The government advises that the use of face masks shouldn’t be obligatory in open spaces where people can maintain a “healthy distance” from each other but recommends wearing one outdoors if social distancing isn’t possible. It offers the same advice for enclosed spaces.
The government also recommends the elimination of the use of tapetes sanitizantes – “sanitizing mats” placed at the entrance to shops, restaurants and other businesses – and filtros sanitarios, health checkpoints where people are screened for COVID, usually via temperature checks.
The new IMSS guidelines also has implications for procedures in schools, which have enforced mask rules and other sanitary protocols. SEP
“It’s important to mention that there’s no evidence that disinfectant mats work so their use is being withdrawn. They shouldn’t be used!” the new document states.
It also says that employers can’t force employees to take COVID-19 tests or prevent them from working – dismiss them, in other words – if they are not vaccinated against the disease.
“Workplaces may carry out tests … with the consent of workers … [but] in no case should the taking of a test be mandatory in order to return to work,” the document says.
While the government recommends vaccination against COVID, it states that a person’s vaccination status “mustn’t be a determining factor [used to] stop people from carrying out their work activities.”
Also among the new guidelines are a range of “general measures” to mitigate the spread of COVID, such as washing hands frequently and covering one’s mouth and nose when coughing or sneezing.
The government says that the guidelines in its new document should be applied “at a national level in all workplaces.”
Their objective is to “establish specific measures … for the continuation of work activities in a safe and responsible way.”
Publication of the new guidelines comes over two and a half years after the coronavirus pandemic began in Mexico. The government initially decreed a national social distancing initiative – a quasi lockdown that wasn’t enforced – to combat COVID, but the disease nevertheless quickly took hold across the country in the first half of 2020.
Memorial to lost loved one lost left at the Guadalupe Basilica’s remembrance wall for COVID victims in Mexico City. The nation ranks fifth for total COVID deaths and 32nd for per capita deaths, with 258 fatalities per 100,000 people, according to John Hopkins University. Victoria Valtierra Ruvalcaba/Cuartoscuro
After five waves of the disease, Mexico has now recorded more than 7 million confirmed cases and over 330,000 COVID-related deaths, figures that are considered significant undercounts, mainly due to a lack of testing. There are currently just over 5,500 active cases, according to Health Ministry estimates.
The country ranks fifth for total COVID deaths after the United States, Brazil, India and Russia, and 32nd for per capita deaths with 258 fatalities per 100,000 people, according todata compiled by John Hopkins University.
“Love is in the Air,” a 2003 stencil mural in the West Bank, territory that is claimed by both Israel and Palestine. Sotheby’s
An exhibition featuring more than 150 works by enigmatic street artist Banksy will commence in Mexico City this week.
The Art of Banksy “Without Limits” exhibition – which is not authorized by the artist – will start Saturday at the Antiguo Hotel Reforma in the inner-city neighborhood of Tabacalera. The exhibition has previously been shown in several countries including the United States, Australia, Chile, South Korea, Germany and Turkey.
According to the exhibition website, original works, prints on different kinds of materials, photos, sculptures, murals and installations will be on show. Tickets, which cost between 250 and 350 pesos (US $12-17), are available on Ticketmaster.
The identity of Banksy, who is known for his whimsical and political street art, has never been confirmed. Numerous media reports describe the United Kingdom-based artists as “elusive,” although he has a website and an Instagram account with over 11 million followers.
A visitor at an unauthorized Banksy exhibit takes a photo of a piece from the “Girl with Balloon” series. Depositphotos
He is perhaps best known for his “Girl with Balloon” series of stencil murals, which appeared in London 20 years ago.
The artist says on his website that “members of the public should be aware there has been a recent spate of Banksy exhibitions, none of which are consensual.”
“They‘ve been organized entirely without the artist’s knowledge or involvement. Please treat them accordingly,” he adds.
Despite his lack of endorsement, the exhibitions have been popular, attracting over 1.3 million people around the world, according to the Art of Banksy website.
