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Did some searching and found there is a nugget of truth in this, but “mostly fake”.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8525407/Drug-cartel-narco-antennas-make-life-dangerous-Mexico-s-cell-tower-repairmen.html
Mexican drug cartels exploit telecom companies’ cell towers and intimidate workers to install ‘narco-antennas’ to support their communication system of two-way radios
Drug trafficking organizations in Mexico have been setting up illegal antennas at privately owned cellular towers
The antennas support the cartels’ communication system which relies on the use of two-way radios
A worker for Boston-based American Tower Corp found members of a criminal organization installing an antenna before he was able to talk them down
Experts say the Mexican government has done little to combat the problem

https://www.reuters.com/article/world/special-report-drug-cartel-narco-antennas-make-life-dangerous-for-mexicos-ce-idUSKCN24G1DM/
Special Report: Drug cartel ‘narco-antennas’ make life dangerous for Mexico’s cell tower repairmen
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - The young technician shut off the electricity at a cellular tower in rural Mexico to begin some routine maintenance.
Within 10 minutes, he had company: three armed men dressed in fatigues emblazoned with the logo of a major drug cartel.
The traffickers had a particular interest in that tower, owned by Boston-based American Tower Corp , which rents space to carriers on its thousands of cellular sites in Mexico. The cartel had installed its own antennas on the structure to support their two-way radios, but the contractor had unwittingly blacked out the shadowy network.
The visitors let him off with a warning.
“I was so nervous... Seeing them armed in front of you, you don’t know how to react,” the worker told Reuters, recalling the 2018 encounter. “Little by little, you learn how to coexist with them, how to address them, how to make them see that you don’t represent a threat.”