Irma Hernández Cruz, a retired teacher and taxi driver, was kidnapped last Friday in broad daylight by an armed group outside her workplace in downtown Álamo Temapache, northern Veracruz. Days later, she appeared in a video, kneeling, handcuffed, and surrounded by a dozen hooded men pointing long guns at her. “Fellow taxi drivers, pay your dues properly or you'll end up like me,” the woman said in a message to her colleagues. This Thursday, the State Attorney General's Office reported that she was found dead on a ranch more than 40 kilometers from where she was taken.

The video is as brutal as it is revealing. In a firm voice, she delivers the script dictated by the kidnappers: “My name is Irma Hernández Cruz, I drive taxi 554. Stop messing around with the charros… you don't mess with the Veracruz mafia.” The scene, broadcast over the weekend, reached the state governor, Morena member Rocío Nahle García, on Monday, who said at a press conference that she found it “strange” that no ransom had been demanded for the woman.

Hernández was 62 years old and owned and drove two taxis on the Estero del Ídolo route in this municipality, home to around 110,000 people. She was a victim of extortion, the type of extortion that plagues merchants and transporters in this region and across the country. A week earlier, her partner, Jorge Néstor, was also kidnapped by armed men while driving a taxi near an elementary school. He remains missing.

The kidnapping occurred outside the municipal market, on Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz Street, a central area where several taxi stands operate. Witnesses have said the gunmen acted unhurriedly and without anyone intervening. Their location report, released by the State Search Commission, noted the following as a distinguishing feature:"Requires specialized medical treatment."

On Wednesday night, six days after her kidnapping, she was found dead on a ranch between the communities of Buenos Aires and Tepetzintlilla. The State Attorney General's Office confirmed the discovery in a statement, stating that"there will be no impunity." The state has recorded 52 homicides so far this year, 30 of them against women, according to the University Observatory of Violence Against Women, which disseminates information on gender-based violence in the state of Veracruz.

The men surrounding the teacher in the video, according to their own words, are members of the Veracruz Mafia, a splinter group of the Gulf Cartel, also known as the Shadow Group. In 2017, this group became known for handing out gifts to residents on holidays like Mother's Day and Christmas, and some of its members posed in photographs carrying weapons and wearing vests with the initials F.E.G.C. (Special Forces Shadow Group), the same as the ones they wear in the woman's video.

The Veracruz Mafia operates in municipalities such as Tuxpan, Poza Rica, Tantoyuca, Naranjos, and Pánuco. Since 2024, the group has claimed responsibility for attacks and threats on social media. Its fight for territorial control includes clashes with the Jalisco New Generation Cartel. The border between Veracruz and Tamaulipas, a route for drug and migrant trafficking, is one of the hottest areas in Mexico. For the past decade, it was dominated by the bloodthirsty Zetas.

Irma's story paints a picture of terror across the country: taxi drivers, small business owners, transport workers, and independent contractors are forced to pay fees to do their jobs. Just this Tuesday, it was revealed how the Familia Michoacana (the Michoacan Family) is stockpiling merchandise in the south of the State of Mexico to sell it at inflated prices. Both cases confirm that criminal groups operate with a high degree of impunity in rural and semi-urban areas, where fees are not only a daily threat, but a death sentence. Nearly seven million people are victims of extortion each year, and only 0.2% dare to report it.

On July 6, President Claudia Sheinbaum and the Secretary of Citizen Security, Omar García Harfuch, launched the national strategy against extortion, which seeks to reduce this crime throughout the country, but with special emphasis on the eight entities that concentrate 66% of the complaints, including Veracruz.