Mica Rosenberg and Adriana Barrera, Reuters · Mar. 22, 2011 | Last Updated: Mar. 22, 2011 3:45 PM ET
MEXICO CITY - Organized crime gangs equipped with automatic weapons and tractor trailers are branching out into raids on huge grain silos, in a sign
of growing lawlessness in parts of Mexico’s north.
Attacks on warehouses and cargo trucks have multiplied into a near-weekly affair in the northwestern state of Sinaloa, where one of the worst cold
snaps in decades wiped out corn and vegetable plots last month, pushing up prices of the remaining harvest and making it more attractive to thieves.
The unusual crime wave in major agricultural exporting states is a new headache for the Mexican government struggling to maintain the country’s image
as a top emerging market.
Mexico’s national warehousing association AAGEDE said the spike in thefts began a year or two ago, but its members are only recently coming forward
and many are still too scared to report details on the number or scale of the incidents.
Jose Jimenez, director of Mexican storage company ALMER, told of one robbery last year in a tiny town in the central state of Zacatecas where an armed
commando emptied a warehouse of 900 tonnes of beans, worth around $750,000, loading up 30 trucks over the course of an entire day.
The gang left five tonnes of beans with local townspeople to keep them quiet and the police did not show up until two days later, he said.
Many warehousers are boosting spending on security, adding fortress-like protections to their installations, AAGEDE’s director Raul Millan said.
“We are building war-like trenches around our warehouses ... and guard houses, like a medieval castle,” Mr. Jimenez said. The company had to increase
security spending by up to five percent, he said.
Authorities have made little progress in identifying the culprits of the large-scale robberies. Some producers speculate drug gangs may be using money
earned from the sale of stolen grains to bankroll criminal activities.
Robbers can easily sell truckloads of seed and corn to intermediaries and big-city markets as buyers ask few questions about where the goods came
from.
“They come in groups of 20 or 30 masked men with their own trailers,” Jesus Palomir of Sinaloa’s agricultural producers association CAADES, said.
“It’s very well organized.”
LURED BY CORN PRICES
Sinaloa state grows a fifth of Mexico’s corn and most of the country’s tomatoes but is also known as the heartland of the drug trade, home to the
powerful cartel of the same name.
Since President Felipe Calderon vowed a crackdown on cartels four years ago, around 36,000 people have died in drug violence as rival gangs battle
security forces and each other.
Some analysts say the army-backed campaign is splintering and weakening the drug gangs, pushing them to make money from new criminal enterprises.
Experts say drug cartels are diversifying: extorting a wide-range of businesses, from farmers to shop owners, and tapping pipelines to steal crude
from the state oil company.
Last week gunmen locked a warehouse owner in a room and carted off vehicles full of corn in the Sinaloan town of Los Mochis, local police said. Media
reports said the thieves made off with 250 tonnes of grain.
State police have documented five similar cases so far this year but say many more are probably never reported.
“Gangs are robbing bags of seed from producers in warehouses and in the fields,” said Adalberto Mustieles, head of farm services in Sinaloa’s state
government. “They beat up the farmers and steal their trucks.”
Bandits are lured by higher white corn prices in Mexico, which jumped more than 30% in the first three months of the year due to damage to crops and
rising international prices. Corn futures in Chicago have surged about 75% from last summer, approaching US$6 per bushel.
The perception of a supply squeeze in Mexico, the world’s fourth largest corn producer, is pushing up prices, giving gangs an incentive to step up
attacks. The thefts are hurting already cash-strapped growers trying to replant after losses from bad weather.
“More and more agricultural products are being stolen and sold on the black market,” Mr. Palomir said. “It is driven by current prices.”
Originally posted by Eugenio
Americans using corn are responible for the proliferaton of gangs and cartels in Mexico - and here's proof...
The Chinese, being full aware of the insidious nature of corn, have been developing a Tortilla made of hybrid cardboard for export to Mexico.
The end is near for criminals. They'll just have to go back to being attorneys.monoloco - 3-24-2011 at 06:46 AM
Corn is the basis for almost everything we eat, ethanol subsidies (corporate welfare) insure an artificially high price for food. The growing income
inequality in the world insures more of this and other kinds of crime.backninedan - 3-24-2011 at 02:03 PM
Japanese corn glows in the dark.Eugenio - 3-24-2011 at 04:36 PM
Thank ya...thank ya very much...I love ya man. DanO - 3-24-2011 at 04:46 PM
This is all very well and good, but what is being done about THE CHILDREN OF THE CORN?!
DENNIS - 3-24-2011 at 04:50 PM
Quote:
Originally posted by DanO
This is all very well and good, but what is being done about THE CHILDREN OF THE CORN?!
Plot summaryBurt and Vicky, a bickering couple, are driving to California. As they drive through rural Nebraska, the couple accidentally hit and run
over the body of a young boy who ran into the road escaping unseen assailants. Upon examination of the body, ignoring Vicky's pleas, Burt discovers
the boy's throat had been slit and he was bleeding to death before he was hit. Knowing they will have to report this to the authorities, they place
the body in their car's trunk and continue down the road. They eventually arrive in Gatlin, a small, isolated community that seems to be a ghost town.
