As many as 70 bags of human remains were discovered Wednesday on a vacant lot in Tonalá, Jalisco, where at least 11 bodies have been distinguished amid a grim collection of body parts.
Residents of Alamedas de Zalatitán, 30 minutes from Guadalajara, complained last month to authorities of a nauseous smell. Thirteen barely concealed bags of body parts were found at the lot when work began on April 25.
This week heavy machinery was used to dig further, revealing dozens more bags.
The lot — with an unroofed building on an area of 180 square meters — is not in a secluded location, but between houses and streets through which residents circulate every day.
State Attorney General Gerardo Octavio Solís laid out the numbers. “Seventy bags have been located with various human remains which to this point are counted as 11 victims, and the corresponding work continues,” he said.
Jalisco is the worst state in the country for the number of missing people, more than 12,790, according to the National Search Commission.
In February, 18 garbage bags with dismembered bodies were found in front of the Chivas soccer stadium in Zapopan. Three months earlier, 189 bodies were discovered in a huge clandestine grave in El Salto.
Andres N. is suspected of having murderered at least 15 women. Authorities have found the bodies of several victims in his México state home. photos: México state Attorney General's Office Twitter
A 72-year-old México state man has admitted to killing and eating numerous women over a period of 20 years.
Andrés N. of Atizapán de Zaragoza, a municipality in the greater Mexico City metropolitan area, was arrested Tuesday. According to Televisa reporter Antonio Nieto, the suspect confessed to killing 15 women.
“He asked for water and said, ‘Fifteen, I think there were 15,’” Nieto wrote on Twitter in a post that included a video of Andrés N. arriving at a police lockup in México state.
Some media outlets reported that the suspect admitted to murdering as many as 30 women over the past two decades. He has also reportedly confessed to dismembering his victims’ bodies and eating parts of them.
“Excavations are continuing … to determine how many women were murdered … and buried at his home,” Nieto wrote.
México state state officials search the suspect’s home for evidence.
The remains of several women have already been found at the suspect’s home.
The former president of an Atizapán municipal government citizens’ council, Andrés N. appeared to be an ordinary México state resident, according to media reports. Before his arrest he was on the campaign team of a mayoral candidate.
Police began investigating him after 34-year-old Reyna González Amador was reported missing last week. González was apparently in a relationship with Andrés N. but told him last week that she no longer wanted anything to do with him, according to police reports cited by the news organization ADN40.
The presumed serial murderer allegedly attacked her with a knife and killed her. Police found the woman’s dismembered remains at the suspect’s home.
Dilcya García, a gender crimes prosecutor, said the remains of several women and their belongings were found at the home, located in the Lomas de San Miguel neighborhood.
“We’ve found … bone remains, women’s clothing, voter IDs and other evidence that makes us assume that he could be a serial killer of women,” she said.
Along with victims’ dismembered bodies, authorities discovered purses, ID cards and various other women’s belongings in the suspect’s home.
According to the news website Infobae, gruesome evidence was found at the suspect’s home, including women’s scalps and skulls, as well as audio recordings of 20 alleged murders. Police also reportedly located weapons, including machetes and a fretsaw.
Andrés N.’s arrest comes 2 1/2 years after a couple was arrested in Ecatepec, México state, on multiple femicide charges. The so-called “monsters of Ecatepec,” who admitted to killing at least 20 women and eating parts of their victims, are serving prison sentences in excess of 100 years.
México state, which includes many municipalities that are part of the Mexico City metropolitan area, recorded 35 femicides in the first quarter of 2021, more than any other state.
A noose is placed around the candidate's neck in the Chiapas city.
A mob in an indigenous community in Chiapas simulated the hanging of a mayoral candidate and demanded a ransom for his release on Sunday.
The Morena candidate for mayor of San Cristóbal de las Casas, Juan Salvador Camacho, was forcefully detained for eight hours along with his 20-strong entourage, who were made to pay 300,000 pesos (around US $15,000) to gain their freedom.
Indigenous Tzotziles in the community of Los Llanos, 22 kilometers from San Cristóbal, said the politician failed to fulfill promises for public works made in his previous campaign for deputy in the state Congress.
The Camacho family name is tied to a contentious history with indigenous communities. Camacho’s late father, Manuel Camacho Solís, was a key political figure in negotiations between the government and Zapatista (EZLN) insurrectionists in 1994.
