How 2 killings exposed the depths of cartels’ grip in Mexico’s Michoacan state

APATZINGAN, Mexico (AP) — On a steamy night, a farmer from a village of modest tin-roofed homes surrounded by rolling lime orchards in western Mexico’s coastal mountains approached Rev. Gilberto Vergara for help.

The drug cartels were extorting him and other growers so heavily that the math no longer worked to harvest all his limes, the burly farmer told him tearfully after Mass. Authorities did nothing, he lamented. Residents were afraid speaking up was a death sentence but staying silent meant starving.

Two recent killings — one of an outspoken representative of the lime growers, the other a popular mayor standing up to the cartels — have made a long-known truth impossible to ignore: Organized crime controls much of Michoacan and its economy.

Now as U.S. President Donald Trump has lau