WELCOME TO MEXICO

Always carry 25 USD in your pocket so you may give it to Mexican thieves and not get killed.

WARNING
You might get murdered by gunshot or stabbing during a Mexican robbery if you do not surrender your possessions immediately. This is not a joke.

(Courtesy of M. de la Madrid, C. Salinas, E. Zedillo, V. Fox, F. Calderón, E. Peña, and above all: A.M. López) 

Mexico is a gangster’s paradise when it comes to crime. The rate of Mexican crime activity has been up, probably, around 1,000%, since A.M. López Obrador received the Presidency. This is how AMLO's "Cuarta Transformación" or "4T" has begun; with criminals fighting to control the 'plazas', kidnaping people and trafficking drugs all over America with no one out there to stop them.  

Let's Take a Moment to Reflect Upon How Horrific Mexico Has Become

57.78K

Hamilton Nolan

05/24/12 08:59AM

Filed to: Mexico

Sometimes when you wake up in your nice comfortable (or at least reasonably comfortable) bed in your nice (or at least moderately serviceable) house or apartment here in the United States of America, it is useful to take a moment to reflect upon how fortunate we all are, by comparing ourselves to those in countries that may be our geographic neighbors, but whose state of life is quite different. One good way to do this is simply by taking in this, the very first paragraph from a Washington Post story by William Booth today:

The two most important criminal organizations in Mexico are engaged in all-out war, and the most spectacular battles are being fought for the cameras as the combatants pursue a strategy of intimidation and propaganda by dumping ever greater numbers of headless bodies in public view - the victims most likely innocents.

What might that entail, for example? "In the past month alone, in what authorities describe as gruesome version of text messaging, the two criminal groups and their allies deposited 14 headless bodies in front of city hall in the border city of Nuevo Laredo, and hung nine people, including four women, from a bridge in the same city."
Mexico is SO FUCKED UP IT IS STRAIGHT UP INSANE. That's Mexico—THE PLACE WHERE YOU WENT ON VACATION. Now full of piles of headless bodies, everywhere, in the streets. Try, if you can, even for a moment, to, in your mind, move your thoughts from the abstract concept of "Mexican drug war" to the very concrete vision of walking across a bridge and encountering nine dead bodies hanging there. For example.
Just something to reflect upon as you go about your business today.
[WaPo. Photo: AP] - https://gawker.com/5912962/lets-take-a-moment-to-reflect-upon-how-horrific-mexico-has-become

Mexico maelstrom: how the drug violence got so bad

 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/dec/26/mexico-maelstrom-how-the-drug-violence-got-so-bad

 

Members of the Mexican army and federal police patrol a crime scene after an organised crime shooting at the Villa Juárez neighbourhood in Navolato, Sinaloa, on 7 February 2017. Photograph: Fernando Brito/AFP/Getty Images

11 years since the government launched a crackdown on cartels, violence continues, rule of law is elusive and accusations of human rights abuses abound
by David Agren in Reynosa

Tue 26 Dec 2017 08.00 GMT Last modified on Tue 26 Dec 2017 22.00 GMT

'Why must I live in fear?' Mexico shaken after yet another journalist murdered

Sofía, a medical assistant in Reynosa, a scruffy border city in northern Mexico, has a regular morning routine.
She wakes at 6am and readies her son for preschool; then she reviews her social media feeds for news of the latest murders.
Updates come via WhatsApp messages from friends and family: “There was a gun battle on X street”, “They found a body in Y neighbourhood”, “Avoid Z”.
In Mexico today, choosing your route to work can be a matter of life or death, but Sofía compares the daily drill to checking the weather on the way out the door. “It doesn’t rain water here,” she said. “It rains lead.”
It is 11 years since the then president Felipe Calderón launched a militarised crackdown on drug cartels deploying thousands of soldiers and promising an end to the violence and impunity. But the bloodletting continues, the rule of law remains elusive and accusations of human rights abuses by state security forces abound.
All the while, Mexico continues to race past a series a grim milestones: more than 200,000 dead and an estimated 30,000 missing, more than 850 clandestine graves unearthed. This year is set to be the country’s bloodiest since the government started releasing crime figures in 1997, with about 27,000 murders in the past 12 months.

Quick guide

Mexico's war on drugs

Some of the worst violence in recent years has struck Reynosa and the surrounding state of Tamaulipas, which sits squeezed against the Gulf coast and the US border.

Once in a while, a particularly terrible incident here will make news around the world, such as the murder of Miriam Rodríguez, an activist for families of missing people, who was shot dead in her home on Mother’s Day.
But most crimes are not even reported in the local papers: journalists censor themselves to stay alive and drug cartels dictate press coverage.
“We don’t publish cartel and crime news in order to protect our journalists,” said one local news director, whose media outlet has been attacked by cartel gunmen. Eight journalists were murdered in Mexico in 2017, making it the most dangerous country for the press after Syria.
The information vacuum is filled by social media where bloody photographs of crime scenes and breaking news alerts on cartel shootouts are shared on anonymous accounts.
In Reynosa, violence has become a constant strand in everyday life. Morning commutes are held up by gun battles; movie theatres lock the doors if a shootout erupts during a screening. More than 90% of residents feel unsafe in the city, according to a September survey by the state statistics service.
Signs of the drug war are everywhere: trees and walls along the main boulevard are pockmarked with bullet holes. Drug dealers can be seen loafing on abandoned lots; every so often, rival convoys of gunmen battle on the streets.
Video cameras look down from rooftops; spies are all around. “They have eyes everywhere,” said one woman. “It could be the government or the cartels.”
The violence here first erupted around 2010 when the the Gulf cartel’s armed wing – a group of former soldiers known as Los Zetas – turned on their masters.
Since then, wave after wave of conflict has scorched through the state as rival factions emerge and collapse.
Fighting erupts over trafficking routes and the growing local drug markets, but state forces are also implicated: earlier this month, soldiers killed seven people, including two women, in what was described as a “confrontation”.

Relatives and friends of four people killed in a clash with soldiers participate in a funeral mass in Palmarito Tochapan, Puebla, on 7 May 2017. Photograph: Jose Castanares/AFP/Getty Images

Crime hit such alarming levels this year that the local maquiladora industry – which pulls thousands to Reynosa every year to work in its export factories – warned that companies might be forced to relocate.
Amid the mayhem, ordinary life continues: shopping malls fill with families trying to escape the oppressive heat. Cars full of young people cruise the streets at night, banda music blaring from open windows.
“Life can’t stop. We have to get out and enjoy ourselves a little,” said Alonso de León, a local caterer. But he added: “The problem affecting us in Tamaulipas is the shootouts, this violence – in any other country this would be called terrorism.”

Is Mexico really the second-deadliest country in the world?

Read more

The government bristles at any suggestion that the country is at war. When the International Institute for Strategic Studies ranked Mexico as second-deadliest country in the world – ahead of warzones such as Afghanistan and Yemen – the foreign ministry responded angrily, pointing to higher murder rates in Brazil and Venezuela.
War or not, the bodycount keeps climbing.
And the violence is spreading: tourist areas have seen shootouts and decapitations, and even the capital has seen confrontations with armed groups. Earlier this month, the bodies of six men were found hanging from bridges in the resort city of Los Cabos.
All of which has been disastrous for the image of President Enrique Peña Nieto who took office in 2012 with an ambitious agenda to push through structural reforms and promote Mexico as an emerging economy.
Fighting crime seemed an afterthought.
“He thought that security issues in Mexico were a problem of perception so he embraced a policy of silence,” said Viridiana Ríos, scholar at the Wilson Centre in Washington.
Peña Nieto’s government maintained the military focus of the drug war, and continued to target cartel kingpins. But analysts question the strategy, saying that it shatters larger criminal empires but leaves smaller – often more violent – factions fighting for the spoils.
Breaking up the cartels also has the perverse effect of encouraging crime groups to diversify, said Brian J Phillips, professor at the Centre for Teaching and Research in Economics.
“The new groups are more likely to raise money by kidnapping or extortion since that doesn’t require the logistics of drug trafficking,” he said. “And as long as demand exists in the USA, and supply is in or passing through Mexico, new criminal organisations will appear.”

Mexico after El Chapo: new generation fights for control of the cartel

When the country’s most-wanted crime boss Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán was recaptured last year, Peña Nieto tweeted “Mission accomplished” but even that success has not caused any measurable reduction in crime: Guzmán’s extradition to the United States in January triggered a fresh wave of violence in his home state of Sinaloa.
Meanwhile rivals such as the Jalisco New Generation cartel – a fast-growing organisation specialising in methamphetamines and excessive violence – moved in on Sinaloa trafficking territories along the Pacific coast.
And the liberalisation of marijuana laws in some US states has prompted some farmers to switch to opium poppies, prompting fresh conflict around the heroin trade.
But despite the worsening violence, there has been little serious consideration of any fresh approaches. Earlier this month, Andrés Manuel López Obrador – the frontrunner in the 2018 presidential election – was widely condemned for floating a possible amnesty for criminals.
The proposal drew comparisons with the pax mafiosa before more than 70 years of rule by the Institutional Revolutionary party (PRI) ended in 2000, in which politicians turned a blind eye to drug-dealing in return for peace.

