| | |  Editorials | Issues | May 2009 
Mexican Trains, Trucks Hijacked in New Crime Wave
 Mica Rosenberg - Reuters
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Mexico City - With Mexican law enforcement tied up attacking drug cartels, free-lance crime gangs have become more daring and sophisticated, hijacking trucks and trains and stealing massive loads of steel, coffee and beans.
These gangsters are armed not only with guns but heavy machinery to unload industrial materials and bulk agricultural goods, deftly passing them off to the black market.
Mexico's third largest steel producer, Altos Hornos de Mexico, or AHMSA, has been victim of nearly 40 robberies since January 2008, mostly along one stretch of deserted road in northern Mexico between the cities of Monterrey and Monclova.
"This wasn't happening before," AHMSA spokesman Francisco Orduna said.
"To unload a 30-tonne roll of steel is complicated," he said. "Not just anyone can do that and to find someone who will buy that amount is not that easy either. You have to be really well organized."
Mexico's steel chamber said robberies skyrocketed by 250 percent last year, as 12,500 tonnes were carted off by thieves, sometimes truck and all. Losses totaled 150 million pesos ($11 million) in 2008 and have continued as a fast clip this year.
The robberies are raising the cost of doing business in Mexico as companies hire guards, expensive security consultants and specialized satellite positioning devices to track cargo.
The United States, worried about violence spilling over the border, has pledged millions of dollars to help Mexico attack drug traffickers and some 2,250 people have been killed this year alone as cartels fight the government and each other.
Analysts say the thefts could come from groups splintering off from drug gangs in the chaos.
"The internecine warfare has caused some of the smaller groups to branch off into other lucrative organized crime activities. It's a kind of diversification," University of Miami drug expert Bruce Bagley said.
"Stealing cargo, collecting protection money, kidnapping are all part and parcel. Once you get a taste for this life, it is hard to go back," he said.
TRAIN HEISTS, FARM EXTORTIONS
Using intelligence gathered from employees either intimidated or paid off to leak transport routes, the well-connected groups can hijack a truck making a pit stop, empty out the cargo and dump the driver on an abandoned road.
Gerardo Bortoni, who heads an association of truck drivers in Monclova, said the thieves hand products over to corrupt businessman while authorities turn the other way.
"They are stealing everything, coffee, cacao, pistachios. Before it was just sporadic now its very common. We're afraid to haul a lot of products," he said.
Due to the murky nature of the crimes, it is unclear who the customers are for the stolen goods but Bortoni said in the case of steel, buyers would need the capacity to process raw materials. Wholesalers say stolen food products will show up at the same markets they were taken from, just at a lower price.
Grupo Mexico (GMEXICOB.MX: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), which operates Ferromex, one of Mexico's main railroads, set up a system to pay government security forces to guard their trains after a spike in thefts.
In a series of hijackings late last year, bands of dozens of people, armed sometimes with machetes and rocks, sacked entire trainloads of corn and beans.
Rising unemployment from an economic downturn in Mexico and the United States has left legions of young men out of work, also aggravating the crime problem.
If the goods are not targeted in transit they can be hit before they are even loaded up.
When the lime harvest began last December in the western state of Michoacan, truckers packing produce were greeted by men with guns claiming links to two powerful drug cartels in the region and demanding a fee for each crate.
Luis Armas, who represents a group wholesalers in western Mexico, said the extortionists asked for cash as frequently as three times a week until the season ended in March.
The "tax" on about three-quarters of the national supply during those months raised the price of limes by a peso or two per kilo, Armas estimated.
"We usually don't carry weapons and don't have private security. We are easy targets," he said.
(Editing by Bill Trott) |
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