34 Monday February 21 2022 | the times
Wo r l d
Mexico’s ultra-violent drug cartels
have been muscling in on the “green
gold” avocado business as their other
revenue streams dry up, torturing
and killing farmers who oppose them
and planting their own orchards.
Michoacán, the only Mexican state
allowed to export avocados to the
United States, has been plagued by
violence as groups fight for control.
They include the brutal Jalisco New
Generation Cartel.
The problem in the western state is
so dire that fighting between rival
gangs left 35,000 residents displaced
after cartels deployed rocket-pro-
pelled grenades, armoured cars and
drones that can drop explosives.
Last week a threatening phone call
was enough for the US government
to place a temporary ban on imports
of Mexican avocados, endangering a
there’s a big market for avocado,” Al-
monte said. “That’s why they even
call it green gold. The cartels are get-
ting people to clear out land so that
they can grow their own avocado
trees and have their own avocado or-
chards.They won’t let anybody get in
their way, including the authorities.
They’ll kill them. And what the New
Generation cartel likes to do is kid-
nap their victims and torture them
and then kill them.”
David Shirk, professor of politicalscience and international relations at
the University of San Diego, said that
the legalisation of cannabis in some
US states and the rise of synthetic
drugs such as fentanyl, the opioid,
may have forced cartels to seek other
revenue streams.
With its temporary export ban, the
US was sending a message to cartels
and the Mexican government that
future threats would not be tolerated,
Shirk said, adding: “The US govern-
ment said, ‘Enough is enough.’ ”A local group patrols plantations threatened by gangs in Michoacán , the only Mexican state allowed to export avocados to the USCRISTOPHER ROGEL BLANQUET/GETTY IMAGES; ALAN ORTEGA/REUTERSM
oustafa, a 13-year-
old Eritrean boy,
was in an
effervescent mood
last week as he
entered the lobby of a hotel in
Sicily to chat about his favourite
subject at school (maths), his love
of football and his ambition to
join the Italian police force.
Six years ago his mother
drowned beside him in the
middle of the Mediterranean and,
unsurprisingly, he was much less
keen to discuss the journey that
brought him to Italy.
On previous occasions he has
recounted being raised by his
mother in Eritrea after his father
left for Europe when he was eight
months old. His mother ran a
store selling drinks and owned
animals, which were killed for
reasons unknown, prompting her
to take Moustafa and his sister to
join their father in Norway when
he was about seven.
They journeyed to Libya, where
his sister was murdered, possibly
by traffickers, before he and his
mother boarded a boat for Italy,
which sank at sea. As he
struggled in the water, Moustafa’s
mother slid beneath the waves,joining more than 23,000
migrants who have died in the
Mediterranean since 2014.
The boy managed to climb on
to a piece of wreckage and
remembers sleeping until he was
found by Italian rescuers. News
footage from May 26, 2016, shows
him wearing a yellow hoodie and
being carried from a helicopter
on the island of Lampedusa.
Taken to hospital in Palermo to
be treated for hypothermia and
water in the lungs, doctors
worried that Moustafa would be
shunted around foster homes and
get lost in the system.
He was placed in care with
other orphans and therapists told
him his mother had turned into a
mermaid, and discovered he was
resilient, with “just the right
amount of naughtiness in him”.
Other survivors were taken to
another Palermo hospital, where
they were observed by Giusy, 43,a hairdresser who was visiting
her sick husband. “When we saw
them, we decided to ask to look
after a child who had arrived
without parents. Being put in
care is one thing, having a family
is another. Fate ensured we would
get a child from that boat,” said
Giusy, who has three children of
her own.
As permission was given to
foster Moustafa in 2017, the boy’s
father reappeared, travelling
from Norway with photos his wife
had sent him over the years.
Initially, Moustafa did not want
to see him, complicating a family
reunion that required the boy’s
consent. When his father saw
that his son had been entrusted
to a family rather than left in
care, he approved the foster deal,
met Moustafa and has the right
to see him whenever he wants.
“He is bravo,” said Moustafa
when asked about his father.
Perched alongside him on a
sofa in the Palermo hotel where
they met The Times, Giusy said
she had fallen in love with
Moustafa when she first met him,
calling him a “scricciolino”, an
expression meaning little wren.
To safeguard his privacy during
the meeting, she continued to call
him Moustafa, which is not his
real name. He called himself that
when he arrived in Sicily because
his mother told him to use the
name in Libya so the traffickers
did not realise he was Christian.
“He remembers praying in
Eritrea and last year in Palermo
he had his first communion,”
Giusy said. “People always fall in
love with Moustafa, but we tell
him it’s a long road and he will be
penalised for his colour. We tell
him to study and behave well
because we won’t always be there
to protect him.”
Giusy and her husband added a
further member to the family, a
Gambian boy of 18 who was in
care in Sicily. “He arrived on his
own when he was 12 and was due
to be let loose when he turned 18,
so this was his last chance to have
a family. Too many are alone,”
she said, “and they need a
helping hand.”Tom Kington
PALERMOGiusy, a hairdresser, has taken in
Moustafa after his tragic journeyFROM OUR
CORRESPONDENT
His sister was murdered in Libya, he saw his
mother drown, but an Eritrean boy is slowly
shaking off the trauma with a Sicilian family
yield from the crops. Any resist-
ance was met with a brutal re-
sponse, with family mem-
bers of the farmers kid-
napped and held ransom,
Almonte said. Now the
cartels have started their
own growing operations.
Mexico’s avocado sales to
Britain are still relatively
minor compared with the vol-
umes shipped to America, the
main export market. “They know$2.8 billion industry. The suspension
was lifted on Friday after Mexico
promised to ensure protections for
agricultural inspectors, but it brought
renewed scrutiny on the criminal
networks involved in the cultivation
of the fruit. The nature of the threat to
a US safety officer responsible for
ensuring that Mexican avocados do
not bring pests or disease across the
border has not been divulged.
Robert Almonte, a retired US
marshal in Texas and an expert
on cartels, said that the
groups had long had an in-
terest in legitimate
agricultural businesses
alongside their drug
trade.
They muscled their
way into the avocado in-
dustry by ordering farmers
to pay them protection
money, with rates based on the
size of their land and the expectedMexico
Keiran Southern Los Angeles
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