“What’s going on here?” she asked, annoyed and in a high tone. “Leave here immediately,” he asked them forcefully.
In a matter of hours, these men had removed the security of the house, entered and stolen furniture and possessions that were on his property.
Rosalía heard an answer: “I already invested,” one of them told her. “Let’s see, show me your papers,” the woman responded as she watched in disbelief how her house located in Los Héroes Jardín had been looted.
With my eyes I checked that all my things were no longer there, only a mat.”
Seeing that the men did not leave, Rosalía’s son called the police of the municipality governed by the Morenista, Mariela Gutiérrez Escalante.
“The patrol arrived and I addressed the police officers. I told them that they broke into my house and that they didn’t want to leave, and that all my things were gone. ‘Do something.’ However, the policewoman told me: ‘they already have possession, we can’t do anything’”, that was the response she received from members of the Tecámac municipal police.
Rosalía wanted to recover her house, which was uninhabited after having been rented, so she went to the Public Ministry to report the dispossession of her home, which, at that time, she did not know was already in the hands of “The 300”, a local criminal group that extorts, threatens and dispossesses residents of the State of Mexico of their properties.
“A man arrived at the MP accompanied by a woman and introduced himself as part of an association that said it was called ‘The 300’. He told us that those who were in my house were afraid of them and that, if we dealt with them, they would go and get them all out, and that that house would no longer be disturbed. He asked us for 15,000 pesos,” Rosalía tells Political Expansion.
However, the man who offered him help was part of that criminal organization. “He posed as someone who would help us, but in reality he was part of them, of ‘The 300,'” he adds.
More of this gang’s operation came to light. She remembers that, when she went to her property to claim it, several people came to intimidate her and, when she appeared before the Public Ministry, the same thing happened.
‘The 300’ and the extortion gangs in Edomex
According to investigations by Mexican and federal authorities, “Los 300” is a gang that has been denounced by neighbors, transporters, taxi drivers and businessmen from municipalities in the Valley of Mexico such as Ecatepec and Tecámac.
They have been operating since at least 2023, are related to cases of dispossession, threats, extortion and attacks, and They usually commit crimes in groups or cells to intimidate and intimidate.
Videos circulate on social networks where groups of men from this organization arrive at places to collect extortion with violence.
One of these cases was recorded in February 2023, when a video was broadcast in which at least 30 people were observed physically and verbally attacking women members of a feminist collective in San Agustín, Ecatepec. The case was attributed to “The 300.”
On March 22, 2024, the Secretary of Security and Citizen Protection of the federal government announced the arrest of Abel “N”, a leader of this gang that operated in Ecatepec.
“The investigations showed that, on January 2, the accused had demanded that the owner of a factory pay him 300 thousand pesos each month in exchange for protection or he would begin to destroy the property and kill workers,” the agency reported.
“Through intelligence work, it was established that Abel “N” has its area of operation in the municipality of Ecatepec along with a group that generates violence and extortion, known as ‘The 300’,” added the SSPC.
((Photo: SSPC))
Last May, the head of the Prosecutor’s Office of the State of Mexico, José Luis Cervantes, presented its Second Management Report, in which it reported that there are 25 groups or cells dedicated to extortion in the entity, among them “Los 300” or “Union 300 Trade Union Organization.”
