Lime growers' leader in Mexico killed after denouncing cartel extortion

MEXICO CITY — A leader of lime growers in the violent western Mexican state of Michoacan was killed Monday, authorities said, after repeatedly denouncing in recent months the extortion demands of organized crime on producers.

The Michoacan state prosecutor’s office said on social platform X Monday that the body of Bernardo Bravo, president of the Apatzingan Valley Citrus Producers Association, was found in his vehicle on a road in the area.

In several interviews with Mexico’s Radio Formula in late September and earlier this month, Bravo denounced “organized crime’s permanent commercial hijacking of any commercial activity." He said criminals’ demands had become out of reach for producers who were left with no other choice but to negotiate with them.

He conceded that the federal government had made some advances against organized crime in the area, but said more had to be done to end their impunity.

Last year, the federal government sent hundreds of troops to Michoacan to protect lime growers complaining of extortion threats.

In August, more than half of lime packing warehouses in the lowlands of Michoacan closed temporarily after growers and distributors said they had received demands from the Los Viagras and other cartels for a cut of their income.

Limes have been a revenue stream for cartels for years in Mexico.

In 2013, lime growers founded and led Mexico’s biggest vigilante movement. Cartels at the time had taken control of distribution, manipulating domestic prices for crops like avocados and limes, telling growers when they could harvest and at what price they could sell their crops.

Of the various criminal groups operating in Michoacan, several were declared foreign terrorist organizations by the Trump administration, including United Cartels, the New Michoacan Family and the Jalisco New Generation Cartel.