Criminal involvement in Mexico’s mining industry

ADVANCED SPANISH VOCABULARY – READ THIS BOOK

insightcrime.org/Patrick Corcoran / Criminal involvement in Mexico’s mining industry is a small part of this broader dynamic, and indeed is a subset of the crime groups’ increased involvement in resource extraction. Groups around the country have developed a market at home and abroad for oil and gas stolen from the state oil company Pemex. In Lázaro Cárdenas, the Michoacán port city where the Knights Templar and the Michoacán Family have long reigned supreme, the assassination of a local steel executive, reportedly amid demands for extortion payments by his multinational employers, made international news in 2014.

There are two major negative consequences to this development: First, criminal organizations are more resilient because they carve out new sources of revenue as well as new allies in the business community, making it more difficult for the government to dismantle these illicit networks. And second, crime groups further enmesh themselves in the legitimate Mexican economy, increasing inefficiencies and placing a brake on the entire nation’s prosperity. Read Full Article