If Monterrey falls, Mexico falls?

By Robin EmmottPosted 2011/06/01 at 9:43 am EDT

MONTERREY, Mexico, June 1, 2011 (Reuters) — Mario Ramos thought it was a bad joke when he received an anonymous email at the start of this year demanding $15,000 a month to keep his industrial tubing business operating in Monterrey, Mexico's richest city and a symbol of progress in Latin America.


The letter 'Z' is seen painted on a hill next to the toll booth at the freeway between Monterrey and Torreon, in the Mexican state of Coahuila March 13, 2010. REUTERS/Tomas Bravo


Sitting in his air-conditioned office looking across at sparkling office blocks dotting the mountains on that morning in January, he casually deleted the email as spam.

Six days later, the phone rang and a thickset voice demanded the money. Ramos panicked, hung up and drove to his in-laws' house. It was already late and he had little idea what to do. Then, just after midnight, masked gunmen burst onto his premises, set fire to one of his trucks, shot up his office windows and sprayed a nearby wall with the letter "Z" in black paint, the calling card of Mexico's feared Zetas drug cartel.

"They were asking for money I could never afford," said Ramos by telephone from San Antonio, Texas, where he fled with his family the next day. "I should have taken the threat more seriously, but it was such a shock. I couldn't quite believe this could happen in Monterrey."

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http://www.newsdaily.com/stories/tre7502vg-us-mexico-drugs-monterrey/

i`d say no. but who knows, the internationals may pay or bring in their own mercenary gangs.

I've lately been at a loss for words, which is scary considering I study Mexico for a living. I'm a historian, and I suppose a historical perspective can help a little...but what's going on *in certain parts* is extremely disturbing.

sad but probably true - looking more and more that way every day. :(

legalize it - let people make a fair profit off it - and end this madness.

. . . but I fear that the gangs would just find some other reasons to exist.

She's afraid to go home. :(