In the two videos which emerged yesterday, Camacho is heard saying he only has 100,000 pesos, which provoked one man to snatch the glasses from the candidate’s face and throw them to the ground, on which others forced him to walk barefoot.
One man can be heard shouting “Bring me a skirt, we are going to take his trousers off” as the captive candidate was led beneath a tree to face a noose.
The candidate looks uneasy as the noose is released from his neck amid shouts of “Are you going to get it [the money]?”
Camacho then puts a hand to his chest and says “It’s OK” to indicate agreement.
In a statement the Morena party said it “[condemns] any act of violence that destabilizes the political-electoral and social environment in the community … there is no pretext that justifies the physical, emotional and psychological instability of any citizen, much less harassment be it for ideological, political or personal beliefs,” it read.
Camacho said that the episode was the result of political failure. “Our communities in San Cristóbal are unhappy as a result of years of indifference on the part of the authorities, who have historically seen them as electoral spoils. We reconcile, we dialogue, we go ahead and we are stronger than ever … We are going to win, because we represent the authentic transformation of San Cristóbal,” he said.
Politics are complicated in Chiapas where the largely indigenous militant EZLN controls substantial swathes of the state. Their armed uprising began just days after Manuel Camacho Solís took office in 1994. He was charged with mediating an agreement with the militia on behalf of the government.
The EZLN rose in opposition to the North American Free Trade Agreement and demanded the autonomy of indigenous communities be recognized in the constitution.
Juan Salvador Camacho is also the cousin of Senator Manuel Velasco Coello, who was tangled in corruption scandals as governor of Chiapas from 2012 to 2018.
Tamaulipas Governor Francisco García says he is the subject of a political attack by the Morena government. File photo
The federal Attorney General’s Office (FGR) has obtained a warrant for the arrest of Tamaulipas Governor Francisco García Cabeza de Vaca on organized crime and money laundering charges.
Almost three months after it came to light that the federal government was seeking to prosecute García for ties to organized crime, illicit enrichment and tax fraud, a judge has issued a warrant for the arrest of the National Action Party governor, who has been in office in the northern border state since 2016.
The lower house of federal Congress last month approved the FGR’s request to strip the governor of his immunity from prosecution, but the Tamaulipas Congress refused to ratify the decision.
The Supreme Court ruled in favor of García maintaining his immunity, known as the fuero, but President López Obrador claimed this week that its decision was “ambiguous” and that the governor could face justice.
“The opinion of the interior minister [Olga Sánchez Cordero, a former Supreme Court judge] is that there is no fuero; the ruling of the court is not clear in this case …” he said Tuesday.
The federal judge who issued the arrest warrant appears to share that view. The Associated Press reported that it appears that García is in a situation in which he only retains his immunity if he remains within the borders of Tamaulipas.
On the request of the FGR, the National Immigration Institute on Wednesday night issued an alert aimed at preventing the governor from leaving the country.
In a statement posted to social media, García said the warrant for his arrest violated his right to the presumption of innocence and due process. He also asserted that the Tamaulipas Congress and the Supreme Court have determined that his protection from prosecution remains “current” and “untouchable.”
“… They’re violating the decision of a sovereign Congress and, even worse, they’re ignoring a legal resolution of the country’s highest court,” the governor said.
“The political motives are clear,” García said, asserting that the federal government is using the justice system to “harass and intimidate” its opponents and people who are critical of the government and the ruling party, “especially when the electoral preference of the citizens is in clear decline.”
“It’s not a coincidence that the existence of the arrest warrant was first disseminated by members of the government party [Morena]. This only means that the decision to proceed against me was taken in the National Palace,” the governor wrote.
Santiago Nieto, head of the federal Financial Intelligence Unit, says his office has frozen the financial accounts of 12 people and 25 legal entities associated with García. File photo
The National Palace is the seat of executive power and also the residence of López Obrador and his family.
García said he would defend himself against the “false accusations” he faces as he has done since the beginning of “this political and media attack.”
The governor claimed that he has been denied access to the federal file against him and charged that the country’s laws have been buried on the “whim” of the president.
“… The free and sovereign people of Tamaulipas brought me here. I will defend myself to the limits of my strength. … This country is not a nation of one man. Mexico belongs to all of us,” García concluded.
