Tolentino receives a warm embrace from family members.
Thirty years after Adán Tolentino went missing from a Mexico City market he has been reunited with his family.
In 1990 the six-year-old Tolentino accompanied his father to work at the Central de Abasto, a food warehouse and distribution center that is the largest of its kind in the world and sees some 300,000 customers each day.
As father and son walked through the aisles of the market, Tolentino let go of his father’s hand and quickly became lost among the crowds.
For a while, the boy survived by selling chewing gum on the streets of the capital city but was soon taken in by a family from Poza Rica, Veracruz, who fed and clothed him and made sure he finished school. Eventually, Tolentino married and moved to Lolotla, Hidalgo, where his wife encouraged him to search for the family he had lost all those years ago.
“For several years, my wife told me to go find them,” Tolentino says, so he reached out to the state of México’s Missing Persons Commission on June 10 and sent in the required paperwork in order to allow the government organization to aid him in his search, following up with a phone call to provide further details.
Tolentino, left, meets his family after 30 years.
The commission combed through an extensive database containing more than 10,000 possible matches, cross-referencing entries with information Tolentino had provided, and within a few days they called Tolentino to tell him that they had found his original family.
“I started crying, I was very grateful. I felt … that I was born again. It is a great joy. I really felt that something was missing,” Tolentino said. “I think joy came back.”
The sentiment was shared by Tolentino’s family, who could scarcely believe that after 30 years they would be reunited.
“They sent a message to one of my sisters, and they said they found my brother and asked if we could identify the photo they had sent …” said Lucia, one of Tolentino’s sisters, who recognized him in the photo and immediately began crying tears of gratitude.
Tolentino and his family met at the offices of the Missing Persons Commission in Toluca and shared warm embraces.
“We are very grateful to everyone because, thanks to you, we found the person we were missing, and the truth is we missed him a lot. Now that he is with us, we say thank you to all of you for helping my brother find us,” Lucia said.
The Supreme Court upheld an argument by the antitrust regulator.
The Supreme Court has suspended a new Energy Ministry (Sener) policy that imposed restrictive measures on the renewable energy sector.
Justice Luis María Aguilar Morales made the ruling in response to a complaint filed by Mexico’s antitrust regulator, the Federal Economic Competition Commission (Cofece).
The competition watchdog argued that the Sener policy published on May 15 violated the constitutionally enshrined principles of free competition.
The policy placed limits on the number of permits that can be issued for new wind and solar projects and prohibited their construction in parts of the country where there are already a large number of renewable plants, among other restrictive measures.
Aguilar accepted Cofece’s argument and suspended the policy, which ostensibly sought to guarantee the reliability, security, continuity and quality of Mexico’s national electricity system.
Critics say the aim of the policy is to prevent the expansion of the renewable energy sector and consolidate control of electrical power in the state-owned Federal Electricity Commission (CFE).
Pending a final ruling by the court, Sener’s 2017 reliability policy will re-enter into force as a result of Aguilar’s decision.
Energy Minister Rocío Nahle responded to the decisions in a Twitter post.
“The executive has the obligation to provide security and custodianship for the energy system in Mexico. The government is respectful of the decisions of the judicial power; we will fight any disputes in court with solid arguments to maintain the reliability of the national electricity system,” she wrote.
According to the Business Coordinating Council, an influential business lobby, some 578 lawsuits have been filed against Sener’s suspended policy.
The Mexican Employers Federation (Coparmex) said the Supreme Court ruling “returns confidence to private sector investments, especially in the renewable energy sector.”
It also “constrains the federal government’s intentions to return a monopoly to the Federal Electricity Commission,” Coparmex said. “The court is an asset for legal certainty.”
Alain Duthoy of the oil sector consultancy LexOil told the newspaper Milenio that if the Supreme Court upholds Aguilar’s decision in a final ruling, the federal government will have no further recourse.
The Energy Ministry would therefore have to keep the 2017 reliability policy in place or publish a new, more flexible one that respects competition rules.
Speaking at his regular news conference, López Obrador claimed that private companies and the CFE under previous governments committed fraud.
