This week, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador acknowledged that the price of Michoacan lemons was being affected by the extortions suffered by its producers at the hands of a criminal cell led by César Arellano Sepúlveda, alias “El Botox,” for whom the Michoacan Prosecutor’s Office is offering a 100,000-peso reward for his capture.
The President reported that members of the Army, National Guard, and State Police are already providing protection to producers in towns in the municipalities of Múgica, Apatzingán, and Buenavista Tomatlán, who have already completed five days of strike.
In an interview with the EFE agency, citrus producers reported that “external agents” (organized crime) are seeking to obtain new resources to finance their (illegal) activities, for which they forced 24 packing plants in Buenavista Tomatlán (the main lemon producer in Mexico) to pay them a “quota” (extortion) in exchange for letting them work and satisfy national demand.
In this context, this Saturday the newspaper El Universal released an audio in which the alleged voice of “El Botox” can be heard ordering his men to close the highway from Apatzingán to Tepalcatepec:
“Burn it and throw nails (tire-punctures) everywhere. Everywhere, even by Los Viagras, where Los Viagras are, stop quickly.”
“El Botox,” whose voice has already been identified by the authorities -according to El Universal sources- orders not to burn any cars, only to “block everything like hell. Nothing happens.”
“El Botox” established an alliance with Los Viagras
César Arellano Sepúlveda is considered one of the main generators of violence in the Tierra Caliente region, Michoacán, and according to intelligence reports, he managed to establish an alliance with the Los Viagras Cartel, one of the state’s criminal organizations focused on collecting extortion and protection money from merchants, producers and residents in general.
“El Botox” had already been arrested in 2018 in the state of Morelos, however, he regained his freedom after 20 months in prison; in addition to extorting lemon growers in Michoacán, he is linked to disappearances, kidnappings and homicides, including that of an interim mayor of the municipality of Buenavista.
Another of the alliances that “El Bótox” managed to establish was with the Jalisco Nueva Generación Cartel (CJNG); This is thanks to his son, César Alejandro Sepúlveda Valencia, arrested last October in the municipality of Apatzingán and who is facing a trial for the crime of carrying a firearm for the exclusive use of the Army.
The Blancos de Troya are part of the so-called United Cartels of Michoacán, responsible for the extortions in the region that forced 32 packaging companies to close their facilities, according to information released by the National Committee of the Mexican Lemon Product System.
The Caballeros Templarios, the Acahuato Cartel and the Zicuirán Cartel also operate in the region; the latter is responsible for collecting extortions in the municipality of Múgica, where 13 companies have agreed to pay the fees of organized crime, reported EFE.
Although the Government of Michoacán denied that the rise in the price of lemon is affected by extortions by criminal groups – information contrary to that of President López Obrador -; Since the work stoppage in the Tierra Caliente region, each kilogram of citrus has gone from 20 pesos to 50 in some areas of Mexico City.
And the extortions are focused on the country’s main producer, capable of introducing 700 thousand tons of lemon to the market annually, due to its 67 thousand hectares of cultivation and its 3,500 producers at the mercy of criminal groups.
Source: infobae