A woman cries over the corpse of her murdered family member while forensic personnel work at the scene of the crime at a shopping center in Acapulco, Guerrero, on 4 January 2017. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

But analysts say even that would not work nowadays as the drug cartels have splintered.
“It’s a useless endeavour, given the broken criminal landscape,” said security analyst Jorge Kawas. “There’s no group of leaders who can be summoned to discuss stopping the violence.”
Politicians are nonetheless still perceived as allying themselves with criminals –especially during costly election campaigns.
“Mexico cannot stop dirty money going into the political system,” said Edgardo Buscaglia, an organised crime expert at Columbia University. “That’s the key to understanding why violence has increased in Mexico.”
Such accusations are all too familiar in Tamaulipas, where two of the past three governors have been indicted in US courts on drug and organised crime charges.

'The only two powerful cartels left': rivals clash in Mexico's murder capital

Meanwhile, police departments are dilapidated, dispirited, corrupt and underfunded as state and national politicians pass on security responsibilities on the armed forces.
Earlier this month, congress rammed through a controversial security law cementing the role of the military in the drug war – despite mounting accusations of human rights abuses committed by troops and marines.
In Tamaulipas, residents express exasperation with the flailing government response. But few ask too many questions about the violence around them: they just want the killing to end.
“I don’t care about organised crime,” said one woman, known online as Loba, or She-wolf. “They can traffic all the drugs they want so long as they don’t mess with ordinary people.”
Loba is one of the social media activists who report on cartel violence via Twitter and Facebook. It’s a perilous undertaking: at least two citizen journalists in Tamaulipas have been killed, and Loba herself was kidnapped by the Zetas in 2011 and held for 12 days before her family paid a £10,000 ($13,500) ransom.
When asked why she runs such risks, Loba answered: “Perhaps this can save someone from being shot.”

https://www.brookings.edu/research/the-violent-drug-market-in-mexico-and-lessons-from-colombia/

Introduction: The Context and Goals of Counternarcotics Policy in Mexico
The drug-related violence and the breakdown in security in Mexico have escalated to extraordinary levels over the past two years. According to publicly available data, 6,290 people died in Mexico due to drug-related violence in 2008.¹ In private, some Mexican officials give a number as high as 9,000 deaths, but even the lower figure is more than the total number of casualties in Iraq during 2008, more than in Afghanistan, and six times more than the average number for a civil war, about 1,000 people per year. During the first eight weeks of 2009, over 1,000 people have already been killed in Mexico.² In the level of casualties, if not in the type of targets and means, the violence in Mexico is greater even than the violence that plagued Colombia in the 1980s and early 1990s when Colombia went through a similar confrontation between its drug-trafficking organizations (DTOs) and the state.
Even though the majority of those killed are people involved in the drug trade, the violence has come to affect the lives of both ordinary people who do not dare venture out of their houses at night (or even during the day) for fear of getting caught in the cross-fire, and of elites who have become targets of extortion.³ Kidnapping is markedly on the rise. While most of the kidnapping is linked to the drug trade—to intimidate and coerce recruits and involuntary participants to ensure that they deliver promised services—kidnapping for even rather meager pecuniary profits also appears to be growing, indicating a spiral of violence and criminality. Armed robbery has also increased dramatically, along with the murder rates. The cost of violence has become cheap since the state is overwhelmed, the deterrent effect of punishment by law enforcement has declined, and social and cultural restraints on violence have been degraded.
Civil society has come under serious threat with murders of journalists in Mexico among the highest in the world. The law enforcement and judicial apparatus has been similarly threatened with public officials facing the same awful choice that public officials in areas of high crime and violence often face: plata o plomo, i.e., accept a bribe or face murder. Given the existing high levels of corruption in the Mexican law enforcement apparatus, such pressure becomes all the more intense. In some areas of Mexico, the security situation has deteriorated so significantly that there is anecdotal evidence that average Mexicans, not only the upper-class, are leaving Mexico for the United States because of the lack of security in their own country—this despite the economic downturn in the U.S. and the resulting loss of job opportunities north of the border.⁴ Although most of the violence is highly localized along critical drug smuggling routes, few areas of Mexico are now immune from some drugrelated violence.
The economic costs for Mexico also have been substantial. Mexican states most significantly affected by violence appear to have begun experiencing reduced economic activity in terms of reduced investment, tourism, and the dramatic escalation in transaction costs such as protection rents, ransoms, and costs of bodyguards. Yet it is in the domain of public safety where the drug trade is most pernicious and where the Mexican situation is most serious.
Some of the violence is also spilling across the border to the United States. Border patrol officers are increasingly confronted by drug traffickers with firepower. Perhaps as much as 90% of the firearms used by Mexican drug trafficking organizations⁵ have been purchased in the United States. Murders and kidnapping of U.S. residents who (or whose relatives) are caught up in the drug trade have increased dramatically. So has the kidnapping of illegal immigrants who, sometimes snatched en masse from coyotes (people smugglers), are held for ransom to be extorted from their relatives in the United States. More and more, coyotes force illegal immigrants to carry drugs (mainly marijuana) as a payment. Because of their involvement in illegality, both groups are likely to significantly underreport abductions and kidnappings. Increasingly, such crime is leaking from border communities deeper into the U.S. border states. The number of kidnappings in Phoenix, Arizona, for example, tripled from 48 in 2004 to 241 in 2008.⁶ Drug turf wars among the drug trafficking organizations are beginning to occur in major cities in the U.S., such as Dallas, Texas. Still, the violence and criminality on the U.S. side of the border remain relatively low, and nowhere close to their levels in Mexico.
The policy debate about how to address the drug trade and the violence in Mexico frequently conflates three distinct policy issues. Addressing these issues suggest different strategies.
The three distinct policy questions are:

1. how to significantly disrupt drug supply to the U.S., reduce consumption of illicit substances in the U.S., and reduce the global drug trade;
2. how to reroute drug trafficking from Mexico; and
3. how to reduce violence in the drug market in Mexico and suppress crime in Mexico to manageable levels.

Goal One: Reducing Consumption in the U.S. and Globally – The key to success in achieving Goal One is, of course, a significant reduction in demand for drugs in the U.S., Europe, and increasingly elsewhere in the world. Beyond the drug-consuming countries that have traditionally been identified as loci of consumption, such as West European countries and the United States, Iran and Pakistan have long been significant consumption countries. New large consuming markets have emerged in Russia and Asia. In Latin America, countries that formerly had been source and transit countries only, such as Brazil, have become robust and significant consuming markets as well. Mexico itself is now experiencing increases in consumption, as drug supply has increased, drugs have become a form of payment in the illicit trade, and prevention and treatment policies are lacking. In fact, just like the traditional consuming countries in the West and North and perhaps much more so the new consuming countries have frequently abdicated the responsibility to undertake robust prevention, treatment and demandreduction approaches. Further, the new markets receive minimum attention and resources.

Chile and the Inter-American Human Rights System

• By Karinna Fernández, Sebastián Smart, and Cristián Peña

  2017

Goal Two: Rerouting the Drug Trade from Mexico – Goal Two is extremely difficult to achieve given that the U.S. is such a dominant consumption market globally and for Latin American illicit substances specifically. From the drug trafficking organizations’ perspective, the Mexico border is too strategic to give up. Moreover, the border is long and its desert, mountain, and river terrain too difficult to permit its easy sealing off outside of legal crossings, even with the border fence that is currently under construction. At the same time, the level of flows of goods and people across the border is too high and economically important to permit inspection of the majority of vehicles at legal crossings.
The possibility always exists of a reopening of the Caribbean route through which most drugs were channeled to the United States during the 1980s and early 1990s before the U.S. undertook extensive aerial and maritime interdiction efforts in the Caribbean. The increasing use of semi-submersibles to transport cocaine from Colombia’s shore or Central America’s coast to the United States is an early indication of the DTOs’ resumed interest in the Caribbean route. However, the existing levels of enforcement there and, most significantly, the proximity of the Mexican border with the United States makes the Mexico route too convenient for traffickers to abandon. Furthermore, if such a rerouting through the Caribbean were to take place, it would likely result in increased levels of corruption and violence along the new corridor, displacing the problems from Mexico into the more vulnerable states of Central America and the Caribbean.
Goal Three: Reducing the Level of Violence in Mexico and Suppressing Crime to Manageable Levels – Goal three is where the Mexican state has potentially the greatest ability to influence developments. It is also in this domain where action by the Mexican state is absolutely critical since the provision of public safety is the irreducible function of the state.
Paradoxically, strategies for accomplishing Goals Two and Three may be somewhat contradictory, at least in the short term. A very violent illicit market, as in Mexico today, is bad not only for the legal economy, but also bad for the illegal economy. Persistent fights among the drug trafficking organizations and a lasting violent confrontation between those organizations and the state may well generate a scramble among the DTOs for a more peaceful and less enforced route. But such an outcome would not necessarily enhance public safety in Mexico. On the other hand, a global reduction in demand is critical not only for Goal One, but it will also be of enormous help with Goals Two and Three. Clearly, demand reduction needs to become the centerpiece of U.S. counternarcotics policy both at home and abroad.
However, in the rest of the paper, I will concentrate primarily on Goal Three—reducing violence in Mexico—and on the direct strategy toward accomplishing this goal. I will first describe the illegal drug economy in Mexico today. Second, I will contrast the situation in Mexico with Colombia and with Plan Colombia, to which Mexico is frequently being compared. I will argue that although public policy analyses center comparisons on and draw lessons from Plan Colombia, the better analogy for Mexico is Colombia before Plan Colombia, in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Fourth, I will provide a brief description of the Mexican response and the Mérida Initiative. I will end with recommendations for a new strategy in Mexico.