He charged that the CFE signed contracts with private companies that established the rate the former would pay the latter for supplying electricity to the national grid.
However, “immediately after a contract was signed,” a new one stipulating higher rates was put in place, López Obrador said.
As a result of the “illegal procedure,” the CFE has to pay “extremely high” rates to private companies, he said, adding that the government will launch legal action against those who participated in the scheme.
“It’s fraud, … and it caused damage to public finances,” López Obrador said.
“We’ve estimated the [financial] damage and at the [right] time we’ll report it. … [But first] we want to speak to the companies, one by one. … I’ve given the instruction to start drawing up the corresponding complaints, that’s the substance of the matter.”
He accused renewable firms of passing off other private companies as their business partners rather than their customers in order to avoid paying transmission costs to the CFE.
Leticia Herrera at her cheese store in San Cristóbal Poxtla.
San Cristóbal Poxtla is a small pueblo with a population of a little under 1,000 but despite its size it is known throughout Mexico as as one of the best producers of artisanal cheeses.
In fact, it’s called “La Gran Fábrica de Quesos” — the Great Cheese Factory — and the majority of its residents are employed in dairies or in cheese shops.
Poxtla, as it’s commonly called, is located in the state of México, about an hour south of Mexico City, and is surrounded by fields of corn and, of course, cows. Although it’s a bit of a trek from the city, it’s worth the effort to get there and sample its cheeses.
Cattle were first brought to Mexico by the Spanish, specifically by Gregorio de Billalobos in 1521, about six months before the fall of Tenochtitlán, the Aztec capital. For many years, cattle were considered a source of meat, not milk or cheese.
That began to change in the late 1800s as new breeds of cows were introduced, ones that increased milk production. But dairies still tended to be small scale operations. It wasn’t until the 1990s that the dairy industry expanded and large scale production began. Mexico now ranks 10th in the world for cheese production and around 40% of that production is from small-scale dairies and cheesemakers, like the kinds found in Poxtla.
A selection of Mexican-made manchego cheeses.
Leticia Herrera Guerrero, the owner of Lacteos Artesanales Lety, stands behind the counter in her shop and places a selection of cheeses in front of her. “Queso Oaxaca and panela, which are fresh cheeses, are the most popular,” she said as she pointed out the cheeses.
“This is partly because they are less expensive than other cheeses and also because they are both used daily in cooking and in foods like quesadillas.”
Another product is manchego, a matured cheese that is popular because of its flavor.
Manchego originated in the Spanish area of La Mancha and was brought to Mexico by the Spanish. Although both countries call this cheese manchego, in Spain the cheese is made from sheep’s milk but in Mexico cow’s milk is used. This led to a disagreement a few years ago between Spanish and Mexican cheesemakers which dragged on for over two years. Because of the differences, the Spanish wanted Mexico to stop calling their cheese manchego. The dispute was finally settled in 2018 with an agreement that stipulates that Mexican manchego must be labeled as a domestic cheese.
Clearly, cheesemakers take their products seriously but, personally, I’m glad that Mexico’s cheesemakers still make manchego.
A simple, plain manchego has a mild, somewhat nutty taste and, in my experience, is also good for making quesadillas. But cheese shops in Poxtla aren’t happy with only offering a plain manchego. Herrera’s store carries 16 varieties of the cheese.
Smoked provolone at ‘Mexico’s Cheese Factory.’
“We have manchego made with tequila, red wine, several with different types of chiles, others with herbs, and even walnuts when they are in season,” said Juan Cruz, who works at Lacteos Lety. There’s even one known as Por Salud (For Health) that’s higher in protein and often eaten when a person’s feeling sick.
Herrera is happy to give customers a taste of any number of the different cheeses and manchegos and it’s simply not possible to walk out of the shop without several varieties. I left with a half kilo of Queso Oaxaca, some smoked provolone, two types of manchego (herb and wine) and tortillas made with chipotle chiles. There are tables and benches at the side of the store where you can relax and enjoy a snack before driving home.
In addition to offering samples, Herrera also offers advice about how to eat her cheeses.
