Wednesday, October 29, 2025

Extortion creates tortilla shortage in Celaya; owners close doors in protest

Organized crime has left several neighborhoods in Celaya, Guanajuato, without tortillas for the last four days.

Dozens of tortilla makers in the southwest of the city shut down their businesses on Saturday and have remained closed to protest against the presence of violent criminal gangs that charge extortion payments known as cobro de piso, and to demand government action.

“Due to intimidation and the possibility of retaliation, those affected haven’t in all cases reported the extortioners but [instead] chose to close because their incomes are not sufficient to cover the fees that criminals demand from them,” a local tortilla makers’ association said in a statement.

Among the neighborhoods where tortillerías were closed yesterday were Lagos, Las Flores, Santa Isabel, Jacarandas, El Ejidal and Monte Blanco, the newspaper El Universal reported.

“People have been walking around looking for a place to buy [tortillas]. A lot of businesses are closed. It’s very unfortunate, very sad, never before have we reached such extremes,” said Fernando Arellano, a priest at a church in Las Flores.

“All the tortillerías are closed,” said 65-year-old Mariana, who walked seven blocks searching for tortillas. “What are we going to do now? Well, go to [the supermarket] Mega, surely there are tortillas there.”

One store that was closed yesterday was tortillería La Indita, a 57-year-old family business in the neighborhood of Lagos.

However, the shop’s owner didn’t close as part of the protest against violence and extortion.

Virginia “N” and two female employees were shot dead by a suspected extortion gang on Monday as they worked, an attack that has left other tortilla shop workers fearful for their own lives.

“Of course, we’re afraid,” said a young woman working yesterday at one of only two tortilla shops that were open in Celaya’s southwest.

“What can you do? We have to work, right?”

Source: El Universal (sp) 

A farmer protesting corn prices in Mexico sits in his tractor during a blockade in León, Mexico

Farmers end highway blockades after ag ministry agrees to 950 peso per tonne corn subsidy

0
The Mexican government reached an agreement with corn farmers early Wednesday that will benefit 90,000 small-scale producers with plots of up to 20 hectares and cover up to 200 tonnes per producer.
The U.S. Department of War, at the direction of President Trump, carried out on Monday three lethal kinetic strikes on four vessels in the eastern Pacific Ocean.

Mexico rescues lone survivor of US strikes on alleged drug boats that killed 14

0
Sheinbaum told her Tuesday morning press conference that the Mexican Navy, “for humanitarian reasons” and in accordance with “international treaties, decided to rescue” the survivor of the U.S. strikes but that her government “doesn’t agree with these attacks as they occur.”
Aaron Ramsey and Halo

Saga of soccer star’s missing dog Halo continues in San Miguel de Allende 

4
Aaron Ramsey, the first high-profile British soccer star in Liga MX, has been looking for his dog Halo since Oct. 10. Whether she's lost or stolen, dead or alive, he wants her back.
BETA Version - Powered by Perplexity