The serious events of Tuesday in San Cristóbal de las Casas represent the most flagrant evidence that the main threat facing Mexico is extortion, and that the collection of flats will hang commercial establishments, productive instances and even public and private works, with which will impact all economic activity, and all citizens.It is time to say goodbye definitively to the outdated notion of schematizing the challenges of insecurity based on the action of drug cartels.Criminal groups can traffic drugs, their own or those of others, but above all they have developed a voracious appetite for any type of merchandise.And only in this fortnight we have varied, and tragic, examples in this regard.Because if the images from Chiapas clearly reveal a struggle for control of a market, what happened very far from there, in the south of the State of Mexico, where 11 people were killed by Mexican police, has as its background the control of populations of that entity, a territory where criminal plunder has entrenched itself to the point of charging fees for chicken, construction materials and even gas.And of course, having mentioned the chicken, we saw these days how several chicken shops in Chilpancingo, Guerrero, had to close to avoid more violence against them.Finally, what more convincing example of criminal organizations targeting all kinds of products than the theft of a dozen containers in Manzanillo, which occurred on June 5, but about which we hardly knew this week, and this more or less, because There is not much clarity about the amount of what was stolen.I reiterate: those mentioned here are made only in the first fortnight of June.Some involved a trail of blood, as in the state of Texcaltitlán, where 11 people died, others such as the robbery of the port of Colima suppose an enormous logistical capacity of criminals.As far as is known, none of these events speaks primarily of drugs or narcotics.But of things as common as chickens.In fact, there is already talk that criminals have begun to kill the self-sustaining animals of some families, this to force them to depend on the merchandise they have charged with the right of floor.Because they have gotten into everything.And the government, in its dissimulation, in its incapacity and in its indolence, still tries to spread the idea that the violence is because “they fight among themselves”, as if congratulating themselves that there are no “innocents” among the victims.They fight among themselves, it is true, for control, but once they achieve this, they will squeeze everything they can from the population, knowing that the President of the Republic himself seems anxious – that was obvious yesterday morning – of that whoever wins helps so that there are no deaths so that there are no media claims.If later they extort, if later they suffocate, if later they impose their law, on Andrés Manuel López Obrador, and not a few governors, what difference does it make.Let AMLO say that consolation to the faces of the families of Guerrero or Michoacan towns, who are absolutely clear that when a group finally dominates, they have to pay – yes or yes – a fee for each thing that is sold in the store, for each thing that is produced in the orchards, of each thing that transits or is extracted, and that each infrastructure work that is done.The criminals go through all the markets.For everyone.The expressions expressed here are the responsibility of the person who signs this opinion column and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of El Financiero.© Copyright, Grupo Multimedia Lauman, SAPI de CV© Copyright, Grupo Multimedia Lauman, SAPI de CV