“Manchego,” she said, “is best eaten with a little red wine.” I took her advice when I got home.
Joseph Sorrentino is a frequent contributor to Mexico News Daily and lives in San Gregorio, Xochimilco.
In a video, El Marro told police not to get in the way.
Three municipal police officers were shot and killed in Silao, Guanajuato, early Monday just hours after police allegedly attempted to detain the mother of Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel leader José Antonio “El Marro” Yépez following her release from prison.
The officers were gunned down in the La Joya neighborhood at about 1:20 a.m. while responding to a report of a shootout. A fourth officer survived the attack but was wounded and is in serious condition.
The attack occurred just two weeks after three other Silao police officers were murdered.
In a video posted to social media on Monday, Yépez claimed responsibility for the most recent police murders.
He accused the Silao municipal police of following orders from the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) – the Santa Rosa gang’s arch-enemy – to stop the vehicle in which his mother was traveling with lawyers after a judge ordered her release from prison due to a lack of evidence on charges of involvement with her son’s criminal organization.
However, Yépez said that his mother had changed cars and managed to pass freely through a police checkpoint.
El Marro, a fuel theft “king” and one of Mexico’s most wanted men, accused the officers of being “assholes” for following the orders of the CJNG, which is engaged in a vicious turf war in Guanajuato with the Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel.
He said that other police who cooperate with the Jalisco-based cartel will meet the same fate as the officers slain Monday.
Yépez ordered police to be “neutral” in the dispute between his criminal organization and that led by Nemesio “El Mencho” Oseguera Cervantes and “not get in the way of” his cartel’s activities. He also accused the Silao police of killing one of his lawyers.
In the same expletive-laden video, Yépez denied he was responsible for a failed bomb attack on the Pemex refinery in Salamanca, Guanajuato, last week.
“If I had something to do with the [bomb] scare at the refinery, I’d let you know with my own voice; I don’t have to make calls or hang [narco] signs,” he said.
A federal and state police operation has been attempting to capture El Marro for more than a year but the criminal leader has remained elusive even as members of his cartel – and family – were taken in to custody.
His wife, mother, father, sister, cousin and niece, among other relatives, have all been arrested only to be later set free.
Accumulated coronavirus cases as of Monday evening. milenio
The number of new coronavirus cases reported by the Health Ministry has trended downwards in recent days but Mexico does not appear to have reached the peak of its pandemic, according to Johns Hopkins University.
In a Covid-19 situation report published Monday, the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security noted that Mexico had reported a decreasing daily incidence for three consecutive days. (Daily case numbers have now declined for four consecutive days.)
“However, Mexico does not yet appear to have reached its peak,” the report said.
“Based on recent trends, we expect Mexico to report increasing daily incidence over the coming days. Mexico is currently No. 6 globally in terms of daily incidence,” it added.
Indeed, data shows that the Health Ministry has generally reported fewer cases on Saturdays, Sundays and Mondays compared to preceding days, seemingly indicating that there is a delay in registering cases over the weekend.
At Monday night’s coronavirus press briefing, the Health Ministry reported 3,805 additional Covid-19 cases, increasing Mexico’s accumulated case tally to 220,657. It was the first time that fewer than 4,000 cases were reported since June 15.
The ministry also reported 473 additional Covid-19 fatalities, lifting the death toll to 27,121.
Almost two-thirds of all confirmed Covid-19 deaths were reported this month, although health officials have stressed that some of the fatalities reported on any given day occurred days, weeks or even months prior.
Based on confirmed coronavirus cases and deaths, Mexico’s fatality rate is currently 12.3, well above the global rate of 4.9.
In addition to Mexico’s confirmed Covid-19 fatalities, 2,055 deaths are suspected of having been caused by the disease.
Health Ministry Director of Epidemiology José Luis Alomía said that 23,389 of the confirmed cases are considered active, a decrease of 2,169 cases compared to Sunday. He also said that there are 66,910 suspected cases and that 566,602 people have been tested for Covid-19.
Mexico City, which switched from “red light” to “orange light” coronavirus restrictions this week, continues to lead the country for accumulated cases, active cases and deaths.