Banorte’s digital bank Bineo will be the 51st bank operating in the Mexican market. Banorte
Banorte has won approval to operate a 100% online bank, a development the bank says will help it strengthen its position as a digital leader in the Mexican banking market.
The bank last week advised the Mexican Stock Exchange that the National Banking and Securities Commission (CNBV) had authorized the creation of Bineo, as the digital bank will be called.
The authorization is an “important step in the development of our digital bank,” Banorte told investors, adding that it will “allow us to move closer to the consolidation of our medium term corporate strategy and of our position of digital leadership in the Mexican market.”
The newspaper El Universal reported that Bineo will become the 51st bank operating in the Mexican market. Banorte is the first established bank in Mexico to receive authorization to operate a stand-alone, fully digital bank.
Santander is seeking CNBV authorization to bring its online bank Openbank to Mexico, while Banregio is awaiting approval that will allow its Hey Banco digital bank to operate independently.
Online banking is growing in popularity in Mexico. CNBV data shows that there were over 68.2 million digital transactions in the first six months of the year, a 20% increase compared to the same period of 2021.
Banorte general director Marcos Ramírez said last week that the objective of the “digital transformation” is to “create an [online banking] experience without friction, … [and] improve [waiting] times for a vast number of processes.”
An army official carries high-caliber weapons collected at an event for the voluntary surrender of firearms in Oaxaca last month. Such weapons are nearly impossible to obtain legally. Cuartoscuro.com
Members of the The Mexican army sold weapons to a México state-based drug cartel, according to a report leaked by Guacamaya, a hacking group that infiltrated the IT system of the Ministry of National Defense (Sedena).
In a 2019 intelligence report obtained by the non-governmental organization Mexicans Against Corruption and Impunity (MCCI), Sedena said it was aware that a soldier offered weapons and tactical gear to a crime group in May of that year. The soldier also provided information about military movements and operations to the Tejupilco-based cartel, the report said.
The soldier offered 70 fragmentation grenades to “operators of the crime group” at a cost of 26,000 pesos (US $1,300 at today’s exchange rate) each on May 31, 2019, the report said. The unnamed cartel bought at least eight grenades, which were delivered in Atlacomulco, México state, it added.
Via an analysis of the metadata of the soldier’s cell phone, authorities determined that he was based in Almoloya de Juárez, a México state municipality that is part of the metropolitan area of state capital Toluca. The supplier of the weapons and tactical gear to that soldier was another presumed soldier who was believed to be based at an army facility in Mexico City, according to the Sedena report.
The cartel members referred to the supplier as “antiguo” (oldie), but neither he nor the vendor were formally identified in the Sedena report.
MCCI said that Sedena intercepted calls in which a criminal leader sought to buy from the army 2,000 rounds of AK-47 ammunition, 5,000 rounds of AR-15 ammunition and 50 magazines for each of those firearms. It was unclear whether that request was fulfilled.
The anti-graft group also said that the Almoloya de Juárez-based soldier, apparently a bodyguard for a colonel, offered to tip criminals off as to the whereabouts of a regional prosecutor in Amecameca – a México state municipality 60 kilometers southeast of central Mexico City – as they allegedly planned to murder him.
Guacamaya, a Latin American hacktivist group, recently stole 6 terabytes of data from Sedena servers. Among the information that has been leaked are details about President López Obrador’s poor health and plans for an army-operated commercial airline.
Foreign Affairs Minister Marcelo Ebrard displays a copy of the lawsuit filed on Monday.
Just over a week after its case against United States gun manufacturers was dismissed, the federal government has filed a lawsuit against five gun stores in Arizona, accusing them of involvement in illegal arms trafficking to Mexico, where firearms are used to commit tens of thousands of homicides annually.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (SRE) said in a statement that the government filed the suit in a U.S. federal district court in Tucson on Monday.
