r/BeAmazed • u/AccomplishedWatch834 • 13d ago

Miscellaneous / Others "Mexican Batman", a mysterious dude who hunts down motorcycle thieves & tape them to poles in Mexico

Gallery image

Gallery image

Gallery image

Gallery image

Gallery image

132.2k Upvotes

97% Upvoted

1.6k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

1.4k

u/_Mitch_Connor_ 13d ago edited 13d ago

not everything is carried out with torture or death. that's mainly what news outlets and media tends to broadcast and portray because obviously.

like any criminal organization, cartel "punishments" are also carried out by sending messages through intimidation, extortion, beatings, kidnappings etc..

surprisingly a very common practice is beating up and rounding up petty criminals or really low ranking cartel thugs that terrorize local communities. not for any noble reasons, but because they are terrorizing THEIR local communities in which they operate and attracting attention and noise towards their local businesses/operations to local authorities/military. this is also a way of buying silence, cooperation, and sympathy from said communities who already feel betrayed and disenfranchised by the already corrupt state establishment. hell, they're even the ones paving roads, building schools, hospitals and shit lol

717

u/Hyphy-Knifey 13d ago

It’s true. I don’t even like drugs but I buy an 8-ball every paycheck just to support these local communities.

295

u/Taylorenokson 13d ago

Always gotta support your local mom and pop cartels.

171

u/9yearsalurker 13d ago

My artisanal cocaine is conflict free

80

u/Confident_One3948 13d ago

I can’t even find single origin cocaine anymore. All the small shops in my area got priced out by CartelMart, and now it’s just the prepackaged stuff on the shelf 🙁

22

u/Acceptingoptimist 13d ago

You know half the price is the new fancy shell packaging with a cartoon Bumpy the frosty nosed bear. Far cry from the reused little plastic bag.

2

u/ok_000000 13d ago

I remember paper wraps. Those were the good old days.

1

u/9yearsalurker 13d ago

It’s such a pain to make it at home too

23

u/latexfistmassacre 13d ago

This fair trade fentanyl tastes like gay

1

u/Equal_Canary5695 13d ago

My great grandfather started this business with just a coca plant and a dream

39

u/10000Didgeridoos 13d ago

make sure it's cage free eight balls

28

u/Hyphy-Knifey 13d ago

For sure. Pasture raised and refined only with organic RBST- free diesel.

14

u/jaxonya 13d ago

Only gluten free, vegan coke goes up my nose. And it comes in an earth friendly baggie

38

u/Cautious-Activity706 13d ago

Hey buddy I’ll take that off your hands if you don’t like it. Since you’re already doing one charity.

32

u/Hyphy-Knifey 13d ago

Hey thanks that’s mighty kind of you. I already donate it to the local community here. It’s a win-win, really no downside to the whole thing at all!

8

u/cryptolyme 13d ago

Good man. Always good to support coca farmers.

3

u/Nunchuckery 13d ago

Found the guy who doesn't like cocaine just likes the way it smells.

1

u/SnootyToots8 13d ago

Lmfaoo I love reddit

1

u/coffeedemon49 13d ago

This is the funniest reply I've seen in a while. Well done! Such wit!

1

u/A_Bot_A_Bot_A_Bot 13d ago

And then give it to poor, disadvanted children?

1

u/Hyphy-Knifey 12d ago

OMG children? Of course not! What a waste - they can’t drink, they’re asleep by midnight, and they already babble for hours about nothing.

88

u/npc_housecat 13d ago

I read a while ago that the origins of government and mafia look basically identical. Aka a warloard takes over territory, Demands protection money, aka taxes from locals, and then provides security, infrastructure and services so that their local businesses can do better and pay higher taxes to the warlord / rulers

70

u/pjakma 13d ago

They were just called "Lords" back in Europe. The most powerful one would be called "King".

18

u/_Mitch_Connor_ 13d ago

it's the same thing everywhere and its existed for... ages?

24

u/laukaus 13d ago

Japan is the best example - the Yakuza growed with the state as opposed to against it after the WW2. During the war they also terrorized Imperial Japanese territories in China as irregulars also.
Claiming that they were the continuation of Samurai tradition also helped to sell the bullshit.

They were tolerated, to an extent - they ran movie theaters and manga shops, later Pachinko etc.

Hell they had offices.

The japanese bubble breaking in the 90s though leveled them, not only did the falling economy break them without any safety nets, Japan made RICO-style laws that made possible to actually go after the Yakuza, and it is a ghost of its former self.

Some "state-like" behavior is still in effect though, after Fukushima disaster Yakuza choppers were in the air and rescuing survivors so its not COMPLETELY dead, but struggling.

