This article by Arturo Daen was originally published in the November 6, 2025 edition of Sin Embargo.
Mexico City. Michoacán is a land of agricultural abundance. It is the leading avocado-producing state, with exports exceeding $3.5 billion annually. But this wealth has also been a curse, with criminal groups extorting, killing producers, and terrorizing the population for more than a decade, in addition to subjugating local authorities.
During Enrique Peña Nieto’s six-year term, between 2013 and 2014, self-defense groups emerged in various municipalities of the Tierra Caliente region of Michoacán in response to this violent threat. Fed up with the lack of action by the authorities, lime growers’ leaders like Hipólito Mora and José Manuel Mireles took up arms in Tepalcatepec and La Ruana to confront extortionists and cartels like the Knights Templar on their own.
Alejandro Torres Mora
Overwhelmed, the Peña Nieto administration accepted the deployment of self-defense groups and even sought to regulate their operations, though without a clear understanding of where they had obtained their weapons or their history. Amid this chaos, reports eventually surfaced that criminal groups had masqueraded as self-defense forces, yet the government tolerated their actions. One such group was Los Viagras, which, according to federal Security Secretary Omar García Harfuch, continues to affect Michoacán producers to this day.
Over time, the self-defense groups gradually dissolved. As the Knights Templar cartel dwindled, some faced legal charges for weapons possession, while others were repressed. On January 6, 2015, the Federal Police responded to a report of armed individuals at the Apatzingán, Michoacán, municipal hall. A chase ensued, during which alleged members of the self-defense groups were shot at, resulting in nine deaths. The National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) confirmed the excessive use of force and an extrajudicial execution.
Mireles was imprisoned and later acquitted, but ultimately died in 2020 from complications related to COVID-19. Meanwhile, Hipólito Mora was murdered in June 2023 in his village of La Ruana, where he had continued to denounce criminal extortion.
On November 1st, one of his nephews, citrus farmer Alejandro Torres, was also murdered. His family blamed Los Viagras. Just a couple of days later, Carlos Manzo, mayor of Uruapan, one of the municipalities with the highest agricultural activity and profits in Michoacán, was assassinated. And before that, on October 20th, Bernardo Bravo, the leader of lemon producers in Apatzingán, had been murdered.
These high-impact events unleashed a wave of criticism from the opposition against the security strategy implemented by the Morena governments of Andrés Manuel López Obrador and Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo. The Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) stated that “for the past seven years, Mexico has become a national cemetery,” because the Morena governments are “responsible for the sinister blanket of blood that covers the national territory.”
Territorios violentos en México: el caso de Tierra Caliente, Michoacán – PDF available here.
This is despite the fact that the main criminal groups that to date affect Michoacán with extortion and murders, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, Los Viagras and United Cartels, emerged and increased their power precisely during the six-year terms of Calderón and the PRI member Peña Nieto, as indicated by reports from Mexican and American authorities, journalistic and academic investigations, and books such as Violent Territories in Mexico. The case of Tierra Caliente, Michoacán, by Enrique Guerra Manzo.
The Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) emerged between 2009 and 2011, during Felipe Calderón Hinojosa’s so-called “war on drugs.” Initially allied with the Sinaloa Cartel, their primary mission was to eliminate a rival group: Los Zetas. However, during Peña Nieto’s presidency, they went beyond that objective and independently expanded their presence to almost every state in the country.
The criminal group Los Viagras also emerged during Enrique Peña Nieto’s six-year term in Michoacán. It was formed between 2014 and 2016, initially clashing with Los Caballeros Templarios, and later established itself in several Michoacán municipalities, using the group known as Blancos de Troya as its armed wing.
In his book published by the Metropolitan Autonomous University (UAM), researcher Guerra Manzo recounts that the Peña Nieto government and Commissioner Castillo effectively allowed a self-defense group to operate as a paramilitary gang called G250 against the Knights Templar, even though several of its members had been identified as members of criminal groups, such as Los Viagras.
“All of that was interpreted as a dangerous alliance between the State and one sector of organized crime to fight another,” Guerra Manzo pointed out.
“Once the alliance was broken (with the repression of January 6, 2015 in Apatzingán), those shadowy allies, especially Los Viagras, would show that muscle to bring the Tierra Caliente, Sierra and Coastal lands (and even other relatively pacified regions of Michoacán) to levels of violence greater than those of the Templar era.”
Televisa revealed that Nicolás Sierra Santana, one of the leaders of Los Viagras, for whom the United States is now offering a $5 million reward , even received a credential from the Rural Force created by Alfredo Castillo in 2014, despite his known ties to criminal groups. In 2018, Sierra Santana stated in a video that Governor Silvano Aureoles Conejo had allegedly sent him 1 million pesos to help with his campaign, and later offered him 10 million pesos to guarantee security in the state. Sierra Santana blamed Aureoles for the violence in the state, although the politician denied all the accusations.
According to a report by the U.S. Treasury Department, when they were designated as terrorist organizations on August 14, Los Viagras allied themselves with the CJNG, traffic methamphetamine and cocaine, and extort ranchers and avocado and citrus producers.
The Attorney General of Michoacán, Carlos Torres Piña, told Milenio TV on October 27 that the intellectual and material authors of the murder of the lemon leader Bernardo Bravo were the Blancos de Troya, the armed wing of Los Viagras, and reiterated the reward of 100,000 pesos for information leading to one of its leaders, César Alejandro Sepúlveda Arellano, alias “El Bótox”.
Another organization affecting Michoacán is Cárteles Unidos. Its leader is identified as Juan José Farías Álvarez, alias “El Abuelo” (The Grandfather), who was also part of the self-defense groups that fought against the Knights Templar in Tepalcatepec, and for whom the United States is now offering a $10 million reward.