Three of the accused stores are in that city. Another is in Phoenix and the fifth is in Yuma, located just east of the border crossing between Andrade, California, and Los Algodones, Baja California. Mexico is seeking unspecified monetary damages from the stores and demanding that they hire independent monitors to ensure compliance with gun purchase laws.
The SRE said that the government’s lawsuit alleges that the five stores “routinely and systematically participate in the illegal trafficking of arms, including military-style ones, for criminal organizations in Mexico through sales to straw purchasers and sales directed to arms dealers.”
The five gun stores are located in Tucson, Phoenix and Yuma, all near the U.S. border with Mexico. Internet
“The lawsuit points out that the five stores are among the vendors in Arizona whose weapons are recovered with greatest frequency in Mexico,” the ministry added.
The stores named in the suit are Diamondback Shooting Sports, SNG Tactical and The Hub Target Sports – all in Tucson – as well as Ammo AZ in Phoenix and Sprague’s Sports in Yuma.
Alejandro Celorio Alcántara, the SRE’s legal advisor, said the government chose to name “the five worst stores” for illegal trafficking in the United States, where a recently enacted federal law defines straw purchasing as a crime. The law stipulates sentences of up to 25 years if the offense is related to drug trafficking.
“They are not careful when they sell products, so they allow straw purchasers to buy guns,” Celorio said, adding that the stores have sold multiple weapons on multiple occasions to some buyers.
“We are saying they are negligent and facilitate straw purchasers, to the point of being accomplices,” he said.
The official said that criminal probes in the U.S. had traced weapons purchases to the five stores named in the lawsuit. There was evidence that they didn’t file all the required information when making some sales, he said.
“The main argument of our lawsuit is that these businesses are an organized part of a criminal enterprise, a mechanism to facilitate criminals and cartels in Mexico being able to use their weapons,” said Celorio.
He acknowledged that the first hearing related to the lawsuit might not occur until the summer of 2023.
The SRE said in its statement that the litigation against the stores is part of a “multifaceted strategy of the government of Mexico to stop the avalanche of weapons, particularly assault weapons, from the United States.”
The weapons, it added, “empower criminal groups, cause bloodshed in Mexico and contribute to the trafficking of drugs to the United States.”
The judicial action in no way questions the constitutional right of U.S. citizens to carry arms nor the right of gun stores to sell their products responsibly, the SRE said, noting that its lawsuit is the first such civil action filed by a national government against U.S. weapons vendors. It said that the suit sets out “various arguments,” including that the stores violate their duty of care, use “deceitful and biased” advertising, sell guns that can be converted into automatic weapons and “violate state and federal laws” in the U.S. – conduct that “causes tremendous harm in Mexican territory.”
The lawsuit’s filing came 10 days after a Massachusetts federal judge dismissed the Mexican government’s case against U.S. gun manufacturers, which were accused of negligent business practices that led to illegal arms trafficking and deaths in Mexico, where U.S.-sourced firearms are used in a majority of high-impact crimes. The SRE said it would challenge Chief Judge F. Dennis Saylor’s ruling. U.S. law “unequivocally” prohibits lawsuits that seek to hold gun manufacturers responsible when people use their products for their intended purpose, Saylor determined.
In its latest statement, the ministry said that a favorable sentence in Arizona would support the lawsuit in Boston as “it would prove that the manufacturing companies are negligent by not monitoring or disciplining vendors that sell their products.”
“… The government of Mexico is confident that both the Boston lawsuit against manufacturers and the Arizona lawsuit against vendors will succeed,” it said. “The actions undertaken by Mexico have already contributed to promoting conversations and actions around the world to stop the trafficking of weapons as well as the dangerous practices of the arms industry.”
IMSS director Zoe Robledo announced the open call for international medical specialists at the president's daily press conference. He said Mexican doctors are welcome to apply. Galo Cañas Rodríguez/Cuartoscuro
The federal government is looking beyond Mexico’s borders to find specialist doctors to fill more than 700 positions in 15 states.
