In 2011, the women of Cherán, Michoacán, fed up with homicides, kidnappings, extortion, and years of watching trucks loaded with freshly cut timber roll past their homes, organized in secret and took up arms. They drove out the loggers — backed by organized crime, which had expanded its reach beyond drug trafficking into lucrative industries like timber — and in the process expelled the police and politicians as well. Since then, Cherán has been governed by an autonomous indigenous government, independent of political parties. In a country where organized crime reaches even the smallest towns, Cherán became the exception.