In northern Sinaloa there is a crime that affects transport entrepreneurs and that is, for now, ‘invisible’ to the authorities: the floor charge.
In the Municipality of Ahome (Los Mochis), closer to the south of Sonora than to Culiacán, they do not know which group they are, but there are already multiple alerts of armed subjects who charge fees for each trip made by potato and green tomato transporters, documented by the Noroeste media in a report.
Noroeste explained that the concern is that in the area not only the citizens must take care of the organizations dedicated to production and drug trafficking, retail drug trafficking, and that in their confrontations they cause murders.
“The transport sector is mainly being extorted, charging them fees for trips,” said a complainant who asked for anonymity.
“As far as we have knowledge, and let’s say, with some certainty, we know that the most affected have been the producers of potatoes, tomatillos, but the concern is that this will start to generalize and that we all carry with that unofficial tax, which would be disastrous for the finances of producers, because the field already has a price crisis, and adding costs”.
In the entity, the State Attorney General’s Office (FGE) and the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock agreed with this Sinaloan media that there are no records of the illicit activity.
“This issue has been dealt with at the security tables, but it is not in Sinaloa, it is at the limits with Nayarit, there is where the events are occurring, according to information that they brought us to the table,” said Sara Quiñónez Estrada, head of the FGE.
“It is not happening in Sinaloa. Or we do not have any news or concrete complaint that is happening in Sinaloa. We cannot act if they do not give us some details of the facts, some… specifying and taking care of all the circumstances of how the facts occurred for us to be able to act. Of course, we would attend to them”.
In the case of José Jaime Montes Salas, head of state Agriculture, he reiterated that he has not heard expressions of producers affected by this illicit.
“We each know what path we have to take in case these phenomena of lack of public security appear, they have already been historically. The farmers in the times of Toledo Corro, Calderón and others “
“The farmers in the times of Toledo Corro (Ex Governor Sinaloa 1981-1986), Calderón, and others who followed had an organism that was the anti-kidnapping that was led by Robles Rendón. There they made public complaints directly because this cannot be allowed”.
However, in anonymity the businessmen already distinguish that, specifically, one of these floor charges has been given on the exit of the town of Los Mochis on the Mexico 15 Highway.
“There are places where buyers congregate, for example, here in Los Mochis there are specific areas, where they arrive: the one who has the product goes and offers it, and the buyer negotiates it, they reach an agreement and then they go to the field”, adds the complainant. “At the exit of Mochis to the Mexico 15, in a place called Lienzo Charro, a gas station, there at the first hours of the morning there you will see a lot of people, negotiating”, the complainant reported.
“It seems that there the criminals arrive, the organized crime and imposes certain conditions to be able to leave with the load and if someone dares to leave, then they have their reprisals… and I do know of drivers who have been beaten”.
In the Executive Secretariat of the State Public Security System reported that January 2024 was the month with the most complaints for extortion, with 14, since 2010.
Dulce María Ruiz Castro, of the Mexican Association of Women Heads of Business in Ahome, said that the regional economy is at risk because agriculture represents the main source of employment in the demarcation.
“This type of actions affect considerably the productive sector because ultimately people live in fear of the events that may be happening if they were experienced. In the end, this is reflected in the pockets of everyone since the consumer is the last one who is buying the food that is already part of the basic basket, and that would undoubtedly affect the economic solvency of all Mexicans,” she said.
Source: Reforma
