President of lime growers association found killed in his car after complaining about cartel extortion in Mexico

A leader of lime growers in the violent western Mexican state of Michoacan was killed Monday, authorities said, after repeatedly denouncing in recent months the extortion demands of organized crime on producers.

The Michoacan state prosecutor’s office said on social platform Monday that the body of Bernardo Bravo, president of the Apatzingan Valley Citrus Producers Association, was found in his vehicle on a road in the area.

In several interviews with Mexico’s Radio Formula in late September and earlier this month, Bravo denounced “organized crime’s permanent commercial hijacking of any commercial activity.” He said criminals’ demands had become out of reach for producers who were left with no other choice but to negotiate with them.

He conceded that the federal government had made some advances against organized crime in the area, but said more had to be done to end their impunity.

Last year, the federal government sent hundreds of troops to Michoacan to protect lime growers complaining of extortion threats.

In August, more than half of lime packing warehouses in the lowlands of Michoacan closed temporarily after growers and distributors said they had received demands from the Los Viagras and other cartels for a cut of their income.

Limes have been a revenue stream for cartels for years in Mexico.

In 2013, lime growers founded and led Mexico’s biggest vigilante movement. Cartels at the time had taken control of distribution, manipulating domestic prices for crops like avocados and limes, telling growers when they could harvest and at what price they could sell their crops.

Mexican gangs and other illegal actors have also targeted avocado production.

Cartel extortion in Mexico

Of the various criminal groups operating in Michoacan, several were declared foreign terrorist organizations by the Trump administration, including United Cartels, the New Michoacan Family and the Jalisco New Generation Cartel.

Cartels in many parts of Mexico have expanded into kidnapping and extortion to increase their income, demanding money from residents and business owners and threatening to kidnap or kill them if they refuse.

In July, Mexico’s government said it dismantled a criminal group behind a massive extortion scheme. The gang, with ties to a major drug cartel, had operated out of the central State of Mexico, extorting companies and individuals in 14 municipalities and controlling labor unions in the construction, mining, agriculture and parcel delivery industries.

In July 2024, a fisheries industry leader who complained of drug cartel extortion and illegal fishing was shot to death in the northern border state of Baja California. Minerva Pérez was killed just hours after she complained of widespread competition from illegal fishing.

Ordinary citizens are also targeted with extortion. In January 2024, a cartel in Michoacan set up its own makeshift internet antennas and told locals they had to pay to use its Wi-Fi service or they would be killed, prosecutors said. Dubbed “narco-antennas” by local media, the cartel’s system involved internet antennas set up in various towns built with stolen equipment.