“Community members”… color me skeptical. Anyone standing in the way of the cartels is killed (plus their family and neighbors). Usually these checkpoints are setup looking for rival cartel members and shaking down locals. I suspect the inspectors refused to pay or failed to offer to pay to pass through.
No, you're wrong. There are really community defense organizations and communities that have set up checkpoints against cartel violence. It's well known, well documented and there's even a link above to one particularly well known case of these organizations fighting the cartels. Some of them do eventually get infiltrated by gangs or turn into something similar, but not always. The idea that absolutely nobody stands in the way of the cartels is not only false but also paints an ignorantly defeatist narrative about their power.
Even the apparatus of the state in Mexico could stand in their way, or crush them, but due to a complex multitude of factors, it doesn't and appears weaker than they are though it's in fact stronger and in a certain way the senior partner in the tacit arrangements cartels and formal authorities create.
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“Community members”… color me skeptical. Anyone standing in the way of the cartels is killed (plus their family and neighbors). Usually these checkpoints are setup looking for rival cartel members and shaking down locals. I suspect the inspectors refused to pay or failed to offer to pay to pass through.
No, you're wrong. There are really community defense organizations and communities that have set up checkpoints against cartel violence. It's well known, well documented and there's even a link above to one particularly well known case of these organizations fighting the cartels. Some of them do eventually get infiltrated by gangs or turn into something similar, but not always. The idea that absolutely nobody stands in the way of the cartels is not only false but also paints an ignorantly defeatist narrative about their power.
Even the apparatus of the state in Mexico could stand in their way, or crush them, but due to a complex multitude of factors, it doesn't and appears weaker than they are though it's in fact stronger and in a certain way the senior partner in the tacit arrangements cartels and formal authorities create.
There is a history of local militias in Michoacán so this does not seem so far fetched. https://insightcrime.org/investigations/mexico-security-rise...
The cartels might also be smarter, than to mess with US inspectors. Because stopping the Avocado trade, does not make you friends at home.