MEXICO CITY -- Coca-Cola's (IW 500/28) bottler in Mexico has closed a distribution center in a southwestern region plagued by drug gangs after four company trucks were torched by unknown assailants and employees were threatened.
Mexican company Femsa said Wednesday that the center in the Guerrero state town of Arcelia was shuttered immediately after the trucks were attacked on Monday.
"The trucks' operators were immediately released without harm," Femsa said.
The distribution plant had just reopened after being closed since July 30 "due to threats to deliverymen," the statement said.
The state prosecutor's office is investigating the attack, which took place in two towns that are part of the Arcelia municipality.
The arson was committed in a violent region known as Tierra Caliente (Hot Land), which straddles the states of Guerrero and Michoacan.
The Knights Templar drug cartel is known to threaten and torch businesses that refuse to pay extortion rackets.
Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2014