 https://justiceinmexico.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/2011_DVM.pdf
 

Copyright Justice in Mexico Project, 2011.Cover art derived from Wikicommons.Trans-Border Institute (TBI)University of San Diego5998 Alcalá Park, San Diego, CA 92110www.sandiego.edu/tbiAbout the Trans-Border InstituteThe Trans-Border Institute is a program of the Joan B. Kroc School of Peace Studies at the University of San Di-ego (USD) that seeks to promote cooperation and understanding between the United States and Mexico, address challenges and opportunities that spring from the bi-national relationship, and advance the two countries’ shared interests along the U.S.-Mexico border. The Institute administers broad range of programs, research, events, and other activities involving scholars, practitioners, and students working to inform public debate, promote interna-tional cooperation, and surmount obstacles to cross-border collaboration.AcknowledgementsThis report was prepared for the Justice in Mexico Project (www.justiceinmexico.org) which is hosted by the Trans-Border Institute at the University of San Diego, and supported by The William and Flora Hewlett Founda-tion, The Tinker Foundation, and the Open Society Institute. The report also benefits from insights drawn from a December 2010 workshop hosted by the Trans-Border Institute, which included Brian Braet, Juan José Briones, Robert J. Bunker, Andy Carey, David Carruthers, Maximo Cervantes, Joseph Crook, Jorge Cruz, Monica Delgado, Eric Drickersen, Emily Edmonds, Harold Eisenga, Dante Farenga, Vivien Francis, David Gaddis Smith, Miriam Gamboa, Guillermo Gomez, Eduardo Guerrero, Michelle Jaramillo, Richard Kiy, Katie Kupfer, Ernesto Lopez Portillo, Marisol Martinez, John Merli, Jesse Navarro, Sara Nettleton, Pablo Paras, Tony Payan, Diana Rodriguez, Miles Rodriguez, Danielle Sidari, Hector Tajonar, Catherine Torelli, and Randy Willoughby. The authors would also like to thank the staff of the Trans-Border Institute: Gladys Avalos, Stephanie Borrowdale, Anna Cearley, Theresa Firestine, Elisse Larouche, Cory Molzahn, Lorena Quezada, Charles Pope, Nicole Ramos, and Octavio Rodriguez. This report also reflects the contributions of several interns and volunteers at the Trans-Border Insti-tute, including Amanda Benedict, Brian Breat, Vivien Francis, Miriam Gamboa, Gayle Hazard, Kimberly Heinle, Rosario Hernandez, Chelsea Jensen, Anthony King, Kristina Leano, Brittany Lonero, Jonathan Maldonaldo, Juan Manuel Mancilla Tapia, Christopher Morales, Priscella Soler, Nikki Weil, and Thomas Webber. The analysis and conclusions of the authors do not reflect the views of the Trans-Border Institute, its affiliates, or its sponsoring organizations.

Drug Violence in Mexico Data and Analysis Through 2010Trans-Border InstituteJoan B. Kroc School of Peace Studies University of San Diego February 2011• Government data shed new light on the extent of drug violence in Mexico.Recently released official figures on homicides associated with organized crime report levels of violence that are significantly higher than those tracked by media ac-counts, which were previously the only source of information publicly available.• Violence has increased sharply under Mexican President Felipe Calderón. Four years into the administration of President Calderón (2006-12), 34,550 killings have been officially linked to organized crime, a dramatic increase from the previous administration of President Vicente Fox (2000-06) when 8,901 cases were identified.• 2010 greatly surpassed previous levels of violence in Mexico. Over 15,000 organized crime killings occurred in 2010, comprising 44% of the total number ac-cumulated during the Calderón administration and representing an increase of nearly 60% with respect to the previous year. • Violence from organized crime in Mexico is geographically concentrated.84% of all homicides from organized crime in 2010 occurred in just four of Mexi-co’s 32 states (Chihuahua, Sinaloa, Guerrero and Baja California). Most others have had much lower levels of violence, and several states have been virtually untouched by violence (Baja California Sur, Campeche, Querétaro, Tlaxcala, and Yucatán)• Over 70% of violence in 2010 was concentrated in just 80 municipalities.The top five most violent municipalities in 2010 were Ciudad Juárez (2,738 cases), Culiacán (587), Tijuana (472), Chihuahua (670), and Acapulco (370), which together accounted for 32% of all the drug-related homicides in 2010.• Violence spiked in some areas due to new clashes among Mexican crime groups. Four states experienced large, sudden spikes in violence during the course of the last year: San Luis Potosí (from 8 homicides per year in 2009 to 135 in 2010), Tamaulipas (90 to 209), Nayarit (37 to 377), and Nuevo León (112 to 604).• Mexico’s violence had broader political and societal impacts in 2010. An unprecedented number of elected officials, police, military, and civilians have been caught in the crossfire, including 14 mayors and 11 journalists. • Recent government arrests constitute significant successes, but may have unpredictable effects. During this year, the Mexican government’s counter-drug efforts led to the capture of several high-profile traffickers, including Teodoro “El Teo” García Simental, Edgar “La Barbie” Valdez, and Nazario “El Chayo” Moreno, which authorities believe may help bring a reduction, if not an end to the violence. Drug Violence in Mexico Data and Analysis Through 2010EXECUTIVE SUMMARY OverviewSince the 1990s, Mexico has experienced a persistent public security crisis involving high rates of violent crime and—particularly since 2004—increased violence among orga-nized crime syndicates involved in drug trafficking and other illicit activities. In recent years, this violence has become so severe that officials in Mexico and the United States have expressed uncertainty about the Mexican state’s ability to withstand the effects of this violence. Indeed, 2010 was the worst year on record for such violence, and was marked a sharp increase in politically targeted violence that included numerous assassina-tions and kidnappings of public officials. Until recently, there has been little detailed data or analysis available to gauge Mexico’s drug related violence. Until January 2011, the Mexican government released only spo-radic and unsystematic data on drug violence, and tracking by media sources produced widely varying estimates. In the absence of reliable information, sensationalistic report-ing and government statements contributed to considerable confusion and hyperbole about the nature of Mexico’s current security crisis. Fortunately, in recent months, greater public scrutiny and pressure on Mexican authorities has resulted in a wealth of new data on Mexico’s drug violence. This report builds on previous research by the Trans-Border Institute’s Justice in Mexico Project (www.justiceinmexico.org), compiling much of this new data and analysis to pro-vide a more complete picture of Mexico’s drug war and the challenge it presents to both Mexico and the United States. Drug Violence in Mexico Data and Analysis Through 2010By Viridiana Ríos and David A. ShirkApproaches to Measuring Drug Violence in MexicoMeasuring drug related violence in Mexico is inherently challenging. First and foremost is the problem of definitions. “Drug violence” and “drug related homicide” are not for-mal categories in Mexican criminal law, and there is some disagreement among scholars and analysts over the appropriate terminology used to describe the phenomenon. That said, like many other ill-defined social phenomena, most people recognize drug related violence when they see it. Mass-casualty shoot-outs in the public square, bodies hanging from bridges, decapitated heads placed in front of public buildings, mass grave sites, and birthday party massacres are among the worst examples of such violence. Even so, establishing a verifiable connection to drug trafficking activities requires proper police investigation and due process of law, all of which can be very time consuming in the best of circumstances. In Mexico, such investigations are often slowed by the re-source limitations of police agencies, particularly at the state and local level. As a result, numerically counting “drug related” murders has thus far been a highly subjective exer-cise, prone to substantial guesswork even when done by government authorities. In part for this reason, Mexican authorities have been exceedingly cautious in reporting statistics on the number of drug related homicides. Indeed, over the last few years, the Mexican government regularly denied requests by the Trans-Border Institute (TBI) and other organizations for a full accounting of civilian deaths in Mexico’s drug war. On January 2011, growing public scrutiny and pressure led the Mexican government to release a comprehensive online database with a wealth of new information. A clearer picture of the patterns of Mexican drug violence thus emerges by combining data from several sources: figures on drug-related homicides from 2000-2008 gathered by Mexico’s National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) from the Mexican Attorney General’s Office (PGR); data from 2006 to 2010 gathered by the Trans-Border Institute from estimates compiled by the Mexico City-based Reforma newspaper; and recently released official statistics on organized crime-related homicides from December 2006 to 2010 compiled by the PGR for the National Public Security System under (SNSP) Mexican President Felipe Calderón. (See Figure 1). The authors reference Reforma’s tally because it has been the most consistent media source in reporting its data and utilizes a specific methodology for identifying drug related homicides. As noted in TBI’s January 2010 report, Drug Violence in Mexico, this methodology uses specific criteria associated with drug trafficking (e.g., “narco” mes-sages, etc.). Until the recent release of SNSP figures, Reforma and media sources had the advantage of being more accessible to the public than government data. However, the absolute numbers and distribution of killings reported by Reforma and different media sources vary greatly, due to differing methodologies and definitions of “drug related” violence. That said, media sources mostly agree on the general direction of mortality trends, and often provide details that are not reported by the government, such as the number of women, police, and soldiers killed each year.

