Mexican Cartel Provided Wi-Fi To Locals - With Threat of Death If They Didn't Use It (theguardian.com) 97
A cartel in the embattled central Mexico state of Michoacan set up its own makeshift internet antennas and told locals they had to pay to use its wifi service or they would be killed, according to prosecutors. New submitter awwshit shares a story: Dubbed "narco-antennas" by local media, the cartel's system involved internet antennas set up in various towns built with stolen equipment. The group charged approximately 5,000 people elevated prices between 400 and 500 pesos ($25 and $30) a month, the Michoacan state prosecutor's office told the Associated Press. That meant the group could rake in about $150,000 a month. People were terrorized "to contract the internet services at excessive costs, under the claim that they would be killed if they did not," prosecutors said, though they did not report any such deaths. Local media identified the criminal group as a faction known as Los Viagras. Prosecutors declined to say which cartel was involved because the case was still under investigation, but they confirmed Los Viagras dominates the towns forced to make the wifi payments.
Similar to (Score:4, Funny)
The British TV licence.
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Re:Similar to (Score:4, Informative)
The horror in rural Wisconsin (Score:2)
"Up north" at my parent's tree farm that I operate, the governing elites think we need fiber optic broadband to every farm house.
They already started the process with a "town hall" to solicit comments, and the next step is putting this to a vote in a local election where my voter registration is in another county by my day job.
Geez Louise. I am going to get stuck with a special property tax assessment for the build-out, even if I don't subscribe. Don't these mouth breathers know that for this low den
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So you're getting FTTH to a rural low density area, and complain about it?
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Re: The horror in rural Wisconsin (Score:2)
Cost of the infrastructure (Score:2)
Wad'ya mean cost of the infrastructure?
This tree farm is not so so far in the sticks to lack cell-phone towers. And then there is Starlink.
Why does this rural area need landline Internet?
And what do I need Internet for when I am up there running a brush cutter to cut down weeds? If I want Internet, I can pay for it if I choose on my wireless plan.
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Not all jokes are great, nor they have to be. Black humor is a nice thing to have. And... I doubt that we need some humor police here to remind us to be conscientious.
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Reasonable from an American perspective. I don't live in Mexico, so it's possible Internet service is cheaper then that. Here in the states, about the cheapest I can find is $50 a month. I'd love to pay $25 a month but I want that to be an option not a requirement.
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Once again the brit*sh can't handle the bantz
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I live in the UK, I do not have a TV license as I do not watch it neither broadcast nor over the Internet. They send me a letter once a month with blood curdling threats about what they are going to do to me all over the envelope; inside, on the second page, a mention that I do not need a license if I do not watch it. They know that I do not watch TV - I told the man who came to visit some 4 years ago. I find what they are doing threatening, if I were to do the same to someone who used to be a customer I su
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Sounds like AT&T (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Sounds like AT&T (Score:5, Insightful)
The Mexican civilian population isn't allowed to have guns and so as Americans say "when guns are outlawed only the outlaws will have guns."
Re:Sounds like AT&T (Score:5, Insightful)
And this same behaviour is how the American Mafia, and other criminal organizations in the US exist as well.. Citizens with guns just make a mess of things.. and if anything, what has reduced the large scale criminal organizations in the US has been police accountability and increased transparency making it harder for such organizations to exist in the shadows.. so many just became "legit".. and instead of a gun, enforced their rules/policies/money with lawyers and police (who have guns).
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Re: Sounds like AT&T (Score:1)
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The right to bear arms is article 10 of the Mexican constitution. They have more process than in the US but that’s about it.
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The right to bear arms is article 10 of the Mexican constitution. They have more process than in the US but that’s about it.
That's not "about it." This massively downplays the difference between Mexico and the USA. That Mexican right to bear arms needs a heavy, bolded asterisk with a long footnote.
There are only two civilian gun stores in the country and the process is very long and extensive to get a gun. You're not allowed to bear arms unless your job requires it. Mexican civilian gun ownership per-capita is far lower than, say, Canada, which doesn't have any constitutional right to arms.
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Where do the cartels get their guns?
Re: Sounds like AT&T (Score:3)
Mostly the corrupt Mexican .mil, who gets a bunch of them from directly from the US Govt through FMS (foreign military sales) - gov-to-gov stuff.
Others they get from global dealers out of Russia or South America, a bunch they get from corrupt or sympathetic governments in South America, some from terrorist network connections, and some they just straight up make. Smuggling weapons from the US civilian market across the border is a small fraction because the risk / benefit ratio is small - takes a lot of tim
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But lets go back to the earlier post where you lied and made things up on the spot and then did a quick google search to find new talking points to keep your narrative going.