In addition to having an arrest warrant issued against him, the governor on Wednesday also had his bank accounts frozen. The head of the federal government’s Financial Intelligence Unit (UIF), which worked with the FGR on investigating the governor’s allegedly illicit activities, announced on Twitter that he had ordered the freezing of accounts of the “network of Francisco G for alleged operations with resources of illicit origin.”
UIF director Santiago Nieto said the order applied to the accounts of 12 people and 25 legal entities. The UIF has reportedly blocked the accounts of the governor and those of his close family members, including his brothers, mother and wife.
“Zero tolerance of corruption and impunity, especially of those who believed they were untouchable,” Nieto wrote. “We will continue the investigations to determine if the network of Francisco G or of the Tamaulipas government illegally financed electoral campaigns. If that’s the case, we’ll present the corresponding complaints.”
According to an FGR document sent to the federal Congress to support its request for the governor’s desafuero, as the immunity stripping process is known, García, a former federal lawmaker and mayor of Reynosa, has used his power and influence as governor to amass a multimillion-dollar fortune.
The document said the governor designed a money laundering scheme that operated from within his government in which public money was diverted for the benefit of family members and other associates between 2016 and 2019. He allegedly used front companies in the scheme and purchased properties with inexplicable riches far greater than the wealth afforded to him from his governor’s salary.
The FGR application for desafuero included an anonymous email sent to federal authorities claiming that García has 951 million pesos (US $47.8 million) of hidden assets in south Texas, which borders Tamaulipas, and that the García Cabeza de Vaca family owns 30 properties there, including company premises, restaurants, art galleries, homes and ranches.
Testimony included in the application asserts that García has links to the Gulf Cartel dating back to 2004. Organized crime has a strong presence in Tamaulipas, and former state governors there, including Tomás Yarrington — currently imprisoned in the United States awaiting trial on drug trafficking and laundering charges — have fallen afoul of the law.
García is also under investigation in the United States, meaning that fleeing to that country would appear to be an unviable option to escape prosecution. A Tamaulipas government source told the newspaper El País that the governor remains in the northern state.
The warrant for García’s arrest comes just over two weeks before municipal, state and federal elections are held on June 6. The Tamaulipas governor’s term is not scheduled to end until 2022.
Chef Celia Florián is the owner of the restaurant Las Quince Letras in Oaxaca city.
Celia Florián sums up Oaxacan cuisine with the words mole, corn and mezcal. But the cuisine and the culture behind it are a complicated tapestry of local and seasonal ingredients that distinguish dishes among the many small valleys of this mountainous state.
Florián is the owner and inspiration behind the Las Quince Letras restaurant, which she opened with husband Fidel Méndez in 1992 in the center of Oaxaca city. It serves dishes from all over the state, but its signature dish is the mole negro that she grew up with.
“Cooking is for me an encounter with myself,” Florián says. “It has been my refuge; it is my home and it will continue to be my everything.”
That passion for cooking began early in life. Born into a rural farm family in the La Ciénaga community of Zimatlán de Álvarez, her early childhood revolved around the cultivation and preparation of food.
Her culinary foundation is the work she did with her mother and grandmother, learning tasks such as prepping vegetables, making tortillas and even churning butter.
One of Las Quince Letras’ signature dishes, mole negro.
“Here in Oaxaca, we eat well as families because of the variety of ingredients there are. The cuisine is exquisite, very healthy because of the plants and other ingredients that the earth provides. They give the dishes their distinctive flavors.”
The family moved to the city of Oaxaca when she was still in primary school. As an adult, she had a steady job working at a bank, but her love for the cuisine of her childhood led her to take the plunge and open Las Quince Letras, a lifelong project of bringing the home cooking of Oaxaca’s kitchens to an appreciative audience.
Florián is not a trained chef. Her knowledge comes from her personal experience and her contacts with many, many home cooks all over the state. She did take some classes in restaurant operations but tries to keep cooking techniques as close to the original as possible. This includes an aversion to exact measurements and preferring to cook by sight, feel and experience.
“You need to cook with your own hands,” she says. However, traditional wood fires are out because of city regulations.
She promotes quality, healthy, locally produced traditional food. Country cooking, she says, means depending on what is available locally and almost never using prepackaged items. Cooks like her grandmother use few oils and fats. Florián follows this example.
She finds that avoiding the fat does not mean lessening the flavor. “In fact, they taste more elegant,” she says.
