Mexican cartel forces locals to pay for makeshift Wi-Fi under threat of death

Prosecutors in central Mexico say a drug cartel set up its own makeshift internet antennas and told locals that they had to pay to use their Wi-Fi or they would be killed.

A cartel in the embattled central Mexico state of Michoacan set up its own makeshift internet antennas and told locals they had to pay to use its Wi-Fi service or they would be killed, state prosecutors said Wednesday.

Dubbed “narco-antennas” by local media, the cartel's system involved internet antennas set up in various towns built with stolen equipment.

The group charged approximately 5,000 people elevated prices between 400 and 500 pesos ($25 to $30) a month, the Michoacán state prosecutor's office told The Associated Press. That meant the group could rake in around $150,000 a month.

People were terrorized “to contract the internet services at excessive costs, under the claim that they would be killed if they did not,” prosecutors said, though they didn't report any such deaths.

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Local media identified the criminal group as the Los Viagras cartel. Prosecutors declined to say which cartel was involved because the case was still under investigation, but they confirmed Los Viagras dominates the towns forced to make the Wi-Fi payments.

Law enforcement seized the equipment late last week and shared photos of the makeshift antennas and piles of equipment and routers with the labels of the Mexican internet company Telmex, owned by powerful Mexican businessman Carlos Slim. They also detained one person.