From KCRW, I'm Evan Klyman and you're listening to good food.

You can see it really in, you know, different parts of the country and if you just even scan the newspapers you'll

see report after report of tortilla shops being either set on fire or attacked with

gunfire and this is almost always sort of a sign

that they refuse to pay the extortion that's being demanded.

If you thought Mexico's drug cartels were focused solely on, well, drugs.

Think again.

Like any good capitalist venture,

cartels have diversified their operations.

Many have expanded far beyond drugs,

creating vast extortion networks that allow them to shake down

a variety of businesses, including tortilla producers.

Mary Beth Sheridan reported on the issue for the Washington Post.

Hi Mary Beth.

Hi.

Just for some background, how many drug cartels are there in Mexico and what kinds of businesses

have they targeted and why? You know, it's a really good question. There used to be a handful of big cartels like Sinalloa or Tijuana.

Now there's really hundreds of crime groups. Not all of them are directly involved in drugs, Really when the big sort of war on drugs

happened in Mexico a lot of the big capos were captured or killed. So a lot of the

groups split into smaller groups and they have gotten into everything from

illegal gasoline smuggling to extortion of all kinds to, you kidnapping illegal mineral extraction illegal

logging is really just a vast variety now hundreds of criminal groups all

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