Las Quince Letras (The 15 Letters) has been in the same location since it opened 28 years ago.
The name is taken from the building. When she was young, it was locally known as “La Esquina” (The Corner) a local landmark. In the past, it had been a tenement with various businesses occupying the space by the street. The then-owner had these tenants use “Las Quince Letras” as the business name, something that was done with the small grocery store that occupied the space before the restaurant.
That landlord is long gone, but Florían decided to keep the naming tradition. It does not hurt that the words Cocina oaxaqueña has 15 letters.
The restaurant has changed “muchísimo, muchísimo, muchísimo” since it opened, she says. Although it has never wavered from traditional Oaxacan food, the menu has evolved to include dishes from just about all over the state, the result of her tireless research.
This work has made the restaurant a point of reference for educating not only tourists but locals as well. Younger Oaxaqueños come to the restaurant to get a better appreciation of their cuisine, something that makes her very proud. It also inspired her son, Alam Méndez Florían, to become a chef, bringing Oaxacan flavors to Mexico City and Washington, DC.
The restaurant’s success made Florián one of Mexico’s leading experts on Oaxacan cuisine, but her efforts do not end there.
The interior to Las Quince Letras restaurant in Oaxaca city, Oaxaca.
Inspired by her attendance at Slow Food’s 2018 event in Italy, she decided to organize traditional Oaxacan cooks. The result is the Asociación de Cocineras Tradicionales de Oaxaca (Traditional Cooks Association of Oaxaca), which sponsored an event called the Encuentro de Cocineras Tradicionales for three consecutive years before the pandemic hit.
Both the organization and event seek to connect cooks as well as educate the general public about the value of Oaxacan food through tastings, workshops, conferences and more. It resulted in the publication of a book entitled Las cocinas tradicionales de Oaxaca, featuring both recipes and the cooks that provided them.
The 2019 version of the Encuentro demonstrated over 200 dishes, but the 2020 and 2021 versions were canceled due to the pandemic. The hope is that the 2022 version will be a go.
Florián’s work with these cooks is personally satisfying, she says.
“These women have been my “maestras” (teachers/masters), not only in relation to cooking but about the greatness of Oaxacan women. Visiting any traditional kitchen is like entering another world, with its own food, techniques and even rituals related to preparation and eating.”
Florián’s work has been recognized with memberships in national organizations such as the Conservatoria de la Cocina Mexicana, with the restaurant listed as one of the 120 best restaurants in Mexico by Pellegrino/Nespresso and was the 2021 Artisan & Authenticity Award winner of the World’s’ Best Restaurant Selection of the French organization La Liste. She has appeared multiple times on local, national and international television, including appearances on Netflix’s Street Food Latinoamerica series. She was also a judge of the MasterChef México TV series in 2020.
But her work is far from finished. Oaxaca is a seemingly infinite number of tiny valleys and hamlets that would take multiple lifetimes to explore.
“Oaxaca’s cuisine is a jewel,” says the chef, and certainly it has a long and bright future.
Leigh Thelmadatter arrived in Mexico 18 years ago and fell in love with the land and the culture in particular its handcrafts and art. She is the author of Mexican Cartonería: Paper, Paste and Fiesta (Schiffer 2019). Her culture column appears regularly on Mexico News Daily.
Puebla cousins César Galeazzi Bortolotti and Antonio "Pichi" Zechinelli Galeazzi. all photos by Joseph Sorrentino
A pair of cousins are well on their way to cornering the artisanal salsa and salad dressing market in Chipilo, Cholula, Puebla and several other Mexican cities.
Before starting their own businesses, César Galeazzi Bortolotti and Antonio (Pichi) Zechinelli Galeazzi had extensive experience in the food industry. Galeazzi worked as a cook for 12 years, while Zechinelli managed a restaurant and ran a store that sold artisanal foods.
Then they struck out on their own. Galeazzi decided to start his business, Macumba Salsa, after a meal in a restaurant.
“Many years ago, I tried a salsa in a restaurant that I liked a lot but could not find anywhere,” he said. “After several years, I decided to try to make my own.”
In 2012, Galeazzi started experimenting with his first salsa, which was made with carrots.
Antonio “Pichi” Zechinelli Galeazzi and his cockatiel, Fabrizio, who is a fan of homemade crostini.