“The organization is involved in extortion and various other criminal activities. In its brutal conflict with the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG)… Carteles Unidos has perpetrated acts of violence against civilians and law enforcement, further destabilizing Michoacán,” U.S. authorities stated.
In a 2014 interview with the newspaper El País, Farías Álvarez denied being a criminal leader of the Valencia Cartel, as the PGR and the Army had previously indicated, and said that he had had a conversation with Alfredo Castillo, appointed by Peña Nieto as federal commissioner to address the security crisis in Michoacán, to ask him not to pay attention to “gossip” from the Knights Templar against him.
During his time as a federal deputy for Morena, in 2022, Carlos Manzo denounced that with Felipe Calderón, the tragedy of Michoacán had begun, by launching a “war on drugs” there that had not served to provide security to the people.
When questioned about the mayor’s murder, President Claudia Sheinbaum said that intelligence would be used to bring the perpetrators to justice, and that what happened in previous administrations would not be repeated.
“We are going to stand with Michoacán. They are not alone, and we will not abandon them, not Uruapan, not all of Michoacán, and certainly not the entire country. I repeat, what does the right wing propose? A war on drugs? The return of García Luna? What do they propose? Intervention? That leads nowhere,” she stated.
“The war on drugs, the extrajudicial killings, those led to nothing: six years of war on drugs; six years in which Peña, through a commissioner, armed self-defense groups. It didn’t work,” she explained.
The President insisted that addressing the root causes of violence is essential to curbing it. Therefore, in addition to strengthening the federal presence, efforts would continue to reduce poverty and inequality in the state. Despite its agricultural wealth, in 2016, 54.2 percent of Michoacán’s population lived in poverty. By 2024, at the end of Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s term, that figure had dropped to 34.3 percent, according to INEGI data.
In Uruapan , Michoacán, 42.1 percent of the population lived in poverty, and 8 percent in extreme poverty. In contrast, Morelia registered 27.3 percent of its inhabitants living in poverty, according to figures updated by Coneval through 2020 and disseminated by the Ministry of Welfare.
Former Governor of Michoacán Silvano Aureoles with Sandra Cuevas
Homicides Skyrocketed During Silvano Aureoles’s Administration
Data from the Executive Secretariat shows that the number of intentional homicides in the state increased by 186 percent during Silvano Aureoles’ term as governor of Michoacán, going from 915 murders in 2015 to 2,731 in 2021.
Alfredo Ramírez Bedolla, of Morena, began his government in Michoacán in October 2021. From that year to 2024, a 45 percent decrease in the number of murders was observed, and from January to September 2025, 1,024 had been recorded.
If we look at the rate, in 2015 there were 20.32 murders per 100,000 inhabitants, and by 2021 it had risen 176%, reaching 56.16. In 2025 the rate is 20.30 homicides, 63 percent less than in 2021.
The largest increase in the murder rate occurred during Enrique Peña Nieto’s six-year term, rising from 16.56 in 2012 to 28.05 in 2018. During López Obrador’s administration, a peak was recorded in 2021, with a rate of 45.92, but by 2024 it had dropped to 24.93.
In 2024, Michoacán ranked as the ninth state with the most intentional homicides, with 1,490. While from January to September it appeared in seventh place, with 1,024.
While this reduction occurred, there is also the fact that from 2022 to date, 7 mayors have been murdered in Michoacán, from the municipalities of Churumuco, Aguililla, Contepec, Cotija, Tacámbaro, Tepalcatepec and now Uruapan.
In the case of the crime of extortion, 229 victims were registered in Michoacán in 2014, but then in 2015 the number dropped to 49, and during Aureoles’ term the average was 26 victims per year.
Meanwhile, from 2022 to 2024, the average was 201 per year. In 2025, 210 victims were registered through September. The Sheinbaum administration has acknowledged the increase in these crime indicators and announced a strengthening of its strategy, which included promoting a new law against extortion.
The National Survey of Victimization and Public Safety Perception (ENVIPE) conducted by INEGI (the Mexican National Institute of Statistics and Geography) warns that kidnapping and extortion have the highest rate of underreporting. This means that many crimes go unreported due to distrust of the authorities, fear of the perpetrators, and other reasons. In 2024, at the national level, kidnapping and extortion registered the highest percentages of underreporting, at 98.1 and 97 percent, respectively.
Uruapan, an Avocado-Growing Municipality Affected by Crime
Uruapan is located in the western region of Michoacán, connecting the Tierra Caliente region and the Purépecha Plateau. As of 2020, it had 356,786 inhabitants. At the entrance to the municipality, signs can be seen with the message “Welcome to Uruapan, world capital of avocado.”
According to data from the Ministry of Economy, in 2024 Uruapan registered exports of figs, pineapples, avocados, guavas and mangoes for 2 billion 585 million dollars.
In his municipal plan for the 2024-2027 period, independent mayor Manzo proudly touted Uruapan’s success as an avocado producer, but also warned about growing insecurity, hence his repeated requests for state and federal support.
In the most recent edition of the National Survey of Urban Public Security, covering the third quarter of 2025, Uruapan ranked seventh among cities with the highest perceived levels of insecurity, with 82.6 percent of its population expressing fear of crime. In June, the figure was 89.5 percent.
A decade ago, in 2015, Uruapan registered 59 investigation files for intentional homicide, while by 2021 a peak of 261 was reached. Since then a reduction has been observed, with the figure of 187 files for murders in 2024, and 104 between January and September of 2025.
As is the case at the state level, the trend for extortion is the opposite, showing an increase. Between 2015 and 2021, an average of only 3.7 investigations per year were registered for this crime, and from 2022 to 2024 the average was 39 per year. From January to September 2025, 54 cases were recorded.
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