The article "Mexico Under Siege" found in the Los Angeles Times is written by Tracy Wilkinson. According to this article, Juan Arturo Vargas, who is also known as "The Rat" would threaten businesses every week in Nicolas Romero. Nicolas Romero is small working-class town that is an hour away from Mexico City. He would force the owners of the businesses to pay from $25 to up to several hundred dollars. His leverage is that either they pay or their kids get hurt. Police and prosecutors say that "The Rat" worked in the fastest growing nonlethal criminal enterprise in Mexico, which was extortion. Businesses, construction projects, and even some of Mexico's most wealthiest citizens has been a victim to extortion at least once. This has reached a point where the priests are not even safe. Extortionist have the capability to shut down school systems, destroy real estate companies, and drive entrepreneurs into hiding or out of the country. Although the act is not violent, it still leads to violent results. For example a casino in Monterrey that failed to pay off extortionists was firebombed, killing 52 people of which were mostly middle-aged women playing bingo.
Extortion is a crime that is actually increasing the number of drug cartels across Mexico. According to Edna Jaime, the head of Mexico Evalua, extortion is under reported and does terrible damage to the economy and to the society as well. Two-thirds of extortion cases are not reported to authorities. This type of crime usually takes place on the telephone by pretending to have kidnapped a relative, threatens to kidnap them, or pretends to be outside of their business or home and prepared to open fire. The extortionist does not always have information about the target and relied mainly on fear. Some of the extortionists also include gangs who have control over the territory their in and makes their threats in person. These types of people demand "quotas", which are a kind of protection money.
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