“I just tried with different ingredients,” he explained, “a little more of this, a little less of that. I started giving some to friends to try. When I started, I gave bottles as presents, I sold maybe one box a week.”
He started Macumba Salsas in 2014 and it has grown substantially from that one box a week. He figures he now delivers 100 to 120 boxes a week just in the state of Puebla. Another 50 go to Mexico City.
Galeazzi makes his salsas three days a week in a small, cramped building behind his house in Atlixco, Puebla, assisted at times by Ana Elsa Precoma. All of the salsas are handmade, a labor-intensive process.
Precoma cleans and cuts carrots while Galeazzi measures out various ingredients. He’s been making his salsas for so long, he no longer needs to consult the recipes.
After blending the ingredients for several minutes, Galeazzi poured the liquid into a squirt bottle and then filled small bottles with the salsa. He recently bought a machine that can fill 1,200 bottles an hour but for now, he still does it by hand.
“It is más rustico (more rustic),” he said.
He has five salsa flavors: carrot, cucumber, onion, mango and garlic with beets and they are all made with habañero chiles, mainly from Yucatán and Campeche, giving the salsas a serious kick; a small drop goes a long way. His salsas can be added to a variety of foods.
“Carrot and cucumber are good on salads, pastas and seafood,” he said. “Onion and the garlic with beets are used on meats — these are strong — and mango because it is sweet, good on salads and with shrimp. All of the salsas have the same base but different fruits or vegetables … I may start making strawberry, maybe tangerine later when I have more people working.”
He may also begin selling pesto and another salsa called salsa macho, a fiery concoction of sesame seeds, peanuts and chile de arbol.
Galeazzi uses habañeros in his salsas because “they do not bother the stomach.” They are also high in Vitamins A and C, he points out, and have been shown to lower cholesterol and blood pressure. They may even help to prevent some cancers.
Macumba seems to be an unusual name for a Mexican salsa since it’s the name of a religion primarily practiced in Brazil by people of African descent, a religion that is sometimes thought to be some type of witchcraft. Galeazzi said he learned about Macumba from Christian Zacek, a Cholulan painter and muralist. He said he liked the name and the fact it was a folk religion. His salsa, he said, is “el brujo de sabor” (the sorcerer of flavor).
Meanwhile, Zechinelli, Galeazzi’s cousin, lives and works about 15 minutes away on the outskirts of Chipilo. Like Galeazzi, his workspace is part of his home. He uses two rooms as kitchens to prepare his products. The first food he started making was crostini, toasted pieces of bread topped with parsley and garlic.
The idea to make crostini came to Zechinelli when he was leafing through a book.
“A long time ago, I saw a photo of crostini in a book and thought, ‘That looks interesting.” He was managing a store when he began making it. When he realized more and more people were buying his crostini, he decided to close the store and devote himself full-time to his own business, one that is a family affair.
In a room with two ovens, three women — all related in some way — prepare the crostini. Claudia slices the rolls; they’ll go through 1,000 every two days.
Across from her, Mariana ladles on the garlic while Alondra keeps an eye on the bread as it toasts. Zechinelli himself tops the slices with a generous dose of parsley. Once the slices are prepped, they go into a conventional oven.
“The bread is first toasted in a conventional oven for five minutes to toast the bottom,” Zechinelli said, “then in a commercial oven for 15 minutes.” It’s one he built himself.
Once the slices cool, they’re bagged and sealed. Each bag contains about 150 grams of crostini, about two rolls’ worth.
Zechinelli baking his crostini.
Crostini are often used to make bruschetta, which typically feature diced tomatoes, basil and other herbs piled atop the bread. But they can also be eaten plain, which is the way Zechinelli’s cockatiel, Fabrizio, likes them.
Zechinelli prepares his other two products, salad dressings and salsa macha, in an adjacent room.
He sells 14 different salad dressings, including poppyseed, the most popular, creamy Italian, and ranch. He churns out about 400 bottles every week and, like Galeazzi, does the work by hand.
Two years ago, Zechinelli began selling salsa macha, which packs a bit of a punch. He makes six different ones, all of them containing different chiles; sesame is the spiciest. They can be used to perk up meats or pastas but they’re also good slathered on his crostini and accompanied with an ice-cold beer. His crostini are sold in clear bags, and his salad dressings have their name tied to the bottle. The salsa macha come in small jars.
