The system has already been established for five years. They don’t prohibit you from selling, but they do control what you sell. This butcher from Cuautla does not give his name, nor is it necessary: his testimony is that of hundreds of merchants from the Los Altos region and the eastern area of Morelos who, like him, have seen how their business ceased to be theirs.
“They are different groups, even among them they are fighting for squares,” he says.
“Lately they have been wearing hoods; they were walking normally, but since the disputes started, they come with their balaclavas, they no longer show themselves. They are still the same. And the usual way of collecting: ‘I’ll leave you the pig, at noon I want my money in cash.'”
—How does the transaction work?—
“They give it to you in the morning and when they come to collect the pork, the order for what you will want is delivered the next day.”
It is not an anonymous phone call from the street extortionist from prison. It is a forced monopoly that controls the supply, sets the price, eliminates competition and punishes with death anyone who tries to deviate from the already normalized scheme.
—What would happen if you bought in the State of Mexico or in Mexico City?—
“We are threatened that we will abide (sic) to the consequences. They have killed butchers. There are several butchers who have killed them, they have gotten away, they have gotten cheaper meat from the State of Mexico and, for trying to distribute it among ourselves, they have been eliminated (sic).”
The carcass, which is the complete body of the pig after being slaughtered and processed, in the State of Mexico, would have a cost close to 2 thousand pesos; with them – he warns – at 3,500.
—Is it at least quality?—
“No, no, no… Quality is the worst there can be.”
Cuautla is not only a municipality with a high crime rate; It is the epicenter of extortion. Between January and July 2026 alone, it registered 96 complaints of in-person extortion, according to official figures.
But the most revealing figure is the hidden one: it is estimated that 96 percent of extortion cases are not reported.
—Present before the Public Ministry?—
“Very difficult because you don’t know if they are colluding and pointing fingers at you. Everything is colluded: Cuautla, Villa de Ayala, Tenextepango, everything in the center of the state of Morelos,” confesses this butcher.
Between August 2025 and August 2026, around 800 businesses would have closed due to the phenomenon of extortion, according to the Business Coordinating Council (CCE).