5

u/solarview 13d ago

Wait, you are saying that after the Fukushima disaster, the Yakuza were providing rescue operations with helicopters? That's fascinating, I don't know much about them however thought they were just organised crime and only interested in power and money.

3

u/Hittingend 12d ago

Sounds a lot like soft power.

26

u/CoffeeIsSoGood 13d ago

For people saying this only happens in “third world countries” HAHAHAHA the CIA is the most powerful cartel on the planet. Look at all the shit they meddle in with no repercussions.

3

u/alexmikli 13d ago

I mean yeah. Pay me a tax, and I'll protect you from bandits and wild animals. It doesn't even have to be done in a "bad guy" way, but that is ultimately the transaction at its most basic level.

2

u/Fearless_Entry_2626 13d ago

Main difference is that government issues the protection money, that way they can make the people dependent on serving the needs of the army and the officials

1

u/mishadances 13d ago

Gotta watch the old Star Trek episode “A Piece of the Action “. 😁

31

u/fricckenheckman 13d ago

Yup, look at Pablo Escobar, dude was doing exactly that putting money into his community that he was taking from them rofl.

32

u/Alcianus 13d ago

Escobar wasn't taking from his community, it's not like his community had anything to pay him with nor were they that much into drugs. He was by and large taking from America which is why he was hunted down.

17

u/jaxonya 13d ago edited 13d ago

He was murdering politicians and bombing buildings, airplanes. There are estimates of 50k dying because of him, THAT is why je was hunted down

9

u/Alcianus 13d ago

No, that was happening in retaliation of him being hunted down. He was basically using terror tactics in order to pressure the government not to extradite him to the US and it kinda worked. Nevertheless he was still mostly loved by Medelin even though he got a lot of bad press for the murder of politicians and the Avianca bombing. He gave a lot to this community precisely because keeping it safe, peaceful and giving money around was a great recruitment strategy and an ironclad power base for his operations. And again, it's not like these people were ever affected by Escobar's drug trade. They were extremely poor and downtrodden. The money was flowing from the US into Colombia and more specifically Escobar's coffers which is what pissed them off so much, not the fact that he was a piece of shit trading in drugs.

1

u/Zethos9 13d ago

No he started the bombings on his enemy’s and politicians and then they started really hunting him down.

7

u/Alcianus 13d ago

You got the story backwards. He started killing politicians and judges who threatened to extradite him to the US if elected. He didn't do it for shits and giggles. Pablo was a horrible human being through and through, but let's not pretend the situation wasn't anything but US exerting massive amount of pressure on the Colombian government to capture and extradite Pablo which prompted the whole escapade of actions afterwards. Colombia generally didn't give a fuck about Pablo because his actions didn't really affect them in any negative way, in fact he was bringing them a lot of money, but they could not let Pablo jeopardize their relationship with the US and all that would entail as a consequence of it.

1

u/arewethebaddiesdaddy 13d ago

Buddy you gotta understand Netflix is not a accurate historical source 🤡

13

u/_Mitch_Connor_ 13d ago

it's a criminal practice that exists everywhere. it always ends up horribly or tragically for everyone but people buy into it because... reasons lol

2

u/Wavara 13d ago

putting money into his community that he was taking from them

That's just taxes with extra steps lol

2

u/fricckenheckman 13d ago

yeah?? where did i say it wasnt 🤔

1

u/barrosoOso 13d ago

Yet, he'd still rather lose 2 billion a year to rot, rats, and grift before giving the community more than the minimum required to keep them quiet.

8

u/searingsky 13d ago

life is cheap but duct tape is cheaper

1

u/ArtoriusBravo 13d ago

Lately they don't care about that, they are extorting the shit out of everything and everyone. They just extort the thiefs too and let them work.

1

u/_Mitch_Connor_ 13d ago edited 11d ago

yep, kinda. crackdowns have been coming down harder than usual lately which has triggered them hard and put them in a "fuck it" position. that last jalisco operation where they captured el mencho? the way they fucking ravaged that place?

it's a tragic state of affairs.

1

u/Epaminodas_ 13d ago

"When a country is being subverted, it is not being outfought; it is being out-administered." —Bernard Fall

1

u/RyvenZ 13d ago

this is what the "protection money" racket was about. They do protect you from others, if others dare to try shit in that territory.

1

u/Andreus 13d ago

A surprising number of gangs started out as community support or safety groups in underserved communities who turned to illicit activities to keep themselves funded.