To track violence over longer periods of time, data on intentional homicide are avail-able from Mexico’s official statistical agency, INEGI and the World Health Organization (WHO). Unfortunately, these figures require very tedious data collection techniques, and do not discern between “regular” murders and those perpetrated by drug traffickers. Also, the compilation and release of intentional homicides statistics lags well past recent events: at the time of this report, the most recent data available from INEGI’s online database were from 2008. For the purpose of this report, the authors reviewed municipal level homicide data for all years available from INEGI (1990 to 2008), and created a special dataset for the individuals most likely to be involved in drug related violence: young men aged 18-35. The authors also calculated an approximation, projecting from the last three years available, to estimate the possible trend beyond 2008. Figure 2 compares these data against those of Reforma and SNSP, offering a longer term view of Mexico’s violence. 1,080 1,230 1,290 1,304 1,776 2,221 2,712 5,585 2,108 2,267 5,129 6,557 11,562 2826 6837 9614 15273 0 2,000 4,000 6,000 8,000 10,000 12,000 14,000 16,000 18,000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 Number of homicides CNDH (PGR) Reforma SNSP (PGR) A comparison of the sources described above demonstrates a number of important observations. Notably, INEGI data suggest that homicide had been trending downward during most of the last two decades, as observed in previous research on this topic. In-deed, in a study titled Reforming the Administration of Justice in Mexico, the Justice in Mexico Project found that homicide rates declined rather steadily over the course of the 20th century. As demonstrated in Figure 2, there has been a sharp reversal of this trend in recent years; all of the data illustrate a steep increase in violence, particularly after the start of 2008.  

Another observation worth noting about available information on drug related homi-cide is the consistency of trends across different sources. Focusing on the presidential administation of current President Calderón (2006-2012), Figure 3 provides a compari-son of INEGI, Reforma, and SNSP data suggests that all three sources have methodolo-gies that provide closely correlated results. Aggregate rates of increase and decrease are closely correlated, which suggests a certain degree of reliability across each of these sources. Again, this subset of INEGI data references only homicides involving young males aged 18-35 and is limited to the period from 1990-2008. Meanwhile, both the gov-ernment and Reforma offer more precise tracking of organized crime and drug-related homicide, respectively. However, the government’s figures are significantly higher than those tracked by Reforma. This is probably due to the fact that the government has more complete information about criminal investigations involving organized crime and be-cause its tracking of “organized crime killings” is probably more inclusive than Reforma’s tracking of “drug related violence.” In addition, there is some level of interpretation in compiling both SNSP and Reforma data, which may also explain part of the variance. Fi-nally, it is worth noting here that SNSP tracks homicides in three categories: drug related executions (ejecucciones), violent confrontations (enfrentamientos), and aggression targeting authorities by organized crime groups (agresiones)

  
https://brandongaille.com/37-disturbing-mexican-drug-war-statistics/

39 Disturbing Mexican Drug War Statistics

May 31, 2017 by Brandon Gaille

One of the great tragedies of North America right now is the Mexican drug war. The drug cartels have a large influence on local society and the illicit drugs being funneled to the US and the rest of the world are driving huge profits. This has caused foreign governments to lend assistance to the Mexican government to stop the violence.
There is an estimated 6,700 licensed firearms dealers in the United States along the U.S.-Mexico border. There is only 1 legal firearms retailer in Mexico.

Mexican Drug War

Since December 2006, more than 60,000 people have been killed in the drug war that has been being fought as cartels battle each other and government forces for territorial control. According to the Human Rights Watch, many of the victims aren’t the bad guys. It is the average person, trying to stay out of the way, that is being used as a pawn in this deadly “game” of war.

• Nearly 70% of guns recovered from Mexican criminal activity from 2007 to 2011 had an origination point in the United States.
• 90% of the cocaine that enters into the United States either originated or was transported from Mexico.
• Mexico is the primary supplier of meth and marijuana to the United States.
• Mexican drug cartels take in between $19 to $29 billion annually from U.S. drug sales.
• The amount spent annually in the U.S. on the war on drugs: $51,000,000,000.
• The number of people in the U.S. that died from a drug overdose in 2010: 38,329.
• Estimated annual revenue that California would raise if it taxed and regulated the sale of marijuana: $1,400,000,000.
• 88% of the people who are in US prisons on drug charges that are related to marijuana are there because of simple possession charges.
• 61% of those in prison right now because of drug charges are either African-American or Hispanic.
• An additional 5,000 people have disappeared since 2006.
• 49 corpses were decapitated, dismembered and dumped on a highway in northern Mexico last month. One of the worst atrocities of the drug war.

The reason why the drug cartels in Mexico exist in the first place is because there is a demand for their product. One of the simplest solutions available to stopping this war would be to limit their access to the drug market in the first place. In the past, this has been attempted by using law enforcement officials to intervene during sales so that a cartel can be infiltrated and made to become defunct. What may be more effective would be to keep the billions in annual sales away from the cartels by regulating the industry at home. As prison budgets increase, so do prison populations and laws that can keep people in jail for longer. If we change that and begin taxing and regulating drugs [that were all once considered legal in the United States], then maybe the tens of thousands of lives being lost in violence can end.

Won’t Taxing and Regulating Drugs Create More Overdose Deaths?

• 3,000 law enforcement officials have been killed during the Mexican drug war, which is equal to the number of allied soldiers who have been killed in Afghanistan since 2001.
• 5,000 people are still missing from the official start of the Mexican drug war in 2006. In February 2014, the Mexican government put that number at 26,000 people total.
• The Zeta cartel, which now controls more territory than any other cartel in Mexico, commands 10,000 gunmen – stretching from the Texas border to Central America.
• The narcotics market is estimated to have a value of $60 billion according to some UN estimates.
• In 2008, Mexico’s former top anti-drug official, Noe Ramirez, was charged with receiving $450,000 per month in bribes to report drug investigation information directly to the cartels.
• Mexican drug cartels are believed to have operations in over 1,200 US cities in 2010, which is 5x more than the estimated operations that were happening in 2008.
• In 2009 law enforcement authorities found over 2,000 pot plants belonging to the La Familia Michoacana cartel in rural North Carolina.
• It is believed that the Mexican drug cartels are spending $1 billion annually just on bribes for local police agencies.
• The number of American agents who have been murdered on duty in Mexico since 1985: just 1.
• The average salary of a Mexican police officer: $9,500.

The problem of drug overdoses is a legitimate question to ask, but the fact remains that in any given year, the Mexican drug cartels are getting get 33% of the total estimated market for illicit drug use. That’s why the cartels are moving into the United States more aggressively than ever before. It allows them to be able to tap directly into the market at lower distribution costs, thereby increasing profits while they develop more of the market for personal use. People who are going to use illicit drugs will continue to use them no matter who is supplying them. With a 10% sales tax on a potential $60 billion market, that’s $6 billion in extra revenues that could be used for budgetary short falls every year in the US – and that would be money that the cartels wouldn’t be getting their hands on. It’s definitely worth the consideration.

Violence Defines The Mexican Drug War

• Between January and September 2009, there were 5,874 drug-related murders in Mexico.
• There was a 141.9% increase in the murder rate in Mexico during 2008.
• The national homicide rate in Mexico: 18 per 100,000.
• The national homicide rate in Honduras: 82 per 100,000.
• Roughly half of all homicides in Mexico are attributable to drug violence.
• A murder because of drug violence occurs in Mexico every 30 minutes on average.
• Reported kidnapping and extortion rose sharply in 2013 by 20.5 percent and 10.6 percent respectively.
• Officials estimate that the drug trade makes up 3 to 4 percent of Mexico’s $1.2 trillion annual GDP and employs up to 500,000 people with full-time work.
• The worst cases of violence are confined to 10% of Mexico’s municipalities

Moving aggressively against the drug cartels has created an equally aggressive response. With forces that sometimes rival armies, these cartels are organizations that use fear in order to create compliance. When violence is the order of the day, there is no possible way that anyone can stay safe on a permanent basis. Since the beginning of the drug war, 25 of the top 37 most wanted figures in the drug war have been captured in Mexico, but this hasn’t stopped the cartels from finding a way to operate. Many have started to include women in managerial roles to further enhance the distribution networks and create new target markets.

Is The Mexican Drug War Ever Going to End?

• Ciudad Juarez, across the border from El Paso, Texas, had the highest number of violent deaths at 1,206, followed by the beach resort town of Acapulco, with 795 murders.
• From September 2010 to September 2011, the number of drug war-related deaths rose 11% compared to increases of 70% and 63% in previous years.
• 5 of the 8 states that have the most drug war killings are along the US/Mexico border.
• Between December 2012 and January 2013, the average number of daily killings suddenly dropped from 56 to 49.
• Many of the homicide estimates are thought to be underreported as threats of violence and other forms of violence that occur because of the drug war don’t make the statistics at all.
• In at least 4 of the State of Guerrero’s 7 regions, where the annual homicide rate is appx 1,000 per year, the law is dictated by whomever is the strongest.
• A Human Rights Watch report published in February 2014 revealed that more than 140 of the nearly 250 disappearances it had documented were enforced, which means Mexican authorities were directly or indirectly responsible for the crime.
• The total number of deaths is expected to exceed 100,000 by the end of 2016 if things remain the same as they are today.