Doesn’t seem very honest to me. We need honest people in America.
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The Mexican civilian population isn't allowed to have guns and so as Americans say "when guns are outlawed only the outlaws will have guns."
When there's a lot of violence people look for solutions for that violence. Religion is a common solution for violence in general, and gun control for gun violence in specific.
That means wherever you find a lot of gun violence you're likely to find gun control and religion.
To figure out if either gun control or religion is effective, irrelevant, or counter-productive in stopping that gun violence is a job for actual researchers.
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Birth control and viagra. Easier availability of those means less violence. Make love, not war!
Re: Sounds like AT&T (Score:4, Interesting)
More guns doesn't stop organized crime. You're talking about the folks that would take over all the gun shops and imports. More guns doesn't save the narcos and other criminal groups from each other, why would it save some rando civilian?
Every militia you start is checked by a larger cartel militia, and regardless would be infiltrated by the cartels because they have money.
It's as ridiculous as suggesting Afghanistan just needs more good guys with guns, then through the natural goodness bus of guns they will prevail over evil, that will totally not accumulate more guns more wealth and more of whatever else they want because, well they are evil you dumbass.
Ooh more guns would have fixed the Wild West too I bet! Because the gangs of bad guys with guns would think twice about the possibility of every rancher having guns before stealing their cattle, yessir. Wait..
What good would giving them guns have? (Score:2)
There really is only one solution to ending the cartels and that's totally legalization of all drugs so that hard d
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Lol
You really think the cartels would be bothered by legalization? Of course you do. Stop being stupid. They have money, henchmen, and vast supplies of what drug users want. Nobody in the US is prepared to compete directly against them.
None of the state legalization or decriminalization efforts have stopped the cartels so far. They are stronger than ever.
Re: What good would giving them guns have? (Score:1)
Umm.. No, it's about their source of money vanishing once the product is legal.
Happens everywhere, incl when alcohol ban was removed in the US long time back.
Criminals are not going to start selling legal products to make money. Too much work, too little profit and their violent skills do not give them any advantage.
As long as the govt doesnt have exorbitant taxes, because then smuggling becomes viable & they are back in business.
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"Article 10 of the Mexican Constitution entitles the country’s citizens to own guns" https://www.as-coa.org/article... [as-coa.org].
Just because civilian gun ownership is more limited down South doesnt mean it doesnt exist.
Re: Sounds like AT&T (Score:1)
Just because technically civilians can own guns doesn't mean the government won't just ignore that law or attach so many conditions that the right is effectively denied.
Re:Sounds like AT&T (Score:4, Insightful)
Is it really?
Is it the ONLY effective deterrence?
If that was even remotely true, don't you think we'd be seeing this happen elsewhere as well? Or maybe you're full of shit and pushing an agenda that the citizenry of Mexico isn't even close to interested in?
Pretty sure they don't want to trade cartel violence for right wing psycho school shootings.
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But seriously, that sucks and shows there is still a lack of an effective police and judiciary Mexico.
It's hard to have effective public services when the legitimate government is in a war with what is effectively a rival government. And the cartels are winning that war in Mexico. The Mexicans have deployed the military, without success. The cartels often outgun the troops that have been deployed.
Mexico is slowly becoming a Pancho Villa country again, only much more brutal than before. Essentially a bandit republic.
Los Viagras (Score:5, Funny)
Los Viagras? Well, at least their service didn't go down ;-)
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Nah - I wouldn't consider it good if it can only stay up for 4 hours.
Re:Los Viagras (Score:5, Funny)
Stop making jokes about us, or else a customer service agent will be with your shortly.
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Insulting dear leader is the only way you'll fix the crappy internet?
Intimidation hardly screams Anarchist utopia - any charismatic revolutionary would get the locals on side by providing quality services at a massive discount. i.e. Capitan Jorge was a lovely guy, he may have murdered dozens of people in the narcowars but he lifted thousands out of poverty by connecting entire villages with his cheap wifi! :)
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Makes me wonder. Why put up the wifi antennas? Just tell them to buy the service under threat of death, then don't deliver any service. Profit! That's how the big telecoms do it.
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Biggest question (Score:3)
Might dump my $75/month monopoly cable company crappy internet if it's very usable.
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Since the average income in Mexico is about half what it is in the US, and the monthly fee is about half what you're paying, I'd guess the service will be similar.