The director of the Mexican Social Security Institute (IMSS) announced on Tuesday an international campaign to recruit 749 doctors across 43 specialties to work in 54 public hospitals.
Mexican doctors can also apply for the jobs, but Zoé Robledo said the campaign is targeted at “specialists from other parts of the world who are interested in coming to Mexico to work for a period of one year.”
The IMSS chief asserted that the recruitment drive – which formally commences Wednesday – will allow the government to recruit specialists for places where they are most needed.
IMSS chief Zoé Robledo said the public health system can’t find specialists because in the last 30 years, 80% of medical school candidates have been rejected.
The foreign doctors are slated to work in 13 hospitals in Sonora, seven in Baja California Sur, seven in Chiapas, six in Nayarit, four in Oaxaca, three in Colima, two in each of Michoacán, Veracruz, Tlaxcala, Zacatecas and Chihuahua and one in each of Baja California, Guerrero, Hidalgo and Campeche. Many of the hospitals are located in remote communities in those states.
In addition to having relevant medical qualifications, doctors must be fluent in Spanish to be considered for the positions and are required to present a letter from their most recent employer.
Robledo told President López Obrador’s regular news conference that applications will be considered by a committee of experts and the government will arrange the appropriate visas for successful candidates.
After the government announced it was bringing Cuban doctors to Mexico earlier this year, the heads of 30 medical colleges, associations and federations rejected the claim that there was a shortage of medical professionals and described the hiring of foreigners as a “serious offense” against Mexican health professionals.
Earlier this year, the nation looked to Cuba to fill vacant doctor positions. At the time, President López Obrador said no Mexican doctors wanted to fill the positions, a claim many unemployed doctors refuted. Galo Cañas Rodríguez/Cuartoscuro
López Obrador and Health Minister Jorge Alcocer have both said that Mexican doctors are unwilling to work in remote areas and for that reason, the government decided to hire Cubans.
Robledo said Tuesday that there is a lack of specialists in Mexico because 80% of people who have sought to enter university to study medicine over the past 30 years have been rejected.
A large group of unemployed Mexican doctors, including specialists, launched a social media campaign in May to highlight that they are ready and willing to work but unable to find a job.
In addition to announcing the international recruitment campaign for specialists, Robledo said that the government was also looking to hire 1,750 general practitioners and 550 specialist nurses.
Transport equipment manufacturing, a sector that includes automakers, received more foreign direct investment than any other industry during the first nine months of the year. (General Motors)
The production and export of light vehicles both increased by over 30% in September compared to the same month of 2021, data shows.
The Mexican Automotive Industry Association (AMIA) reported that 273,329 light vehicles were manufactured in Mexico last month, an increase of 31.4%, or 65,237 units, compared to September 2021.
Data from national statistics agency INEGI shows that 259,792 light vehicles were exported in September, an increase of 33%, or 64,498 units, compared to the same month a year earlier.
AMIA director Fausto Cuevas told a press conference that 196,638 vehicles – almost 76% of the September export total – were shipped to the United States last month.
Exports increased sharply in September thanks to greater U.S. demand. Depositphotos
“The favorable [export] result in September is due to the 9.5% increase in the sale of cars in the United States, where Mexican exports are significant,” he said. Cuevas called the production and export increases “extraordinary.”
General Motors was the No. 1 manufacturer and exporter of Mexican-made vehicles in September followed by Stellantis and Ford in both categories. GM has plants in México state, Guanajuato, Coahuila and San Luis Potosí.
Over 1.65 million Mexican-made cars were exported to the U.S. in the first nine months of 2022, an 8.6% increase compared to the same period of last year. Mexico was the leading exporter of cars to the U.S. between January and September, taking the top spot for the first time ever.
Exports to all countries totaled 2.12 million units in the same period, a 5.4% spike compared to the first nine months of last year.