When they drive through the streets and visit an empty diner, the couple notice that many things about the town are out-of-date, such as gas prices
and calendar dates. When they finally locate the police station, they find no one. This fact piques Burt's interest, and he tells a frightened Vicky
that he is going to explore the town. By now, Vicky, verging on hysteria, begs Burt to leave Gatlin.
The only building in use that Burt can find is a church with a recent date on the sign out front. In stark contrast with the rest of Gatlin—which has
been ravaged and neglected for years—the church is reverently cared for. Inside, Burt finds that the church has been vandalized by someone who has
torn the lettering off of the walls, created a strange mosaic of a pagan Jesus behind the altar, and stuffed the pipes of the organ full of corn husks
and leaves. At the altar, Burt finds a ledger where names have been recorded, along with birth and death dates. While reading the book, he notices
that the children's original names were changed from modern names to Biblical ones, and that everyone listed as deceased in the book had died at age
nineteen. Finally realizing the danger he's in, Burt runs from the church to find that a gang of Barbaric, tribal-looking children armed with farm
tools have surrounded the car, with Vicky still inside. Burt intervenes when they attack, and kills a boy who had injured him with a knife. He
discovers that Vicky has disappeared. Upon command from an older boy, the children chase Burt through Gatlin.
Finally out-running them, Burt ducks into a cornfield and hides while his attackers search for him. Burt begins to walk through the corn as night
falls. Becoming lost, Burt stumbles onto a circle of empty ground in the middle of the cornfield, where he discovers the skeletonized corpses of
Gatlin's previous minister and police chief, bound to crosses with barbed-wire and their eyes sewn shut. Vicky has been ritually slaughtered in the
same manner. As Burt begins to weep, he notices that there are no animals in the vicinity; something odd considering that various insects and birds
are known to inhabit cornfields. Burt soon realizes that something evil is coming for him—the demonic god that the corn-cult worships.
In the morning, the children of Gatlin (all members of a pagan/baptist cult that worships a demonic version of Jesus called "He Who Walks Behind the
Rows" who animistically inhabits the cornfields that surround the town) meet where Burt and Vicky were slain. Isaac, their leader, tells them that He
Who Walks Behind the Rows is displeased with their failure to catch and kill Burt, an act that the demon was forced to commit on his own. He Who Walks
Behind the Rows commands that the age limit be lowered from "nineteen plantings and harvestings to eighteen". The story ends with the
eighteen-year-old children of Gatlin walking into the corn, to be devoured by whatever unspeakable spirit lurks there.DanO - 3-24-2011 at 05:29 PM
The moral of that story, of course, is that you should never bicker while driving to California.Marc - 3-28-2011 at 07:42 PM
Quote:
Originally posted by soulpatch
Quote:
Originally posted by DanO
The moral of that story, of course, is that you should never bicker while driving to California.
Next time don't argue, just dicker.
The moral is don't stop.Marc - 3-28-2011 at 07:43 PM
Quote:
Originally posted by backninedan
Japanese corn glows in the dark.
Must make a really cool popcorn.fishabductor - 3-28-2011 at 07:48 PM
I hear they are also stealing tanker ships full of iron ore, crude oil, rice...basically anything of value.
Mexico had better stop this, or everyone will quit producing everything.
and dicker hard.
[Edited on 3-29-2011 by fishabductor]Woooosh - 3-28-2011 at 07:51 PM
I was watching a History Channel the other day "Chronic- The History of Marijuana in the USA" and they blamed the Mexicans for the USA drug problem.
It said migrant Mexican farm workers in the early 1900's used pot to relax after a hard days work in the fields. Resentment grew against the workers
and their drug and Marijuana was made illegal shortly after that as a result.
I also know Marijuana existed in the USA a hundred years before then and was the main fiber-plant gown for rope anchors and sail canvas. The word
"canvas" is derived from the word "cannibas."mulegemichael - 3-28-2011 at 08:01 PM
and nothing like a good ol corn on the cob with butter dripping off it and sprinkled with salt...aint nothin'!!!....Woooosh - 3-28-2011 at 08:06 PM
Quote:
Originally posted by mulegemichael
and nothing like a good ol corn on the cob with butter dripping off it and sprinkled with salt...aint nothin'!!!....
I though that too until I tried "Crazy Corn", a St. Louis favorite: corn on the cob, buttered, rolled in mayonnaise, then rolled in shredded Parmesan
cheese. From the place that toasts their ravioli's...fishabductor - 3-28-2011 at 08:19 PM
Quote:
Originally posted by Woooosh
I was watching a History Channel the other day "Chronic- The History of Marijuana in the USA" and they blamed the Mexicans for the USA drug problem.
It said migrant Mexican farm workers in the early 1900's used pot to relax after a hard days work in the fields. Resentment grew against the workers
and their drug and Marijuana was made illegal shortly after that as a result.
I also know Marijuana existed in the USA a hundred years before then and was the main fiber-plant gown for rope anchors and sail canvas. The word
"canvas" is derived from the word "cannibas."