Zechinilli started his business six years ago and has yet to name it.
“I will not have a name for my products,” he said. “Everyone in Chipilo knows they are mine, that they are very homemade, that they are good. They say, ‘Oh, these are Pichi’s.’ They know the quality.”
The two cousins sell their products in stores and restaurants throughout Puebla, Morelos, Mexico City and as far away as Oaxaca and are especially well known in Chipilo, a small town in Puebla. When asked if they’d someday combine their businesses, Zechinelli replied, “In fact, we are one business already. He sells mine; I sell his. All of Chipilo is one business. We all sell each other’s products.”
President Lopez Obrador again expressed unhappiness at the United States funding Mexican organizations he feels oppose his administration
President López Obrador on Wednesday once again railed against the United States government’s funding of Mexican civil society organizations he has branded as opponents of his administration.
Speaking at his regular news conference six days after his government sent a diplomatic note to its U.S. counterpart to ask it to explain why it has provided funding to Mexicans Against Corruption and Impunity (MCCI), López Obrador urged Washington to suspend funding of such groups.
The president reiterated that the U.S. government’s funding of political groups which he claims are disguising themselves as civil society organizations is “a clear example of interference and intervention” in internal affairs that are the exclusive domain of Mexicans.
In the case of MCCI, the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, provided funding to the anti-graft group, which has exposed alleged corruption not just in the current federal government but also in its predecessor.
López Obrador also renewed his criticism of the United States government for providing funding to other groups that he also believes are opposed to his administration, such as press freedom organization Article 19.
“This is in violation of the constitution, money from abroad can’t be received to do political work in Mexico. It’s supposed that these United States agencies support members of the so-called civil society. But the truth is that is a simulation, a front,” he said.
“… It’s as if the Mexican embassy in the United States was giving money to [U.S.] government opponents,” López Obrador said.
“[There is] a commitment from the U.S. government to carry out a review [ of its funding, but] I believe they’re taking too long, I say it respectfully. … Hopefully they cancel the support this week.”
MCCI responded to the president’s latest remarks in a statement that rejected his claim that it is a political group. The assertion that the organization has links to political parties is completely unfounded, MCCI said, adding that it will never affiliate itself with a party.
“… The resources with which MCCI operates come from international development agencies, foundations and private organizations in compliance with Mexican laws. … Each financial donation received by MCCI is registered with the relevant authorities,” the statement said.
“… The president has attacked and falsely accused MCCI on 61 occasions during his morning press conference interventions. This conduct inhibits the work that the MCCI carries out. It constitutes political persecution against a civil society organization that … has made responsible, legal and legitimate use of both the resources received from its donors and the freedoms guaranteed by the Mexican constitution.”
Writing in The Washington Post on Wednesday, columnist León Krauze asserted that López Obrador’s claims of U.S. interventionism are designed for political gain but are also reflective of his contempt for criticism.
“Behind López Obrador’s conspiracy theories of American interventionism and his obstinate persecution of independent watchdogs in Mexico lies not only his fear of losing ground in next month’s legislative elections but something more nefarious: his intolerance to both oversight and criticism,” he wrote.
Krauze also noted that the president mocked the MCCI’s board of advisers at a recent news conference.
“’Look, these are the people who question us,’” he [López Obrador] said, chuckling as he pointed to a screen filled with pictures of journalists, intellectuals and entrepreneurs. ‘So much objectivity, plurality, impartiality, independence, autonomy! he added, sarcastically.”
López Obrador has also railed against Claudio X. González, the founder of MCCI and an outspoken government critic.
“In a democracy, you can speak of opponents, but not of coup plotters,” González, who left MCCI almost a year ago, said in an interview with Krauze, referring to the president’s assertions last week that U.S. funding of Mexican organizations was promoting a coup mentality in Mexico.
María Amparo Casar, the current head of MCCI, told Krauze that the government was using “intimidatory actions” against the anti-graft group. She rejected claims that USAID influences MCCI’s work.
“It has no influence whatsoever in the development of the investigation, the approach used or in the results of the investigations. There is no proof of interventionism whatsoever,” Casar said.
“MCCI is not an ‘opposition group.’ We are not behind any coup. Beyond the fact that our stated corporate mission and articles of incorporation expressly prohibit it, there is not a shred of evidence that MCCI participates in partisan politics,” she added. “The nature of our work is uncomfortable for the government. It was for the Peña Nieto government, and it is now.”