Overall production of vehicles in Mexico also increased between January and September, rising 10% to 2.51 million compared to 2.28 million in the same period of 2021 when the semiconductor shortage was more acute.
While the production increase is good news, there is still some ground to make up to reach pre-pandemic levels, with output in the first nine months of the year 15.4% below that of the same period of 2019.
Such a ban could create widespread fuel shortages, like those seen in early 2019 (shown). Miriam Martínez / Cuartoscuro.com
A United States ban on fuel exports – a measure the U.S. government is reportedly considering to lower costs for motorists in that country – would have a severe impact on Mexico, energy experts warn.
The news agency Bloomberg reported Oct. 4 that White House officials have asked the U.S. Department of Energy to analyze the possible impacts of a ban on exports of gasoline, diesel and other refined petroleum products.
The move is an “indication that the controversial idea is gaining traction in some parts of the Biden administration,” Bloomberg said, noting that there is “growing concern that high gasoline prices pose a political threat to Democrats in the November elections.”
The American Petroleum Institute and the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers sent a letter to U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm Tuesday saying they have “significant concerns” that the U.S. government is considering limiting fuel exports in an attempt to lower prices for American motorists.
“Banning or limiting the export of refined products would likely decrease inventory levels, reduce domestic refining capacity, put upward pressure on consumer fuel prices and alienate U.S. allies during a time of war,” they said.
Three energy experts who spoke with the El Universal newspaper warned that if the United States were to implement an export ban, there would be serious consequences for Mexico given that much of the fuel sold here is imported – mainly from the U.S.
“You just have to remember that Mexico imports between 800,000 and 850,000 barrels of petroleum products per day, mostly from the United States market,” said Ramsés Pech.
Six of every 10 liters of gasoline and diesel sold in Mexico are imported, he said. The energy analyst said that a ban on U.S. fuel exports would be concerning for Mexico because refining capacity here is still well short of reaching a point where domestic demand can be met, despite President López Obrador setting a goal of making Mexico self-sufficient for fuel by 2023.
If fuel exports from the U.S. were banned, Pemex’s newly-acquired Deer Park refinery in Texas would be of little use. Pemex
Luis Miguel Labardini, a partner at energy consultancy Marcos y Asociados, said there would be probably be a fuel shortage in the short-term if the U.S. was to put an export ban in place.
He said that eventuality was unlikely, but still recommended that the federal government act cautiously and direct Pemex’s trading arm, PMI Comercio Internacional, to “start to look for alternate supply sources in other countries, even though that implies negotiating prices on an open market” and quotes will likely be higher than the prices currently paid.
Gonzalo Monroy, director of the energy consultancy GMEC, said that Mexico could look to countries such as Brazil and Aruba to buy fuel but concluded that a U.S. ban on exports would nevertheless have a devastating impact here.
Mexico spent more than US $13 billion on fuel purchases from U.S. refineries in the first eight months of the year, according to official data published by El Universal.
Amid the speculation that the United States could ban or limit fuel exports, OPEC+ – a group of 24 oil producing countries including Mexico – announced Oct. 5 that it had decided to cut oil production by 2 million barrels per day starting in November, a move designed to counter recent declines in the price of crude.
Cholera, which is caused by consuming contaminated food or water, can be lethal without proper medical care. Depositphotos
The federal government has advised health care facilities to be on the lookout for cases of cholera due to an outbreak of the disease in Haiti.
Citing the Pan American Health Organization’s report of a cholera outbreak in the Caribbean country, the Health Ministry said Thursday that the government had issued an “epidemiological notice” advising all “health units” to be alert to symptoms of the bacterial disease in people who have recently been in Haiti.
The Pan American Health Organization said Thursday that it was “working closely with Haitian public health authorities and international partners to support the country’s response to the recent cholera outbreak.”
“After more than three years without reported cases, Haiti first confirmed on 2 October two cases of Vibrio cholerae O1. In an update on 5 October, national authorities confirmed 11 cases, including two deaths, and a total 111 cases under investigation in various communes around Port-au-Prince,” it said.
