A violent shooting attack occurred in western Mexico. Five police officers were killed and five others injured Wednesday in an armed attack in the state of Michoacan, under the control of drug cartels, the local government announced on the eve of the start of the Football World Cup. The vehicle in which they were traveling shows numerous bullet holes, according to images to which AFP had access.
The attack took place in the municipality of Nahuatzen, an area inhabited by the indigenous Purépecha ethnic group where the powerful Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generacion operates, according to the Michoacan Security Ministry which announced a vast police operation to find the authors.
Significant illicit economy
Michoacan is the epicenter of an avocado economy that generates $5 billion in revenue per year as well as a major lemon industry, and has a vast port on the Pacific coast. The illicit economy thrives there between extortion, drug trafficking and the forced recruitment of vulnerable young people by the cartels.
Its capital, Morelia, is some 300 kilometers from Guadalajara and Mexico City, two of the host cities of the Football World Cup which opens Thursday in the Aztec stadium in the Mexican capital. Some 12,000 soldiers had been dispatched to Michoacan, neighboring the state of Jalisco. The deployment came after the assassination in November of the mayor of the city of Uruapan and a leader of wealthy local lemon producers who denounced cartel extortion.
