Mexican Drug Cartel Forces Locals To Pay For Its Makeshift WiFi Or Be Killed

A Mexican drug cartel has threatened locals to pay for the makeshift WiFi they installed in the village or be killed, Metro reported. Notably, the cartel set up its makeshift internet antennas in the embattled central Mexico state of Michoacan using stolen equipment. The cartel is now demanding locals to pay its extortionate monthly fees or else be killed. The criminal group has been identified as the Los Viagras cartel by the local media.

As per the report, the group is charging approximately 5,000 people elevated prices between 400 and 500 pesos ($25 to $30) a month for the makeshift WiFi service dubbed “narco-antennas.” With this extortion scheme, the cartel usually earns around $150,000 a month.

An investigation found the residents of several towns were forced to sign up since at least August 2023, the Attorney General’s Office of Michoacán said in a statement.

”People were terrorized to contract the internet services at excessive costs, under the claim that they would be killed if they did not,” prosecutors said. However, no such deaths have been reported.

After an anonymous person tipped off the authorities after months of extortion, three properties were identified as where the scam was being operated and raids were conducted. Authorities seized some equipment that the cartel had been using for the scheme. 

“Three antennas and internet repeater equipment, as well as connection and computing” were seized on December 29.

Michoacan State police said, “The criminal network was making around 4 million pesos a month from forcing residents to use their internet service.”

Mexican cartels have been using a shadow network of radio towers and makeshift internet to communicate within criminal organizations and dodge authorities.

Falko Ernst, Mexico analyst for Crisis Group noted that 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 said: “It’s become sort of 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. It’s not solely about drugs anymore.”