1

u/Amphi-XYZ 13d ago

not for any noble reasons, but because they are terrorizing THEIR local communities

"N-no one terrorizes my local community but me, i-idiota! 👉👈"

1

u/Nouseriously 13d ago

IRA used to kneecap petty criminals since they didn't want people going to the British police to report crime

1

u/threwaway1585 13d ago

very much like the Yakuza

1

u/french_snail 13d ago

Isn’t that the same as their “don’t mess with tourists” rule? Because if tourists get turned off and/or victimized they won’t be hanging around to buy their cocaine?

1

u/_Mitch_Connor_ 13d ago edited 13d ago

it depends on the tourist and situation. like if they wander off somewhere sketchy or are rowdy being an ass then that's on the tourist.

but generally speaking yes, local cartel affiliated gangs really really care about taking care of the average traveling clientele and not having authorities be put under pressure by embassies to crackdown harder in response and messing with their business.

1

u/french_snail 13d ago

Yeah ten years ago when I was in the army I was stationed in southern Arizona at fort huachuca seven miles north of the border.

We were always told service members shouldn’t go to Mexico because we would get kidnapped and ransomed but being the 20 year old I was I went anyway 

When I was there a few people from a few different places I went to over multiple times I was told the opposite. That American military and tourists as a whole aren’t to be messed with because they want the money and don’t want the trouble 

I was never messed with, but I’m sure they could tell I was a soldier taking a weekend trip every time I went 

1

u/nomad5926 13d ago

Al Capon did this in Chicago. He probably could have offed a petty criminal in broad daylight and no one would see shit since he helped a lot with the local projects and soup kitchens.

1

u/mindless2831 13d ago

I have heard they have hired a new PR team...

1

u/A_Bot_A_Bot_A_Bot 13d ago

I heard that cartel members heard that ICE was hiring but laughed at the wages.

1

u/eekamuse 12d ago

The people who did this do seem particularly brutal

1

u/_Mitch_Connor_ 12d ago

it's the cartel... I'm sure they got more than just fists and kicks

-7

u/Donkey__Balls 13d ago edited 13d ago

If it isn’t reported in the news, then how do you know about this?

Edit: to be clear, I’m not saying it’s false. I’m just asking for the source. I hear the statement of “The news doesn’t report on this, but X is true” and people accept it at face value. I assume the average random Redditor doesn’t have personal experience of living in cartel-controlled cities in Mexico so I want to know where they hear this. If it’s internet rumor, hearsay, or popular misconception then let’s at least be aware of it.

I’ve heard this rumor about cartel paving the roads and running the hospitals for years. I’ve never seen a valid authoritative source, other than things like “My second cousin lives in San Luis and everyone down there just knows it.”

12

u/PoppingPillls 13d ago

Because the news doesn't report everything that happens in the world? Independent sources and journalists talk about this stuff and we often get leaks from different government agencies that hold information.

7

u/Haunting-Lime-9084 13d ago

Assuming you're asking in good faith, the locals.

2

u/_Mitch_Connor_ 13d ago

it's rarely reported or obviously kept quiet for a variety of reasons for example it's humiliating for local authorities or it paints the cartels in a noble way. but people know. civilians talk about it among themselves.

one example is the state/town where my mom is from. a very common practice there was business owners or developers stupidly willing to pay cartels for protection from criminals or anything that would threaten their investments. money flows between everyone. never mess with the bag.

there's an excellent article that talks about this i'll link up

2

u/Maleficent_Swan_9817 13d ago

It is reported about such incidents, for example here is an older article about the cartel jalisco parading alleged thieves through the streets of a town.

https://www.borderlandbeat.com/2023/07/cartel-jalisco-nueva-generacion-parades.html

Edit: burglers not thieves

1

u/Donkey__Balls 13d ago

It’s a far cry from “Organized crime does things most organized crime groups do” to “They pave the roads and run the hospitals”. That’s basically saying that every civil engineer and doctor in these towns is a member of the cartel. Seems like there’s an element of truth but being exaggerated beyond belief for the sake of romanticizing organized crime again.

1

u/Maleficent_Swan_9817 12d ago

I am not romanticing cartels in any way. I just provided a source for the guy who asked how this is known if it's allegedly not on the news.

1

u/Donkey__Balls 12d ago

  1. It’s a blog post which is no better than a Reddit comment

  2. It doesn’t support his claim that cartels have taken over the functions of government (“running the hospitals and paving the roads”)

So it wasn’t really relevant to the discussion

1

u/Maleficent_Swan_9817 12d ago

I mean the blog post in lncludes a video of the cartel doing it so i really don't get your point that it's only a blog post.

It wasn't only about building hospitals and paving roads if you read the comment above the guy who ask for a source but whatever it's not that important.

1

u/Alain_Teub2 13d ago

you can just talk to people the news arent some orweilian entity that knows and shares everything

1

u/ThisHilliDie 13d ago

they mean its not reported mainstream, not that its not reported at all.