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- But Michoacán state has been riven by a conflict between rival criminal groups, who have financed their battles and supplemented their drug-smuggling income by extorting local business owners and kidnapping (and often killing) landowners for ransom. As instability and criminality has engulfed Michoacán, official statistics count 8,258 murders between 2006 and 2015.
- So, in 2013, Tancítaro’s avocado growers decided to organise.
- “We cooperated to buy guns and build barricades,” says Javier, who asked that his last name not be used for reasons of security. “The fleteros, people who sell avocados, brought back guns hidden in their trucks. They were old guns, M-1s, high-calibre R-15s, Cuernos de chivo [literally, goat’s horns or AK-47s], M-14s. But people had sticks, too.”