MEXICO CITY (AP) — A Mexican drug cartel not solely pressured distributors to purchase rooster at wildly inflated costs — they offered them rooster “not safe to eat,” investigators concluded this week.
Prosecutors within the State of Mexico this week concluded a monthslong investigation that discovered the hyper-violent Familia Michoacana cartel had been forcing small shops and market distributors to purchase rooster at nearly twice the conventional worth.
However so as to add insult to damage, check outcomes launched Monday on rooster discovered at one cartel-controlled warehouse within the metropolis of Toluca — simply west of Mexico Metropolis — discovered components, a few of which prosecutors mentioned have been probably cancer-causing.
State prosecutors mentioned they’re “persevering with with investigations of two warehouses seized on March 27 in Toluca due to their presumed hyperlinks with extortion, and crimes towards customers.”
“The seized meals merchandise usually are not safe to eat,” the report mentioned, citing the presence of potassium and sodium tartrate, amongst different components discovered within the rooster.
The investigation started in December, when, days earlier than Christmas, 4 chicken-processing employees have been kidnapped from one of many warehouses.
Unusually, in a rustic the place kidnap victims are sometimes by no means seen once more, the 4 males have been discovered later unhurt and free of a car.
Prosecutors mentioned final week they later found the employees on the warehouse had been kidnapped by the gang as a part of a dispute with rivals, as a result of the abductors needed that warehouse for themselves.
The 2 warehouses raided final week have been profitable enterprises, as a result of prosecutors mentioned the cartel threatened clients if they didn’t agree to purchase rooster at a worth of 48 pesos ($3) per kilogram greater than the going price, which is about $3 per kilogram.
In different phrases, the gang, which is thought for ambushing police patrols and massacring a complete city authorities in 2022 — offered unhealthy birds at twice the going worth.
Mexican cartels have gone to excessive lengths to diversify their revenue past simply trafficking medication, extorting cash from everybody from tortilla outlets to bus and taxi drivers. They’ve violently taken over authentic enterprise starting from iron ore mining to web service.
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Observe AP’s protection of Latin America and the Caribbean at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america
