Ominous violence bubbles in the sun-soaked region of southern Michoacán, marked not by conventional warfare but by a hazy orchestration of disappearances, strategic cruelty, and natural resource exploitation. The ongoing battle in Santa María Ostula cannot be disentangled from its economic underpinnings. The contestation over land, spurred by interests in resource extraction, birthed a fertile ground for state actors and narco-operations alike to harness the bounteous raw materials that lie beneath and envelop the ancestral settlements.