The United Nations said Thursday that seven cholera-related deaths had been confirmed in Haiti, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.
In a statement, the Health Ministry said that Mexico’s national network of public health laboratories has “complete diagnostic capacities” and that the National System of Epidemiological Vigilance is “attentive to the presence of people with symptoms compatible with the disease.”
“Cholera is an acute diarrheal disease caused by the ingestion of food or water contaminated with Vibrio cholerae,” the ministry added, noting also that it can be lethal if not treated promptly.
The epidemiological notice said that the first cholera case detected in Mexico occurred in rural México state in 1991.
“The cholera epidemic lasted for 10 years, affecting 97% of [Mexico’s] territory,” the notice said, adding that just over 45,000 cases were recorded and that the mortality rate was 1.12 per 100 cases.
There have been additional outbreaks in Mexico over the past decade, including one in 2013 in which almost 200 people were infected — mainly in Hidalgo — but no cholera cases have been detected in the country since 2019.
Whether or not she existed, La Carambada is still a well-known figure among Querétaro residents, who've passed down her story for generations. deposit photos
A country as old as Mexico always has a plethora of legends, some fantastical, some realistic but purely fictional. Then there are some that are probably based in truth, but who can say how much exaggeration and outright fabrication has happened along the way?
The legend of La Carambada — a 19th-century female highwayman who supposedly plagued the roads between Mexico City and Querétaro, robbing travelers of their money and valuables and giving them to the poor — falls somewhere between these last two.
Was she in any way real or pure fiction? Either way, she’s one of Queretaro’s most popular local legends, appearing as a character in multiple local historic tours.
Mariana Álvarez Díaz Barriga, who leads the Querétaro historic tour group Leyendas y Mitos de Quéretaro (legends and myths of Querétaro), said that while her group understands that some elements of the La Carambada story are romanticized, they use her in their tours because “there do exist historic sources that say she existed.”
Actress Marianne Lugo of the tour group Leyendas y Mitos de Querétaro portrays the legendary La Carambada for tourists.
“I consider her to be the most important icon, or legend, in the representations of the histories of Quéretaro of this type,” she said. La Carambada’s story is still popular with queretanos, she said, something Álvarez attributes to her being “a Robin Hood type.”
Local Querétaro historian Delfino D. Leal Vega says, “She was a thief, but only because she gave to those in need by taking from those who owned the most in a perverse and corrupt regime in the Mexico of the late 19th century,” he said.
Among historic sources arguing for her existence is Queretaro’s own official municipal history, which talks about her as real, according to current-day Mexican chronicler Salvador Zúñiga Fuentes. He identifies her as a poor woman named Leonarda Medina. Other versions paint her as a wealthy young woman, once a companion to Mexico’s Empress Carlota, although most academics refute this detail. Further adding to the intrigue around her existence are 1880s U.S. news accounts of La Carambada’s capture.
Rod González, who also conducts historical tours of Querétaro, laughingly says that “every person in Querétaro has a different version of the legend.”
One more fanciful element of La Carambada’s varying legends is that she secretly caused President Benito Juárez’s deadly heart attack in 1872 with poison.
So did she ever exist? How much of the legend is true, if any?
Historian Valentin F. Frias — considered the father of Querétaro history and who lived during La Carambada’s time period — wrote in his book The Legends and Traditions of Querétaro that La Carambada did indeed exist. He identified her as Leonarda Martínez, not Medina, and said she was born in 1842 in the village of La Punta.
In 2018 and 2019, newspapers like the Garbancero Chronicler and Noticias de Querétaro published versions of La Carambada’s story, saying it was the version passed on through generations in Quéretaro. Their versions told how in the late 19th century, gangs of thieves on horseback were common. They frequently stole money and valuables from travelers on the roads around the city, robbed haciendas and stole shipments of gold and silver in transit.