Krauze concluded that “a president who publicly berates and exposes his critics or who can accuse the United States of interventionism with absolute impunity is no laughing matter,” noting that on June 6, voters will decide whether to give López Obrador and his administration even more power.
Even tarantulas get treated with kindness in the writer's house — but they don't get to stay. deposit photos
“¡Ya quítense, pinches moscas!” (“Go away, damn flies!”) shouts my friend as she desperately swats at the noisy black dots buzzing around her table where she’s just set the food out. She misses most of them that day, but I have another friend who’s gotten so good at catching them that she’s up to about a 50% kill rate.
Even with her strongly-worded demands that certainly would have made my little fly-heart jump, they were unfazed and kept nose-diving toward the chicken like the crazy little kamikaze pilots they are.
Bugs are a big part of life in Mexico — to a greater extent, I think, than in further-north North America.
There are the famous bugs that we love, of course: the beautiful monarch butterflies that tourists come from far and wide to observe and that are becoming increasingly more difficult to protect are one famous example. Another are the fireflies (actually beetles) of Tlaxcala, that I’m hoping myself to go see this summer.
And while they’re not an official attraction, I’ve been known to stop for half an hour at a time to observe ants as they march back and forth in their impossibly long and efficient lines that I’ve seen stretch for a kilometer or more.
Buggy beauty is truly in the eye of the behavior.
There are the edible bugs too, of course, considered a delicacy in several regions of the country. While I’ve tried the famous chapulines (grasshoppers) and got the obligatory picture of myself looking simultaneously amazed and very dubious as I did so, I’ve yet to venture into the rest of the vast world of edible insects. (For a very entertaining essay about some more of the edible insects of Mexico, check out Bodie Kellogg’s piece from a few years ago here.)
While I’ve traditionally been pretty chill about even icky bugs that make it into my house — I pride myself at not jumping up onto the sofa and waving my hands in front my tear-streaked and horrified face when I see a six- or eight-legged critter — I draw the line at the ones that could potentially send me or my kid to the hospital.
In Querétaro, it was scorpions, which my dog at the time (RIP, sweet She-ra) mercifully hunted and killed with a vigor I wouldn’t have expected from her calm, chill demeanor.
Querétaro was also the place where I watched in horror after one particularly rainy day as the patio of the school where I taught became covered with the biggest ants that I’d ever seen with wings. That’s right: giant ants that fly.
They might as well have been those flying monkeys from the Wizard of Oz as far as I was concerned. But what choice did I have but to try to make space? We share the planet with adorable kittens and mutant flying ants alike.
Here in Xalapa, I recently found a tarantula. A TARANTULA, people. In my living room. I’d never even seen one not in a terrarium before.
Before it made it to the blanket draped over my napping child, I managed to trap it in a wide-rimmed empty peanut container (I tried with a big mayonnaise jar first, but it wasn’t big enough. Insert totally grossed out scream GIF here).
And then, I took it outside and threw it out into what the tarantula must have believed was a vast and endless forest, the wooded terreno in front of my house. I mean, I wasn’t going to kill something the size of a small mammal.
Bugs have been on my mind more lately as they’ve been invading my home in great quantities. I’ve got a mosquito net above my bed, but the rest of the house is fair game as long as I want my windows to stay open, and I do. It’s been raining a lot, so maybe they’re seeking shelter inside my home?
I’ve got everything from the tiny ants marching around my bathroom sink (what on earth are they finding to eat there?) to the occasional flying cockroach (please just don’t fly suddenly in front of my face okaythankyou), to the random unidentified beetles lying suddenly dead on my stairs. Did they come to my house to die, or did they not find their way out?
I haven’t found many spiders in my home lately, but when I do, I usually leave them be if they’re just minding their own business in a corner we humans don’t usually occupy. Really, I appreciate the service they provide by eating other bugs.
Nature isn’t all romantic. Just ask my friend who just found four little sparrows decapitated and eaten in her backyard by a rogue crow (or a perfectly predictable and natural crow).
But not seeing any bugs at all would be much more worrisome than the occasional unidentified buzzing objects in my home. They’re part of this ecosystem that we all belong to, and while they may bug us personally (get it?), we need them.