Maybe some of the tides are turning in the Mexican drug war, but that doesn’t meant the issue is going to resolve itself any time soon. As long as there is a market for the drug cartels to peddle their wares, there are going to be profits that must be protected. Many of the cartels have made it abundantly clear that they are willing to go to whatever lengths are necessary to protect their standard of living. That means our policies on drugs and ideas of enforcement will need to change if we really want the Mexican drug war to stop. If the United States is consuming $60 billion in illicit drugs annually, that’s too big of a market to be ignored. If the cartels are eventually stopped, there might just be someone bigger… and badder to take their place in the future.

https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/15-dead-in-guerrero-in-weekend-violence/

Firefighters attend to a car that was set on fire in Acapulco.

15 dead in Guerrero in weekend violence

Five of the killings were in Acapulco, four in Zihuatanejo 

Published on Monday, March 12, 2018 

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It was a violent weekend in Guerrero, where 15 people lost their lives in several incidents.

Violence was reported in seven municipalities: Chilapa, Chilpancingo, Iguala and Tecpan, and in the tourist destinations of Acapulco, Zihuatanejo and Taxco.

Five people were killed in Acapulco in four different incidents, including the shooting early Sunday of a man on Costera avenue, at one of the entrances to Papagayo beach.Armed men opened fire on two individuals in the Mozimba neighbrohood after the break of dawn. The corpses were found with their hands tied behind their backs.

Later in the day, a car was set on a few steps away from a public prosecutor’s office in the Colosio neighborhood. Once the flames were extinguished, authorities found a body in the trunk.

A taxi driver killed in the Sector 6 neighborhood was the fifth fatal victim in Acapulco.

Five vehicles were set on fire in three different points of the city but with no casualties, injuries or arrests. All happened within a span of two hours.

Farther up the Guerrero coast, four people were killed in Zihuatanejo.

Three of the bodies were found on the road that to Larga beach and the airport, their feet and hands tied and bearing clear signs of torture. The three also presented bullet wounds.

The fourth homicide victim was reported later in the same area.

Elsewhere in the state, a man was burned to death in Zitlala while in Chilapa a man was attacked and killed in his home. A woman was murdered in the capital of the state, Chilpancingo, and three more people were assassinated in Taxco, Tecpan and Iguala.

Source: El Universal (sp), Milenio (sp)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2017/world/how-acapulco-became-mexicos-murder-capital/?noredirect=on

By Joshua Partlow

Photos by Michael Robinson Chavez

Aug. 24, 2017

ACAPULCO, Mexico ­— From the crescent bay and swaying palms, the taxi drivers of Acapulco need just 10 minutes to reach this other, plundered world.

Here, in a neighborhood called Renacimiento, a pharmacy is smeared with gang graffiti. Market stalls are charred by fire. Taco stands and dentists’ offices, hair salons and auto-body workshops — all stand empty behind roll-down metal gates.

On Friday afternoons, however, the parking lot at the Oxxo convenience store in this brutalized barrio buzzes to life. Dozens of taxi drivers pull up. It’s time to pay the boys.

When the three young gunmen drive up in a white Nissan Tsuru, Armando, a 55-year-old cabbie, scribbles his four-digit taxi number on a scrap of paper, folds it around a 100-peso note and slips it into their black plastic bag. This is his weekly payment to Acapulco’s criminal underworld — about $5, or roughly half what he earns in a day.

“They have the power,” said Armando, who identified himself only by his first name because he feared reprisal. “They can do whatever they want.”

A cross rises above the Colonia Santa Cruz neighborhood in Acapulco, Mexico. As violence has risen, business owners and residents have fled, leaving abandoned storefronts and homes.

For each of the past five years, Acapulco has been the deadliest city in Mexico, in a marathon of murder that has hollowed out the hillside neighborhoods and sprawling colonias that tourists rarely visit. And yet, the term “drug war” only barely describes what is going on here.

The dominant drug cartel in Acapulco and the state of Guerrero broke up a decade ago. The criminals now in charge resemble neighborhood gangs — with names like 221 or Los Locos. An estimated 20 or more of these groups operate in Acapulco, intermixed with representatives from larger drug cartels who contract them for jobs. The gang members are young men who often become specialists — extortionists, kidnappers, car thieves, assassins — and prey on a largely defenseless population.

“They kill barbers, tailors, mechanics, tinsmiths, taxi drivers,” said Joaquin Badillo, who runs a private security company in the city. “This has turned into a monster with 100 heads.”
Mexico is halfway through what may become the bloodiest year in its recent history, with more than 12,000 murders in the first six months of 2017. June was the deadliest month in the past two decades of consistent Mexican government statistics.

There are many theories on why violence, which dropped for two years after the 2012 election of President Enrique Peña Nieto, has roared back: competition for the domain of captured kingpins; the breakdown of secret agreements between criminals and politicians; a judicial reform requiring more evidence to lock up suspected lawbreakers; the growing American demand for heroin, meth and synthetic opiates. Whatever the primary cause, the result has been terrifying — a disintegration of order across growing swaths of this country.

Violence is spreading to new places and taking many forms. In Puebla, south of Mexico City, a fight rages over the sale of stolen fuel. Beach towns such as Cancun and Playa del Carmen have been bloodied by drug killings. The battle for human-smuggling routes leaves bodies strewn along the migrant trail.

In Acapulco, the faded playground of Hollywood stars, where the Kennedys honeymooned and John Wayne basked in the clifftop breeze, drugs are no longer even the main story. This is a place awash in crime of all stripes, where criminals no longer have to hide.

Residents and tourists play in the Pacific Ocean at La Caleta, a popular Acapulco beach. Hotel vacancies are higher, and many establishments are in a state of disrepair.

Mexican soldiers patrol in the Barranca de la Laja neighborhood in Acapulco.

Mexican police have been hobbled by corruption for decades, and Acapulco has been no exception. Alfredo Álvarez Valenzuela, who oversaw the Acapulco police for five months until May 2014, told the Mexican newspaper Reforma last year: “The municipal police don’t work for organized crime; the municipal police are organized crime.”

But the problem goes beyond corruption. Mexican municipal police traditionally have had little training, low pay, poor equipment and little capacity to do investigations. Federal police and the army often lack street-level knowledge of cities and their crime gangs.

Juan Salgado, an expert on police reform at CIDE, a Mexican research center, said that police are reluctant to visit some neighborhoods in Acapulco because they are outgunned and frightened.

“I’m not sure if crime would increase if the whole municipal police department in Acapulco disappeared,” Salgado said. “They are so inefficient in stopping crime I don’t think it would make a huge difference.”

Meanwhile, many people refuse to press charges out of concern the information will leak back to their tormentors. That makes investigating crimes all the more difficult.

On a recent afternoon, a man wearing a cowboy hat and carrying an assault rifle stood in plain sight on the main boulevard in the Emiliano Zapata neighborhood, five miles from Acapulco Bay.

At his feet on the pavement lay another young man, barefoot and curled in the fetal position, his hair matted with blood. The man with the assault rifle kicked him repeatedly and savagely, then walked calmly back to his white pickup truck. A federal police truck rolled past, but it didn’t stop.

Police look for spent shell casings at the scene of a homicide in Acapulco’s Colonia Santa Cruz neighborhood.

The spark

When Evaristo opened his restaurant along Acapulco’s seaside strip 15 years ago, drugs were plentiful, and that was just fine with him. Acapulco has always been a party town, and became a transit point for U.S.-bound Colombian cocaine and the opium poppy that bloomed along with marijuana in the state’s highlands. The dominant traffickers were the Beltran Leyva brothers of the Sinaloa Cartel.

“What the Beltran Leyvas were doing was selling drugs,” said Evaristo, who identified himself only by his first name, for fear of reprisal. “But they left us alone.”

For Evaristo, and many other Acapulco residents, the city’s descent into lawlessness began with the events at La Garita. A brazen January 2006 shootout in that central neighborhood left flaming vehicles and bodies in the street and became part of the city’s lore, as much as the iconic cliff divers and the Hollywood stars who once passed through town.

That gun battle also made one thing clear: National-level cartels were active in Acapulco — in this case the Sinaloa cartel, allied with the Beltran Leyvas, and the expansionist Zetas. And they were willing to use tremendous violence against each other.
“That’s when all this began,” Evaristo recalled.

Children play at La Caleta beach in Acapulco. Acapulco is considered one of the world’s most dangerous cities and the colonias, or impoverished neighborhoods, beyond the iron fence in the foreground, are among the city’s most violent areas.

Over the next decade, as then-President Felipe Calderón declared war on organized crime, Mexican security forces and their U.S. allies picked off cartel bosses and kingpins, splintering their organizations.

In Acapulco, the result has become a kaleidoscope of feuding criminals. After the killing of a powerful Beltran Leyva brother in 2009, rival factions emerged, with names like the Independent Cartel of Acapulco, the South Pacific Cartel and La Barredora. Contenders joined the fray from ascendant heroin-trafficking groups and crime organizations from other cities.

With the loss of all-powerful cartel bosses who had tightly controlled their criminal empires, drug gangs moved increasingly into other crimes, such as kidnapping and extortion.