La Carambada supposedly was part of such a gang, made up of people from the Querétaro villages of San Antonio de la Punta — where Leonarda was born — and Santa María Magdalena.
Some versions of the story say Leonarda was a companion to Empress Carlota, wife of Mexico’s Emperor Maximilian I. But it’s one of the legend’s more unlikely details, academics say. Creative Commons
Leonarda knew how to ride bareback, dressed in men’s clothes, handled weapons with ease, and neighbors in La Punta spoke of her having been involved in a gang and stealing from a young age. As La Carambada, she warned victims to comply in a masculine and threatening tone, telling them they were surrounded by her partners in the woods, where she had strategically placed lit corn cobs around the area to look like there were glowing tips of cigarettes. She was also known for lifting her top at the end of her robberies, revealing her gender mockingly to her victims and bragging, “Look who just stole from you.”
According to Álvarez, the female bandit’s sobriquet came from the old expression “Ay caramba.” Whenever Queretaro’s residents heard of another of her bold exploits, they’d utter the phrase.
Many versions also contain romantic elements: a tragic love affair, a revenge plot and political intrigue in which she secretly assassinates Benito Juárez for turning a deaf ear on her pleas to not execute her lover, a soldier with the French occupying forces in Mexico slated for death once Juárez and his government took back Mexico. Leonarda is said to have vowed revenge.
Using her beauty, she supposedly got herself invited to a dinner party in 1872 at the home of Sebastian Lerdo de Tejada, then president of the Supreme Court. He ascended to the presidency in 1872 when Juárez died of a heart attack in office.
La Carambada’s capture was reported as fact in 1884 by U.S. newspapers, including The Sunday Critic of Logansport, Indiana.
This version of the legend says Martínez caused that heart attack by placing drops of the slow-acting poison veinteunilla into Juárez’s champagne glass, killing him without a trace 21 days later.
The story of La Carambada also captured the imagination of journalists in the United States. One 1884 article in The Sunday Critic of Logansport, Indiana, reported as fact that “La Carambada, the woman brigand long a terror to travelers in this region, is dead at last, with a bullet in her heart. Her operations extended over many years and was of the most daring description.”
This article painted La Carambada as a femme fatale who would work her way into the good graces of male travelers and lure them outside of town with her in a carriage. She would then shoot them dead. The driver — perhaps paid for his silence — would then drive on to her appointed destination, where she would reunite with her gang. Her trickery was said to have baffled the authorities since drivers always told them that the victims had been robbed and killed by highwaymen but that the lady with them left unharmed.
When she finally came under suspicion, Leonarda decided to change her tactics and lure wealthy landowners to their abduction, having her gang negotiate the ransom while she was far away, targeting her next victim. But this strategy is said to have been her downfall, for she was captured after trying to abduct a wealthy landowner named Don Civelo Velázquez.
A bakery in Querétaro bearing La Carambada’s name is a testament to her continued popularity among locals. mikebimr
She was betrayed by one of her gang members and captured by the authorities. The rest of the gang tried to overtake her captors, but she was killed in the fierce gunfight that commenced. “One of her captors described her as a beautiful woman …. but with a wicked eye and a cruel-looking mouth when in repose,” one account reported.
According to Frias’ history, the end of La Carambada’s notorious career came slung over the back of a mule — presumed dead. She was taken to the hospital for an autopsy, where she was discovered to be alive. However, she’s said to have died shortly after making her confession to the Archbishop of Querétaro.
So while it’s probably nearly impossible to prove whether or not she really existed, La Carambada is proof of the maxim “never underestimate a good story.”
Leal believes it ultimately doesn’t matter whether the story is true.
“It is very important to reserve, value, and recover the collective memory — the myths and legends [of the Mexican people],” he said.
Sheryl Losser is a former public relations executive and professional researcher. She spent 45 years in national politics in the United States. She moved to Mazatlán last year and works part-time doing freelance research and writing.