Meanwhile in the USA (Score:5, Insightful)
People in Mexico could be killed if they don't buy $25-30/month internet service. Meanwhile, people in the United States would kill for $25-30/month internet service!
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That is so slow it's worth maybe $15. Anything more than that is a rip off for that speed.
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It's not about the speed specifically. It's the speed per money spent. T-Mobile home internet costs around $30, give or take. And 100Mbps/$10 is terrible.
they want cover (Score:5, Interesting)
I'd guess the Cartel wants cover, they want a lot of regular traffic to hide their own.
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150K a month is jack shit to any cartel worth a fuck.
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which is why they got busted. The federals are afraid of the cartels that worth a f***
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150k/day is probably peanuts to a murderous drug cartel. 150k/month isn't worth wiping their asses with, unless there's added non-dollar value.
Re: they want cover (Score:2)
They likely also want the ability to see whoâ(TM)s robbing them in to the cops.
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Cover for what? They are already untouchable. If they can set up an ISP and force subscribers under the penalty of death I don’t think internet traffic is a concern.
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Residents should just start downloading Disney movies. The USA will send in the marines to shut the cartel down.
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It's what we did [youtube.com] for the United Fruit Company 100 years ago.
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Re:they want cover (Score:5, Interesting)
It doesn't get a lot of press but Joe biden's administration is very slowly going through the process of the scheduling marijuana at the federal level. It's a very very slow process because there are dozens of things you have to do to take months and months and months in order to deschedule a drug as opposed to how quickly you can throw something on the schedule if you want.
But make no mistake it's going to happen and when it does it's going to be a huge blow to their finances. Psychedelics will probably follow after that. It's entirely possible that long-term will finally end Nixon's drug war and just legalize everything. There's plenty of evidence that shows treating drug addiction as a medical condition instead of a moral one is cheaper, more humane and infinitely more effective. As the evidence continues to mount it's harder and harder to argue in favor of locking people up for addiction
So what I think we're seeing here is the drug cartels trying to get into new lines of business. It didn't work for the Yakuza because they bring violence and that disrupts business and sooner or later there's a massive crackdown. The cartels have so much money though that they can literally outgun the Mexican army, so in the short term it won't happen but in the long term as more and more drugs are legalized and the drug war shuts down they'll have less and less money to purchase those weapons. So they're going to try to pivot and go legit before they lose everything.
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Again with the nonsense. You present no evidence that legalization efforts have hurt cartels.
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Re: they want cover (Score:1)
Most of their weapons are stolen from the Mexican government.
Re: they want cover (Score:1)
Marijuana is a low profit, bulky commodity. These are your cocaine (heroin, fentanyl) dollars at work.
Comcast approves (Score:5, Funny)
The group charged approximately 5,000 people elevated prices between 400 and 500 pesos ($25 and $30) a month, the Michoacan state prosecutor's office told the Associated Press. That meant the group could rake in about $150,000 a month. People were terrorized "to contract the internet services at excessive costs, under the claim that they would be killed if they did not,"
American broadband companies are envious of their business model, and have subscribed to the Cartel's newsletter.
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1. Distribute antennas in villages for WiFi Internet.
2. Threaten to kill anyone not paying the "subscription" fee.
3. . . .
4. Profit!
Quite a 'stiff' penalty (Score:2)
As is to be expected for a group called 'Los Viagras' ;-).
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The moment I read 'los viagras' I wanted to make this joke :-)
Xfinity right behind them... (Score:5, Insightful)
Why bother providing the service? (Score:3)
The dark humor in all of this is that they were actually providing the service. Back in the day, you could just mug 5000 people a month without having to give them anything! I guess there is competition in this space. Hopefully they will be gearing up for a Series A real soon.
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Income is income. The equipment was stolen to begin with so having a guaranteed $150k a month a nice bonus.
Shouldnâ(TM)t post stuff like this, (Score:1)
Taxes (Score:1)
This sounds like taxes to me. I'm told these are desirable, so I don't see any problem with this.
$30 per month? (Score:5, Funny)
How can I get them to expand into my town?
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So how do we fix it? (Score:3)
gunrfunning (Score:1)
Mexican (Wif-Fi) Radio (Score:2)
I feel a hot wind on my shoulder
And the touch of a world that is older
Turn the switch and check the number
Leave it on when in bed I slumber
I hear the rhythms of the music
I buy the product and never use it
I hear the talking of the dj
Can't understand just what does he say?
I'm on a mexican (wi-fi) radio
I'm on a mexican (wi-fi) radio
"Threatened to kill them if they didn't buy the wi (Score:3)
Please don't give the US telcoms ideas.