Some 2,000 businesses have closed in the past few years, according to trade associations, driven away by crime and a withering economy. The bulk of the devastation has come in the poorer, inland neighborhoods, but the tourist strip has not been spared. Gone are Hooters and the Hard Rock Cafe, along with famed local spots such as El Alebrije nightclub and Plaza Las Peroglas, a shopping mall. An accountant whose clients included restaurant owners, doctors, and mechanics said that about 70 percent of them had closed their businesses in the past year because of extortion.

“Today, in Acapulco, this problem has given us mass psychosis,” said Alejandro Martinez Sidney, president of the Federation of Chambers of Commerce, Services and Tourism in Guerrero, which represents more than 8,000 businesses. “We are frozen, waiting for someone to come and demand our money.”

Last September, five gunmen walked into Evaristo’s restaurant, asking for the phone number of the owner. After he said he wouldn’t pay extortion, the men returned and put their guns to the heads of the staff, saying they would burn down the restaurant with everyone inside it, the restaurant owner recalled.

Since then, Evaristo has paid 40,000 pesos per month (about $2,200).

He has cut back on advertising and maintenance to cover the payments. Two of his private security guards were riddled with bullets from a passing car one night in May and survived the attack. If this keeps up, he will close down.

“My life is at risk,” Evaristo said.

The Zona de Tolerancia, or Zone of Tolerance, which once was a thriving Acapulco red-light district and home to nightclubs, now is nearly abandoned.

New behaviors

Mexico’s crime gangs have not just proliferated, they behave differently than in past decades. Cartels were once based on family ties and known for maintaining strict hierarchies that rewarded members’ loyalty with promotion through the ranks.

The newer generations of criminal gangs operate more like a “wheel network,” a web of contacts who ally at times but also work independently, said Cecilia Farfán, a scholar at the Instituto Tecnologico Autonomy de Mexico, or ITAM, who specializes in organized crime and is doing research in Acapulco.

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If these quasi-independent cells get disrupted, the larger network can still function, and “the intelligence that a cell can provide to law enforcement or rival organizations is limited,” Farfán wrote in her recently completed dissertation.

Criminals have begun to show less allegiance to a single organization — acting more like freelance subcontractors.

“They hire you for your expertise; they’re not going to develop you as a human resource,” Farfán said about how street-level criminals are used. “They’re not investing in you, and you’re not invested in them, either.”

The victims of Acapulco’s violence come in many forms: those caught in feuds between criminal bands; businessmen who don’t pay extortion; those who cross the invisible boundaries between drug gang territory. The situation has become so confused — with criminals staking out overlapping domains — that residents often complain about being forced to pay off two or three different groups. People die over mistaken identity or as bystanders.

Relatives and friends gather at the Acapulco funeral home where a wake was held for Pablo Ivan Salgado, 18, and Josue Bernal Flores, 17, who were tortured and murdered in July. Their grandfather said they were killed in a case of mistaken identity.

On one recent night, an overflow crowd waited silently on sidewalk benches outside an Acapulco funeral parlor. Gerardo Flores Camarena, 57, a hotel bartender, couldn’t stay seated. He paced back and forth in anguish as he spoke into his cellphone.

“The killers thought they were from another group,” he told a relative. “They got confused. Can you imagine: confused.”

The day before, his brother, Ricardo, 42, an ambulance driver, and Gerardo’s two teenage grandsons had been found in the trunk of their Nissan Sentra. They had suffered a type of torture known as the “tourniquet”: wires cinched around their necks to the point of suffocation.

A note left with the bodies said this is what happens to car thieves. But the Nissan had belonged to the family.
“We feel powerless against what is happening in this city,” Flores said.

Gerardo Flores Camarena weeps at the morgue after identifying the bodies of his grandsons.

Continuing slide

When Mayor Evodio Velázquez Aguirre took office in October 2015, he said, the municipal police force was “totally out of control.”

Half the 1,500 officers had failed federal vetting and background checks. The police had spent much of 2014 on strike to protest salaries and benefits, leaving state and federal forces in charge.

The mayor said that his administration has provided the police with life insurance, housing, new cameras and vehicles. There is also a new, separate tourist police force with jaunty uniforms to attend to travelers.
“Acapulco is on its feet,” the mayor said in an interview.

But last year, there were 918 killings in the city of 700,000, the most murders of any Mexican city for the fifth straight year. During the first half of this year, the government numbers track slightly lower — 412, compared with 466 in the same period in 2016 — although the local El Sur newspaper lists 466 murders for the most recent period.

Adm. Juan Guillermo Fierro Rocha, the commander in Acapulco for the Mexican navy, which has a critical role fighting cartels, told El Sur this month that criminals are lashing out because they are “cornered,” and that he expects a decrease soon.

But Mexican authorities have failed for years to halt Acapulco’s slide.

Some 5,000 security forces are in Acapulco, and the coastal sliver of hotels and restaurants brims with federal and state police, soldiers, marines and municipal forces. This attention to the tourist strip, however, leaves the vast majority of the city exposed, residents say.

Danger for taxi drivers

Taxi drivers operate at the intersection of Acapulco’s troubles: They have a shrinking number of tourists as clients, and navigate more dangerous streets. Some have become part of the crime world themselves, working as gang spotters (voluntarily or under duress), or moving drugs or weapons in their cars. When a rival gang tries to take over a neighborhood, its members often kill taxi drivers “in an effort to blind the established organization,” Chris Kyle, an anthropologist and expert on Guerrero based at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, wrote in an affidavit for an Acapulco taxi driver applying for asylum in the United States.

More than 130 taxi drivers were slain in Acapulco last year, making them about eight times more likely to get murdered than the average city resident.

Teens with guns often commandeer taxis in Renacimiento for hours or days. They burn taxis to enforce their warnings. Guillermo Perez, 40, a taxi driver, putters around the neighborhood in a 1995 Volkswagen Beetle, its windshield cracked and upholstery ripped out, leaving his newer car hidden at home. He no longer picks up strangers, driving only clients he knows.

“People are terrified,” he said.

Years ago, ferrying around tourists used to be enjoyable, he said, even lucrative work­ —$100 for a day shift, more at night.

“It was so different: It was Acapulco,” he said. “People were out in the streets. We all lived from tourism.”

The wealthy can leave or build homes with elaborate security systems, but the poor are exposed. And so Perez, like many of the 20,000 taxi drivers in Acapulco, pays his weekly fee for protection, even though he receives none.

“If 100 pesos a week is what it costs to stay alive,” he said, “I’ll pay.”

Guillermo Perez drives his taxi in Acapulco. More than 130 cabbies were slain in Acapulco last year, making them about eight times more likely to get murdered than the average city resident

http://northernlauren.com/things-no-one-tells-you-about-living-in-mexico/

35 THINGS NO ONE TELLS YOU ABOUT LIVING IN MEXICO

 LAUREN

  10th March 2017 (Last Updated: 12th June 2018)

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Before you think about moving to Mexico, whether to one of the big three cities like Guadalajara, Monterrey or Mexico City or a smaller town, there are tons of things to consider – do you speak Spanish? Do you need a visa for Mexico? Will you like the food? What’s the cost of living in Mexico? However, after living here for almost two years now, I can tell you there are plenty of things no one tells you about living in Mexico, that you really should know and consider before you decide to move there. In the spirit of graciously making my fellow would-be-immigrant-in-Mexico’s transition easier, here’s everything weird, wonderful, quirky and even frustrating about Mexican culture and life that nobody thinks to mention when you tell them you’re moving to Mexico.

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THINGS NO ONE TELLS YOU ABOUT LIVING IN MEXICO

1. YOU CAN BUY TAMPONS IN MEXICO 

This is one of the biggest myths of all that I would like to take a second to debunk right now. Before I moved to Mexico, one thing that I kept hearing was that you can’t buy tampons in Mexico. Honestly, I should have packed a suitcase full of the bloody things according to some people. Howeverrrr, you can most definitely buy tampons here and my vagina concurs with that. They’re not cheap (but where are they cheap?!) and you might only be confronted with pads if you run to a corner shop (a la Oxxo or Seven Eleven) in a period-fuelled panic, but they can most definitely be found.

Bear in mind, I’ve lived in two of the biggest cities in Mexico (Mexico City and Guadalajara), so I can’t speak for smaller pueblos. It’s safe to assume that they will likely be trickier to get your hands on there. Even so, just buy more than you need when you do spot them, rather than wasting your luggage allowance on feminine hygiene products.

Don’t worry about packing pussy products if you want to live in Mexico © Pixabay

2. MEXICANS ARE (MOSTLY) FRIENDLY + HELPFUL

OK, OK, this is actually something that everyone tells you about living in Mexico, but I think in this post-Trump world it’s worth reiterating that Mexicans are not all drug dealers and bad hombres. In fact, most Mexicans (in my white, privileged experience) will go out of the way to help you with whatever compromising situation you find yourself in, whether that’s asking for directions or swapping change with you at the bus stop. However, that brings me on to my next point…

3. …BUT INCAPABLE OF SAYING NO

If you ask for directions and the person you ask has no idea where that place is, rare is the occasion that they’ll straight up tell you that. Instead, they’ll vaguely wave their hand, give a very convoluted response or (and this has actually happened to me) ring their daughter to get the direction from her. In short, Mexicans have a hard time saying no.

