Businesswoman who complained about cartel extortion and illegal fishing shot dead in Mexico

A Mexican fishing industry leader who complained about drug cartel extortion and illegal fishing was shot dead in the northern border region of Baja California, the government said Tuesday.

Unidentified gunmen killed Minerva Pérez, head of the Fishing Industry Chamber of the Environment, in what prosecutor Maria Elena Andrade described as an immediate assassination attack, in which the victim suffered multiple gunshot wounds.

The killing Monday in the port city of Ensenada came just hours after Pérez complained about the popular festival being caught over illegal fishing.

However in previous months Pérez had also complained that drug cartels were charging coverage bills from fishing boats, vendors, truck drivers or even restaurants.

“We are investigating all the issues related to whether this was linked to fishing conflicts,” Andrade said.

Pérez complained at an information conference that “illegally fished seafood goes to the same markets as legal seafood, but without the production costs,” or the environmental requirements that protect endangered or protected species such as sea turtles. To restrict the size of the Internet.

For example, Pérez mentioned “fishing nets whose mesh is not the correct size.” Nets with mesh that are too small or tight can destroy juveniles or species that are not intended.

Andrade said these court cases are part of the investigation into Pérez’s murder, although his previous charges of cartel extortion do not appear to be present at this time.

“We are very strong on issues related to fishing activities,” Andrade said. “We have no formal complaints about the extortionate payments.”

Julio Bardegué Sacristan, Mexico’s newly elected secretary of agriculture and rural building, condemned the killing in a post on social media, echoing Pérez’s court cases regarding corruption.

“We must end illegal fishing in Mexico,” he wrote.

Baja California Governor Marina del Pilar also condemned the killing in a social media post.

“I am committed to working tirelessly to ensure that what happened does not go unpunished,” the governor wrote.

In line with the Latin American Top for Fisheries and Aquaculture Sustainability, Pérez worked at several companies in the fishing industry, earning his master’s degree in leadership in 2002. In 2003, he received the first commercial permit to fish for clams in the Gulf of California. Said top.

Wanda Felbab-Brown, a senior fellow at the Strobe Talbot Center for Security, Technology, and Generation at the Brookings Institution, said the case shows that the government is vulnerable to repeated blackmail about the involvement of drug cartels in the production and distribution of certain foods. How resistant it has been to deal with. Parts of Mexico.

The federal government “has been completely indifferent and deaf to pleas from within the industry – from small fishermen to large industry actors to seafood processing plants – to provide protections against the cartels,” Felbab-Brown said.

He said, “One would hope that the horrific death of Minerva Pérez would eventually spur the Mexican government to action.”

According to the Tijuana newspaper Zeta, Pérez had publicly complained before the motion that drug cartels were challenging the coverage bill for every pound of clams, fish and alternative seafood bought or sold along the coast.

Mexican cartels are strong in coastal areas as they also conduct smuggling activities there. And in many parts of Mexico the cartels have expanded to kidnappings and kidnappings Extortion To increase their source of revenue, it is dangerous to snatch cash from citizens and business house owners and snatch or shoot them if they do not want it.

An employee at a seafood delivery company in Ensenada, who requested not to be quoted by name for fear of retribution, said extortionate demands have long been familiar knowledge in the industry.

Everyone “from the smallest fishing company to the largest companies” are victims of the gang’s extortion, the employee said.

It’s not just seafood anymore: Mexican gangs and other illegal actors have focused on it too avocado manufacturing,

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has refused to confront the cartels as part of his “no-bullet” policy, which seeks to downplay executive hand-out techniques in hopes of regularly reducing that sector of the country. from where drug gangs can contract.

López Obrador has insisted the coverage is ongoing despite figures released Tuesday that showed his leadership saw some 2,673 killings in June — roughly the same pace as before he took over in December 2018, when The national murder figure was 2,726.

closing speed, claudia sheinbaum Became Mexico’s first female leader in more than 200 years of self-determination.