 'the shadow right'?

The 62-year-old woman calls this extortion “the shadow right.”

Before this year, the shade was one of the few pleasures – free, simple – that I kept in a land devastated by organized crime, forced migration and poverty: to “tomar un refresco” on the porch of the one-story house that she shares with her husband, Ignacio, 70, means drinking a glass of cold water under a leafy oak tree that has refreshed her since she was a child.

Now, that joy has a price: 100 pesos a month to enjoy the shade of the tree, those three young twenty-something members of Los Ciclones told him on a morning that the National Meteorological Service indicated that in Valle Hermoso the temperature would reach 34 degrees.

If Graciela doesn't pay, she will have to cut it down. Neither she nor her husband have the strength to do it, and their children have lived in the United States for several years, so if they fail to comply with the extortion, they will have to set aside their savings to pay one of the cartel boys to tear down the oak and the other three trees that are noted in the plaza leader's notebook.

“They don't have mercy on you here for being old. We all pay. Other neighbors pay for the repair of their house, for your car, for the animals. Here there is none of that respect for senior citizens: you don't pay, then they kill you,” says Ignacio, with his tremulous voice, on the other side of the phone line, near the burning border with Texas.

What do criminal gangs demand?

The list of goods, services or “comforts” for which organized crime charges Mexicans fees is increasingly extensive and delirious.

In Navolato, Sinaloa, the Pacific cartel charges gas stations for people who use public bathrooms; in Lagos de Moreno, Jalisco, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) has a tax on bricks used to remodel a house; In Nueva Italia, Michoacán, the criminal group Los Viagras installed their own internet system with stolen modems and antennas and forced residents to contract the service.

In Texcaltitlán, State of Mexico, La Nueva Familia Michoacana collects money for every meter of crops, regardless of whether it is for sale or self-consumption.

In Celaya, Guanajuato, the Santa Rosa de Lima cartel demands a fee from escorts who offer sexual services in public and online; In San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas, the Chamula cartel demands a percentage of the payment for candles for church masses.

In Tamaulipas, the situation is no different; After the fragmentation of the Gulf cartel into five large splits, each one has invented new taxes in the territories where they stay: in Tampico, Los Rojos charge workers on Miramar Beach for the use of palapas and chairs; In Soto de la Marina, Las Panteras collect money for each new fishing boat motor.

In Matamoros, Reynosa and Nuevo Laredo, Ciclones, Escorpiones and Metros are paid, among other things, for each crossing at the checkpoints, for bringing merchandise from the United States to Mexico and even for a new truck.

Now, there is also a charge for the “shade right.” The argument that Graciela, Ignacio and 14 neighbors in the municipality received – there could be more, but in that area it is not customary to ask about these issues – is that Los Ciclones and Los Metros need more money to fight against the “invasion” of the CJNG and the mob of Ismael El Mayo Zambada that began two years ago and is considered the largest incursion of foreign criminals in the history of the state.

“They told us that they need to defend, that Tamaulipas continues to belong to the citizens of Tamaulipas. Pure nonsense. What they don't want is for their thieving business to end and they’re looking into where they can get the weapons, the bullets, everything that we want to see end," says Graciela.

Ignacio, in the background, nods with a clearing of his throat. I'm losing the signal.

What other things can criminals remove?

35 minutes by car from the Valle Hermoso community is the municipality of Río Bravo, on the south side of Donna, Texas. Julio, nephew of Graciela and Ignacio, lives there, and from his house confirms the existence of the new criminal tax. The day we spoke, the app on his phone recorded 36 degrees as the maximum temperature.

“Two days after they arrived with my uncles, (the criminals) arrived with me. That's how they are all over the border. They are writing down trees, addresses, names. I told them that I already paid them for a tire shop that I have, but they didn't care. They are obsessed with the war they bring and that the honest citizens aren’t worth a fuck,” he says.

Julio, at 32 years old, has not stopped thinking since that day that, at least, the cartel has imagination: in a place as impoverished as Río Bravo - what else was there left for organized crime to take from them, if not the shadows of the trees?

For two years, Río Bravo and surrounding municipalities like Valle Hermoso have been the jewel in the crown of a battle never before seen in the country. What Julio, uncles and neighbors say is that, one bad day, an old Zeta boss known as El Chuy 7 got tired of leading a small group known as Los Zetas Old School.

After this, he wanted to return to his former power by forging an unlikely alliance with El Mencho's and El Mayo Zambada's gunmen to wrest from the Gulf cartel the dominance of Tamaulipas that it has held since the 1930s.

At the same time, another criminal boss, El Primito, leader of a dissident faction of Los Metros, also sought out invaders from Jalisco, Sinaloa and La Nueva Familia Michoacana to form a common front against the “Gulf Cartel hitmen,” who have had to stop outsiders with checkpoints in southern end of the state, for example, in Ciudad Mante, Aldama and Altamira.

“And wars are won with money, right? Everyone knows that. The problem is that the money leaves us,” Julio summarizes to explain the growth of the new criminal taxes. “If the war is resolved, the extortion ends. If it continues, what else are you going to think of?”

In his municipality alone, organized crime already charges 20% more for cigarettes and alcohol, requests fees for the sale of firewood for cooking, for having chickens or pigs and, now, for shade.

About eight years ago he uninstalled the air conditioning in his living room because it was too expensive. He replaced it with a fan — “a fan that only blows hot air, it doesn't cool,” he says — which is insufficient.

The shade is the only thing that alleviates the heat that can exceed 40 degrees in summer, while sipping a can of beer with the most expensive price in the region arbitrarily set by Los Ciclones.

From some corner of his house, Julio asks for help and shares his plan waiting for better times to come: he will imitate his uncles in Valle Hermoso and cut down all the trees on his property, except the one He uses to hang his hammock.

Graciela and Ignacio, on the other hand, will pay to save only the oak tree in his yard. One day, they hope, they will be able to plant more without fear of being killed.

Milenio