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This also explains the set response of ‘gracias’ rather than ‘no’ that you’ll hear most people say to street side vendors when they offer up their wares, and perhaps sheds light on the ahorita phenomenon of Mexican culture. For reference, ahorita (right now, literally) can mean anywhere from ‘in a sec’ to ‘absolutely never, lol’.

Related Post: Moving to Mexico? Here’s What to Pack + What to Leave Behind

4. RENTING CAN BE TRICKY

This very much depends where you’re going to be living and what you want your living situation in Mexico to look like, but renting in Mexico can prove problematic. If you want to rent a whole flat for yourself, and then sublet the other rooms (or live alone), you’ll need an aval (guarantor) who’ll be responsible for any missed payments on your behalf. Think of it as a back-up for the landlord if you turn out to be a shitty renter. However, your aval has to fulfil certain requirements and be a Mexican citizen, which is where many recently arrived expats find it difficult to get a foot on the rental ladder. There are companies which are basically like rent-an-aval services but these can prove costly, so it’s worth trying to figure out who your aval could be before you arrive.

On the other hand, if you just want to rent a room you should find the process pretty smooth – you’ll probably be asked to give a month’s rent as deposit (the cost of renting in Mexico is quite affordable for Westerners), but there are generally no formal contracts involved in the process. This can be good or bad depending on how you look at it, and you need to have a certain level of trust in your subletting landlord or lady. However, for temporary stays, it’s perfect.

The website compartodepa.com.mx was a lifesaver for me when I was searching for rooms in Guadalajara. 

5. THE BUREAUCRACY IS HORRENDOUS

Is Mexican bureaucracy bad? If you want the short answer, then yes. If you want the long answer, then fuck yes. The Mexican penchant for excessive bureaucracy is well-documented (ha!), so this shouldn’t come as much of a surprise to anyone. Either way, as an expat in Mexico, you are going to have to get used to hearing different things from various government officials at different points in the lunar cycle and depending on what they ate for breakfast that morning. I joke, of course, but it can sometimes feel like that when you’re passed from pillar to post and given different information at each stage.

We’ve all been to immigration with the correct (supposedly) documents, only to be told we need another six copies of this, another four of that and a coffee with two sugars from the Oxxo down the road, thank you very much.

When dealing with Mexican bureaucracy, take more copies in more colours, shapes and sizes than you were told you needed. Check with at least three people RE: what you actually need to bring and make sure you check the opening times for the place you need to be at very carefully, lest you arrive and find it already closed for lunch at two and won’t reopen until next February 30^th.

6. YOU CAN WAVE GOODBYE TO DIRECT DEBITS

If you’re renting in Mexico, you’ll be expected to pay your landlord cash in hand. Just like it took the US bloody ages to catch on to chip and pin, it has taken Mexico a good old while to start using direct debits. Even so, the insanely dangerous (wandering about the streets after just withdrawing thousands of pesos isn’t my favourite thing to do) and inconvenient act of paying in cash for everything should still be expected in most places.

When it comes to paying for electric bills, you have to go to the nearest Oxxo and pay there. You (again) can’t pay by card and they’ll charge you a MXN$6.50 handling fee for the pleasure.

7. BANKING TYPICALLY NEEDS TO BE DONE IN PERSON

This is an annoyance more than anything, and I’m of course speaking from my experiences with Santander only – I don’t know how other banks in Mexico operate. Disclaimer aside, with Santander everything has to be done in person – to set up online banking you have to go in person, to transfer money you have to go in person (and you’ll need the CLABE code of whoever you’re transferring money to too). Basically, it’s all just more time spent waiting to do things that could all be sorted online. (See the previous point).

© Pixabay

8. YOUR HOME DRIVING LICENCE DOES NOT EQUAL ID

Don’t bother taking your driving licence with you to be used as ID (in official capacities), because it simply won’t be accepted. Instead, you need to use your visa or your passport, and it has to be the real-life original, not a copy.

You do not have to give your actual passport to any police official if they ask you for it – in situations like that, copies should suffice of whatever form of identification they ask of you, and don’t feel pressured into giving them anything else.

9. POLITENESS IS KEY

Mexican Spanish is super polite, sometimes in excess, and you’ll quickly get used to hearing words like ‘mande’ instead of ‘qué’. Trust me, once this enters your vocabulary it’s there for good…even when I switch back to English the odd mande slips out from time to time. As far as the language goes in terms of politeness, Mexico also uses the ustedes form exclusively, so you can forget the odious, tricky to pronounce vosotros conjugation the second you step foot on Mexican soil.

Politeness extends into the culture too though. I’ve witnessed about as many people fighting to sit down on the Mexico City metro as I have fighting to not sit down. Instead, they’ll spend a good 20 seconds in a battle of wills with the other person, offering them the seat, before one of them reluctantly backs down and takes it.

10. PUBLIC TRANSPORT HAS WOMEN + CHILDREN ONLY ZONES

This only applies to the capital, as on Mexico City transportation options (like the Metrobús and Metro) there are women and children only carriages/ sections. They were introduced in an attempt to cut the rate of sexual harassment and assault on public transport, yet there are plenty of men who still regularly flout the rules and hop on them anyway. If you’re a woman (or child) reading this, use them! Similarly, if you’re a man reading this (hi!), don’t be that idiot who uses the women and children’s carriages. They’re there for a reason, so respect that.

Related Post: A Beginner’s Guide to Using the Mexico City Metro

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11. GOOD LUCK FINDING BLUTACK 

Straight up not available (Editor’s note: OK…apparently you can find ‘white tack’ but I find that to be unbearably sticky). So, if you want to pin posters to your wall, bring a blutack stash from home.

12. TRAVEL CAN BE AFFORDABLE 

This one is a controversial point, as it’s coming from a very Western perspective and concept of what is affordable and what isn’t. First of all, let’s take my three-hour round journey to work in Mexico City – I take four buses and two metros and it costs me a grand total of between MXN$24-30 (~£1-1.20). That, by my standards, is very affordable (and Mexico City actually has some of the cheapest public transport in the country), however for locals who potentially earn very little, it could actually be considered pretty expensive. Even so, compared to Monterrey (where a bus journey can run to MXN$12, rather than CDMX’s price of MXN$2) it is definitely far more affordable.

However, when it comes to long distance bus travel, it can actually be far costlier than you were perhaps led to believe before you move to Mexico…but at least the generally comfortable buses and ample leg room make up for that. Mexico doesn’t really dabble in Megabus type coaches.

Related Post: Expectation vs. Reality of Living Abroad

13. BUSES + BABY SHOES GO HAND IN HAND 

Baby shoes dangling from the handrails of buses are ubiquitous in Mexico, whether you’re in the capital or the provincias, and I mainly wanted to mention this point because 1) I’m yet to figure out why this happens and  2) I find it super amusing every time I spot a baby shoe just hanging out on public transport.

14. PDA IS OFF THE CHARTS

When I first moved to Mexico, I had a note on my phone with all the things that were surprising to me about the country and PDA was one of them. Honestly, I’ve never seen as much tongue action in real life as I did when I first started using the metro in Mexico City, and I’ve legit seen partners laid on top of one another in public parks. Couples here are really no holds barred when it comes to PDA, and being a slightly repressed and awkward Brit, I was definitely a bit taken aback by it at first. (It’s worth noting that I no longer find this particular cultural quirk surprising. Often a bit gross, yes, but surprising, no.)

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15. BULK BUYING IS FAR EASIER + SUPER COMMON

Unlike many other countries, the UK for example, where you need a membership or company card to access bulk buy stores like Costco, in Mexico the bulk buy industry is far more informal. It’s not uncommon to see people hauling huge bin bags full of crisps (not exaggerating) on the metro and you can buy boxes of sweets, such as mazapanes de la rosa from tons of stores. However, for Costco you do still sadly need a membership card.

16. SIMILAR STORES CLUSTER TOGETHER 

Want flowers? There’s probably a street for that in the city. Looking for a bridal gown? Go to the top of Chapultepec in Guadalajara. While I still fail to understand how any of these stores make money by clustering around their competitors, it does make shopping easier because everything is handily in one place and I definitely recommend taking a stroll down Calle Donceles in Mexico City, if you’re looking to pick up some used books.

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Related Post: Must-Read Books About Mexico

17. BUSES FOLLOW NO RULES 

As a general rule, you kind of just have to wing it when it comes to bus travel in Mexico. When I first got to Guadalajara, I didn’t understand how anyone ever got anywhere because there were very few ‘official’ looking bus stops and no information on the routes (there actually is a site that can help you with bus routes in Guadalajara – rutasgdl.com – but it’s pretty tricky to get your head around at first). Basically, once you’ve figured out the bus number you need, and the road it should pass down, just stand on a corner and stick your hand out when you see it approaching – with any luck it’ll stop.

The exception to this confusing bus rule is the RTP service in Mexico City (and possibly in other cities too), which is government run. They do in fact have set bus stops and you’ll be able to tell where they are by looking for the RTP sign on the side of the road.

18. ANTIBIOTICS ARE GIVEN OUT LIKE SWEETS

This is more of a public health warning, if anything, but please don’t always take antibiotics if you’re prescribed them in Mexico. I’ve been to the doctor on a handful of occasions during my time here and I find the attitude to handing out antibiotics is fairly shameful. One time I was given a prescription for them when I had a simple cough and cold. So, don’t always run to the nearest pharmacy and pop them like sweets (even if you’re told to).

