Chinese Restauranteurs Call Out Cartel Extortion near Border in Tijuana

Restaurant owners in the Mexican border city of Tijuana claim to be the target of threats and extortions at the hands of organized crime.

On the day after Christmas, gunmen set fire to three vehicles outside of a restaurant named Mykasa. The gunmen threatened to set fire to various Chinese restaurants unless owners paid a $200,000 USD protection fee, the local news outlet Zeta Tijuana reported.

Next to the torched vehicles, the gunmen left a white posterboard with a threatening message signed by “The Charco’s People.” It remains unclear which criminal organization the group belongs to. The gunmen claimed in the message that the torching of the vehicles is because three men from another restaurant called Hainan had not paid $200,000 USD and that as a result, they would be torching all of the Chinese-owned restaurants in the area.

In the aftermath of the arson attack, various members of the Chinese community met with the Tijuana Public Security Secretary Jose Fernando Sanchez Gonzalez. According to Zeta Tijuana, diplomats from the Chinese Consulate in Tijuana went to the meeting with the restaurant owners. Local authorities claimed that they would be connecting the restaurant cameras to their police surveillance center, and would be increasing patrols in the area. Officials also claimed they would be staying in contact with state authorities to investigate the extortion and arson attacks.

The targeting of the Chinse community by organized crime comes at a time when Tijuana continues to see a dramatic rise in violence as rival drug cartels fight for control of lucrative corridors into California.

Editor’s Note: Breitbart Texas traveled to Mexico City and the states of Tamaulipas, Coahuila, and Nuevo León to recruit citizen journalists willing to risk their lives and expose the cartels silencing their communities.  The writers would face certain death at the hands of the various cartels that operate in those areas including the Gulf Cartel and Los Zetas if a pseudonym were not used. Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles are published in both English and in their original Spanish. This article was written by “E.F. Robles” from Jalisco.