Mexican gangs set up Wi-Fi network and threaten to kill locals who don’t use it

Law enforcement officers seize stolen internet equipment used by the Los Viagras cartel in what is being called a ‘narco-antennas’ scam

A Mexican drug cartel created its own makeshift Wi-Fi service and warned terrified residents they had to pay increased prices to use it or risk being killed.
In what has been called a “narco-antennas” scam by local media, the gang’s system involved setting up internet antennas in various towns in the central state of Michoacán built with stolen equipment.
The cartel charged approximately 5,000 people elevated prices of between 400 and 500 pesos (£18.50 to £23) a month, the Michoacán state prosecutor’s office told the Associated Press. That meant it could rake in some $150,000 (£118,500) a month from the scheme.
People were terrorised “to contract the internet services at excessive costs, under the claim that they would be killed if they did not,” prosecutors said, although they didn’t report any such deaths.
Local media identified the criminal group as the Los Viagras cartel. Prosecutors declined to say which cartel was involved because the case was still under investigation, but they confirmed Los Viagras dominates the towns forced to make the Wi-Fi payments.
Law enforcement seized the equipment late last week and shared photos of the makeshift antennas and piles of equipment and routers with the labels of the Mexican internet company Telmex, owned by Carlos Slim, the powerful Mexican businessman. There was no suggestion that Telmex and Mr Slim were involved in the cartel’s scheme. 
Law enforcement officers detained one person.
Mexican cartels have long employed a shadow network of radio towers and makeshift internet to communicate out of authorities’ earshot.
But the use of such towers to extort communities is part of a larger trend in the country, said Falko Ernst, a Mexico analyst for Crisis Group.
Mr Ernst said the approximately 200 armed criminal groups active in Mexico no longer focus just on drug trafficking but are also “becoming de facto monopolists of certain services and other legal markets”.
He added that as cartels have gained firmer control of large swaths of Mexico, they have effectively formed “fiefdoms”.
Gangs in some areas are charging taxes on basic foods and imported products, Mr Ernst said, noting they have also infiltrated Michoacán’s lucrative avocado business and lime markets as well as parts of local mining industries.
“It’s really become like an all around game for them. And it’s not specific to any particular good or market anymore. It’s become about holding territory through violence,” he said. 
“It’s not solely about drugs anymore.”