Amid rising political tensions and violence, the mayor of the border city of Matamoros, Tamaulipas, announced a crackdown against extortion operations tied to organized crime. The announcement sparked much speculation as the extortions in Matamoros are controlled by the Gulf Cartel, and, as first reported by Breitbart Texas, city officials have been directly linked to the operations and have even collected funds on behalf of the criminal organization.
In recent days, Alberto “Beto” Granados announced that his city would work with state, federal, and military authorities to crack down on extortion by organized crime. In various public comments, Granados claimed that extortions have stunted the city’s economic growth and scared away foreign investment.
The claims by Granados have been welcomed by some businessmen but also met with much incredulity by others due to the widespread corruption and cartel ties between city officials and the Gulf Cartel.
The announcement of the new operation comes in the aftermath of a high-profile arrest, where, as Breitbart Texas reported, authorities in the state of Jalisco arrested the mayor of the city of Tequila on extortion and kidnapping charges. In Tequila, the city mayor and some of his closest staff members had been using city policies and other measures to extort numerous businesses, including liquor and beer makers. In that city, public officials would flaunt their ties to the terrorist Cartel Jalisco New Generation as a way to pressure business oweners in to paying the extortion fees; some of the money from those fees was later funneled into the drug cartel.
Breitbart Texas has reported on a series of extortion schemes in Matamoros that are similar to the ones outed in Tequila. In a 2023 report, Breitbart Texas revealed how city officials in Matamoros were extorting business owners for fees to the Gulf Cartel. In some cases reported by Breitbart, the fees had to be paid in cash, and city officials would provide business owners with a receipt for tax purposes that disguised the true nature of the extortion.
The various reports from Breitbart Texas had similar information as the alerts that were once given by the late Julio Almanza, the former head of a national chamber of commerce, who died at the hands of cartel gunmen for calling out the widespread practice of extortion. As Breitbart Texas reported, the gunmen killed Almanza outside of his office in Matamoros in a crime that remains unsolved to this day.
Editor’s Note: Breitbart News Foundation traveled to Mexico City and the states of Tamaulipas, Coahuila, and Nuevo León to recruit citizen journalists willing to risk their lives and expose the cartels silencing their communities. The writers would face certain death at the hands of the various cartels that operate in those areas, including the Gulf Cartel and Los Zetas, if a pseudonym were not used. Breitbart News Foundation’s Cartel Chronicles are published in both English and their original Spanish. This article was written by “J.A. Espinoza” from Tamaulipas.
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The Breitbart News Foundation is an independent non-profit. All content created by it is available for licensing without charge to any legitimate publisher with a large audience and that agrees to the licensing terms. For licensing information, please contact us.