So, for now, I’ll keep doing my best to live and let live as I’m awakened each morning before sunrise by the pleasant sound of cicadas right outside my window and greeted each evening on the road to my house by lightning bugs guiding me home.
A abandoned LP gas tanker pickup truck found by authorities in Chiautla, México state, in March. The truck was connected to an illegal tap.
Illegal taps on state-owned pipelines transporting liquefied petroleum gas increased 43.7% in the first quarter of 2021 compared to the same period of last year, official data shows.
There were 687 cases of LP gas theft between January and March, up from 478 in the first quarter of 2020.
Almost four of every five illegal taps – 78% – occurred in Puebla, which is also a hotspot for the theft of gasoline. Detected cases of gas theft in the state increased 45.1% to 537 from 370 in the first quarter of 2020.
The national epicenter of the crime is the Puebla municipality of Tepeaca, where 188 cases – 27.3% of the total – were detected between January and March.
An unnamed security official with Pemex explained some of the modus operandi of LP gas thieves in an interview with the newspaper Reforma.
“The theft of LP gas from pipelines is more sophisticated than the theft of fuel [gasoline]. It requires more precision in the installation of the illegal tap and it’s often carried out [by people] with knowledge of the system,” he said.
“… The connections … placed on the pipeline go directly to a tanker truck, [the LP gas] is not collected in a gas tank,” the Pemex official explained.
He said that security operations have detected lines of tanker trucks waiting to be filled with illegally extracted gas.
“We’ve found up to six tanker trucks near a [pipeline] tap; these tanker trucks have the markings of well-known brands, but they’re fake, … they’re filled mainly at night,” the security superintendent said.
The official said that illegal taps are often made on pipelines that run through farmland, adding that the process to extract gas can cause major leaks.
The danger of illegally extracting extremely flammable substances such as gasoline and gas from pipelines is perhaps best exemplified by an explosion in January 2019 of a petroleum pipeline in Tlahuelilpan, Hidalgo, that had been tapped by thieves. More than 130 people who had flocked to the site to fill containers with gasoline spurting out of the pipeline were killed in the blast.
The Pemex official said that much of the LP gas stolen in Puebla is sold directly to communities in the same state. Thieves threaten legal gas distributors to muscle in on their market, he said.
He also said that thieves in Puebla sell stolen LP gas to companies that distribute the product in states such as Puebla, Tlaxcala, Hidalgo and México state.
“It also goes to Mexico City, Querétaro, or other parts of the center of the country,” the official said. “It’s big business for [organized] crime and they’re not being stopped due to a lot of factors, a lot of them political.”
The increase in illegal LP gas pipeline taps in the first quarter of the year came after a 77.5% surge in cases of theft last year. There were more than 23,000 illegal taps in 2020, generating an economic loss of almost 30.2 billion pesos (US $1.5 billion).
Christopher and his parents, who were interviewed Tuesday by Milenio TV.
The 15-year-old youth who was allegedly sexually assaulted by a Morena lawmaker said this week he is searching for justice to prevent there being any further victims.
Christopher, whose surname was not given, claims federal Deputy Benjamín Saúl Huerta drugged him in a bar in Mexico City on April 21 before taking him to a hotel where he suffered sexual abuse. He was discharged from a week in a psychiatric hospital on May 5.
Huerta was arrested the same day but released soon after, being protected by the fuero, which gives lawmakers immunity from prosecution. Since Huerta’s release, the investigation has widened to cover new complainants who have recounted similar events.
Christopher appeared before the Mexico City Attorney General’s Office yesterday with his face covered, alongside his parents and lawyer.
“What I want right now is justice. All I want is for there to be no more victims,” he said in an interview, adding that he is still receiving psychological care and has the full support of his family.
He confirmed he has recovered physically from the abuse, and is satisfied with the conduct of the state Attorney General’s Office since a new prosecutor was assigned to the case.
However, he said he misses his “previous life” in Puebla. Christopher’s family say they cannot return home due to threats against them.
His mother, Mary, detailed the threats faced by the family. “It is impossible for me to return to Puebla, I do not have work and in the market they told us that they don’t want to see us there because people are afraid,” she said.
She added that they have received threats via telephone and text message, and that their addresses have been identified. “They told us that we had to stop the complaint because if not they were going to kill us,” she said.
The family say the new prosecutor will now attempt to bring the charge of rape against the lawmaker, rather than the lesser charge of sexual harassment.