Mexican Farmers Hack Cartel Members to Death With Machetes in Rebellion Over Extortion Demands

Residents of a small farming community in central Mexico chased down and killed at least 10 members of a cartel at a local soccer field after the gang allegedly demanded payments from them.

Members of the La Familia Michoacana cartel had allegedly met with residents of Texcapilla, located about 80 miles southwest of Mexico City, expecting them to hand over money in an alleged extortion gambit.

Instead, a verbal confrontation escalated into violence as locals with machetes and hunting rifles clashed with cartel members. The battle left at least four farmers and 10 gang members dead and seven others injured.

Video clips shared by local media appeared to show residents brutally striking down multiple alleged cartel members while others try to run away. Another clip shows a burned-out truck and what appears to be a charred body.

At least three cars were set on fire during the confrontation, José Luis Cervantes Martínez, the attorney general for the State of Mexico, said during a press conference.

Some farmers reportedly hacked at the gang members with hoes and sticks. Several cartel members' bodies were also set alight, Mexico News Daily reported.

Among the dead was one notorious gang member known as "El Payaso," or "The Clown," who allegedly participated in the slaughter of 13 Mexican prosecutors and police officers in March 2021.

The alleged leader of the farmers' group, Noé Olivares Alpízar, was also killed during the battle, while at least two people remain missing following the incident, according to the Mexican newspaper El Heraldo de Aguascalientes.

In some parts of Mexico, criminal organizations "have been morphing away from drug trafficking towards a territorially based extraction model," Falko Ernst, a senior analyst for the International Crisis Group, told the New York Times.

Delfina Gómez, the governor of the State of Mexico, said her administration would ramp up security in the region.

"Rest assured that we will continue working so that episodes like this aren’t repeated," she said, per Mexico Daily News. "To the [residents of the] south of México State I say, you are not alone, we are with you.”

Some residents have criticized President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, known as AMLO, for his perceived passivity when it comes to quashing gang violence.

Sandra Ley, a program coordinator with the research institute México Evalúa, told the Times the residents likely fought back in an act "of desperation."

“Hopefully, we won’t be caught by surprise again by something like this in other places that are equally besieged and fed up with this situation,” she said. “It can’t be that we let that tension build up until we have 14 dead.”