Snatch o’ the day
El Debate (Sinaola) — my translation:
Five men armed with pistols and rifles assaulted a resident of this city [Los Mochis] and a man from Hidalgo, who were deprived of their liberty, and relieved of a trailer carrying 11 tons of shrimp, 10 thousand pesos and two cellular telephones.
Sniff around, and maybe you'll find the missing loot. Photo: El Debate
Several truck hijackings — not just shrimp, but low value agricultural commodities like beans — have plagued northern Sinaloa lately.
Selling black market frozen shrimp requires an organization, which suggests this particular operation was put together by one of Sinaloa’s better known entrepreneurial groups. However, truck hijacking is not a particularly sophisticated crime, which also suggests that those entrepreneurs are getting desperate for quick cash.
In other words, either the cartels are either really strapped for cash, or they’re having a really big party. The former is more likely.
The Mex Files 
The more likely cause of the “diversification” of these groups into other types of criminal activities is attrition at the management level.
These types of activities generate relatively small amounts of revenue compared to the large international contraband markets and therefore often discouraged by upper management in these organizations.
I chatted recently with a security analyst – they’re a dime a dozen these days, but this guy had some good insights – and he put it this way:
Heisting tons of beans and extorting teachers’ Christmas bonuses is far less lucrative than running drugs. But, theses activities produce steadier flows of income and are thus worthwhile activities to keep the bills paid during lean times.