Disclaimer: I’m obviously not a doctor and you don’t have to take medical advice from travel bloggers on the internet, but keep the Mexican fascination with antibiotics in mind if you’re planning on moving there. As a sidenote, always ask for the generic brand of whatever you get prescribed as you’ll save a fortune.

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19. GPS DON’T EXIST; INSTEAD, GO TO THE PHARMACY

This was something that I found super strange, as a Brit used to the NHS, when I arrived in Mexico. If you get sick, rather than going to the GP or doctor’s office, you instead have to go get a consultation with one of the GPs that have their office attached to the side of a pharmacy. (There are other ways to see a doctor, but this is easily the most common one). They’ll ask you some questions (although they aren’t allowed to touch or examine you, so choose the illness you visit them for wisely), and then they’ll write a prescription if necessary. Odd, but you rarely have to wait weeks for an appointment like in the UK, I guess.

20. YOU WILL LIKELY BE THE CENTRE OF ATTENTION 

If you’re tall, black, white, blonde, Asian or redheaded prepare to be stared at a lot. That goes doubly for women. The truth about living in Mexico is that, whether you like it or not, you’ll become the centre of attention in most places, especially buses and metros.

If you want to see some awesome women fighting back against street harassment in Mexico City, check out Las Hijas de Violencia, a female activist duo who sing a song called Sexista Punk and fire confetti guns in their aggressors’ faces.

21. POLLUTION WILL TURN YOUR SNOT BLACK

This one speaks for itself, although I’ve only experienced it in Mexico City. Don’t be alarmed when your snot has a grey tinged hue is basically what I’m saying.

22. SWEATINESS BECOMES THE NORM

Again, this one is obvious. Even in Mexico City, which is not actually all that hot 365 days a year, the metro will up your sweat tolerance within weeks. When I was studying in Cardiff, I used to find it literally unbearable if the temperature reached 16 and I was a bit sticky from the walk to university. In Mexico, sweaty pits are a way of life, and in Chile a temperature of 16 degrees had me wearing a jacket and jumper. And don’t even get me started on the high-waisted jean waistband dampness dilemma…I’ve already said too much.

23. YOU CAN’T DRINK THE TAP WATER

This one is controversial but it’s something that’s worth knowing before you move to Mexico, or even before visiting. While some people do drink the tap water without boiling it off, filtering it or generally faffing with it first, it’s not really advisable. If your stomach is used to it, then you’re unlikely to get sick, but as a newbie it’s best to stick to bottled water. Also, there can be plenty of nasty extras in the tap water in Mexico, ranging from bacteria and parasites to heavy metals, so you’ll probably want to steer clear for reasons going beyond a dicky tummy anyway. Having said all of that, I still drink the tap water as long as I’ve boiled it thoroughly in the kettle first.

The huge bottles of drinking water you see in homes and offices across Mexico are known as garrafones and cost roughly MXN$35 each.  

24. MANY BOTTLES IN MEXICO ARE RETORNABLES

It may seem insignificant, but the number of returnable bottles in Mexico is both impressive and baffling. For example, beer bottles (normal sized ones) can’t be returned, so you can chuck them away at the end of the night, but glass coke bottles should most definitely be taken back.

Large beer bottles (caguamas), on the other hand, always have to be returned – in fact, you have to pay a tax on them of anywhere up to ~MXN$10 which you’ll then be refunded once you take it back to the same store you bought it from. Alternatively, you can swap an empty for a new bottle and avoid paying the tax at all.

To get your tax back, you have to have the receipt with you which shows you paid it. Also, many stores and food stalls will have a bottle opener hanging on a string which you can use to pop the lid off your Coke/ beer the very second you buy it.

25. YOU SHOULD CARRY LOOSE CHANGE AT ALL TIMES

Honestly, the way I horde loose change you’d think I have a problem, but it’s such a commodity to have a ton of one and two peso coins kicking around your purse that I get really angsty when I have to spend it. The ubiquitous Oxxos claim to never have change, which I just think is a straight up lie, and you need to pay with exact coins on the RTP buses in Mexico City, although it also helps to have close to the exact change on any other bus too. (Don’t be like me and pay with a MXN$50 note in times of desperation, because the driver will not be your biggest fan). For tipping toilet attendants and bag packers in the supermarket, you want to have a few pesos to hand, which brings me to my next point…

26. YOU SHOULD ALWAYS TIP SOME PEOPLE

It’s common decency, by Mexico standards anyway, to tip roughly MXN$10 to your takeout food delivery driver, around MXN$3 to your bag packer in the supermarket and at least 10% on sit down restaurant bills, whether you ate tacos or a fancy schmancy three course meal. I’ve never tipped taxi drivers, but you should really give something to the ushers who show you to your seats at football games or concerts.

27. YOU CAN’T FLUSH YOUR TOILET PAPER

No, really, don’t flush it. Just throw it in to the bin at the side of the toilet and have done with it.

If you’re planning on living in Mexico and have to invest in a good ol’ toilet paper bin for your bathroom, I highly recommend buying the vanilla scented bin bags that they sell in Soriana, as they’ll make everything smell fresher.

28. NO PICA IS A STRAIGHT-UP LIE

You’ll learn eventually, but if you’re not good with spice, don’t take anyone’s assurances that ‘no pica’ at face value, because you’re the one who has to deal with the consequences. Equally, get used to being offered the mildest sauce available if you’re white. I can’t tell you the amount of times I’ve been asked if people in the UK like spicy food and whether we eat chili (although now I’m thinking about it, that last one might have been an albur…).

Dab the potentially potent sauce on your hand first and give it a quick try before slathering it all over your meal. 

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29. MILITARY + POLICE PRESENCE IS VERY COMMON

I was surprised by the amount of police officers there were around the city and on major highways, literally anytime of the day or night, when I first came to Mexico and I think it is generally quite a shocking thing. I’m not talking just normal, uniformed police officers either, I’m talking heavily armed officers and pick-up trucks full of khaki-wearing military members too.

While some people see this police presence (which is actually 1:100 residents) as reassuring, many people who live in Mexico will tell you that quite often police are the ones involved in a lot of corruption, drugs and kidnapping cases and may see their constant presence in a very different light.

30. MOVING METRO MAKEUP APPLICATION IS IMPRESSIVE

Everywhere I’ve been in Mexico, I’ve seen women applying makeup on public transport, from your bog-standard lick of lipstick to some honestly impressive liquid eyeliner application. Believe me, many women step off the metro looking entirely more refreshed than when they got on (disclaimer: I am not one of them). Actually, I tried to put mascara on on the metro for the first time today and it is so much harder than I ever imagined. Props to all the Mexican women who do that shit daily.

Keep your eyes peeled for the women using spoons as eyelash curlers. Honestly, it’s genius.

31. SEATBELTS ARE (KIND OF) OPTIONAL

This is another controversial point, but seatbelt use in Mexico is so much lower (read: usually non-existent) in comparison to seatbelt use in the UK. I wouldn’t dream of not wearing one at home, but when I’m in Mexico it literally never even crosses my mind to wear one. In fact, only once has a taxi driver asked me to put one on (in Mérida, Yucatán) and the only other times I’ve used them are when friends give me lifts.

You can be fined for not wearing a seatbelt though, so even though their usage might not be that common, take care if you decide not to clunk, click with every trip.

32. YOU’LL BE LUCKY IF YOUR POST ARRIVES

If you want some treats from home, take them with you, because the Mexican postal service is not all that reliable. I was lucky enough to receive my parcel without problems, albeit it two months late, but other expats I know in Mexico haven’t been so lucky – my housemate had her parcel held by customs and had to pay a sugar tax on the contents (which struck us both as absolute invented bullshit, because my chocolate bar laden box made it through without a hitch), and parcels I sent to my boyfriend when I was in the UK just never arrived.

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33. PUBLIC TRANSPORT + RAIN DON’T MIX 

Mexico, contrary to popular belief, does have rain. In fact, it has a very well-established rainy season between the months of April and September and the roads are notoriously bad when it comes to flooding. You know how Brits (in the south) don’t deal with a light dusting of snow that well? You know, they close schools and newspaper headlines scream out at us that it’s snowing as if we can’t see that for ourselves. Well, that’s what happens with rain in Mexico. The metro is slower than ever, buses are packed with people who all smell like wet dog and everyone huddles in stores for shelter rather than just get wet. It’s a disaster.

34. YOU CAN BUY LOOSE CIGARETTES 

Social smoking just becomes that much easier when loose cigarettes are sold by street vendors, from stalls and in bars all across the country. While this is technically not allowed in Mexico, it still happens, so prepare for that temptation if you’re planning on moving to Mexico.

They still sell the clicky menthol cigarettes in Mexico, the type which everyone knows is the gateway cigarette.

35. YOU WON’T WANT TO LIVE ANYWHERE ELSE AGAIN 

This is perhaps one of the most dangerous things no one tells you about living in Mexico – you’ll never want to leave! If you’re anything like me anyway, you’ll fall head over heels with the country and people (in more ways than one) and probably won’t want to live anywhere else again.

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If you want to read more things no one tells you about living in Mexico, click here. Alternatively, check out my Quick + Dirty Insider Guide to the Best Neighbourhoods in Mexico City. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rz6t2FEablA