The capital has recorded a total of 47,437 cases, of which 3,431 are currently active. It has also recorded 6,456 confirmed Covid-19 fatalities.
México state ranks second for accumulated and active cases, with 33,696 of the former and 2,039 of the latter. It also has the second highest coronavirus death toll in the country, with 4,200 confirmed fatalities as of Monday.
Tabasco and Puebla are the only other states to have recorded more than 10,000 confirmed cases since the start of the pandemic.
Apart from Mexico City and México state, six states currently have more than 1,000 active cases. They are Puebla, Guanajuato, Tabasco, Tamaulipas, Veracruz and Yucatán.
Five states excluding the capital and México state have Covid-19 death tolls above 1,000. They are Baja California, Veracruz, Sinaloa, Puebla and Tabasco.
The Health Ministry presented data Monday night that showed that the average age of those who have died was 61 and 66% of deceased coronavirus patients were men.
Hypertension was the most common existing health problem among those who died followed by diabetes, obesity, tobacco addiction, chronic kidney disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, cardiovascular disease, immunodeficiency disorders and asthma.
About seven in 10 patients who died from Covid-19 in Mexico had at least one existing identified health problem while three in 10 did not.
National data showed that 44% of general care hospital beds set aside for coronavirus patients are currently occupied while 39% of those with ventilators are in use. Every state in the country has at least 35% availability of both general care and critical care beds.
Look for pure, raw, unadulterated, uncooked and unfiltered honey.
Have you watched the Netflix series Rotten? Each episode explores one type of food — garlic, chicken, milk — and its worldwide production. It’s alarming and upsetting, to say the least, and should confirm for you (as it did for me) the need to eat as local and direct-from-the-farmer as possible.
While the tone of the series is one of exaggerated alarm (like the title, which I hate) the information is solid. The episode about honey especially struck home, as I’d assumed, for example, that those guys in the tianguis and Walmart parking lots selling big slabs of honeycomb and honey out of big white buckets were legit. The price was always unbelievably cheap and I just thought it was another wonderful thing about living in Mexico.
Unfortunately, the truth is more likely that it’s corn syrup with a tiny bit of real honey mixed in. Why do I say that? Many conversations with the apiarist at the organic farmers’ market in Mazatlán made clear to me why honey is such a valuable commodity nowadays, even in Mexico.
And the big picture is that with more and more people wanting to “eat healthy” and avoid sugar and bee populations dying due to mono-farming, pesticides and disease, the honey supply can’t meet the demand. Countries like China — the world’s biggest producer of honey — with less strict food-labeling regulations are glutting the market with honey that’s adulterated in so many ways that it’s hard to detect. Watch the series. It’s eye-opening.
Even the Mexican Association of Honey Exporters reported that “The consumer is usually unable to tell the difference between real and fake honey, since the texture and makeup of the two are quite similar. While the crudest form of adulteration, with sugar or corn syrup, is slightly detectable, otherfalsifications, made with syrups from beets, rice or potatoes — usually originating in China, Vietnam or India — are more difficult to notice.”
Blend honey with mangoes, yogurt and milk to make this refreshing drink.
“Instead of consuming a beneficial product,” the report concluded, “they are negatively affecting their health because of the types of sugars the honey is adulterated with.”
I feel like I’m always harping about eating local, knowing your farmer, etc. But the truth is we expect the food we buy to be what it says it is, and we should care about what we eat. Yes, often “real” food will cost more than the processed, commercially produced version — but you get what you pay for. In this case, pure, raw, unadulterated, uncooked and unfiltered honey contains all of the healthy natural components you’re buying it for to begin with.
Cooking and filtering honey, for instance, removes all the beneficial pollens that should naturally be present. So do find a local beekeeper or buy direct from a farmer or natural foods store where you can be sure of the source.
The basic rule of thumb is the darker the honey, the more intense the flavor, which you’ll discover as you start tasting different varieties. Honey is a fun ingredient to play around with in basting and barbecue sauces and salad dressings. And it can be easily whipped or blended into cream cheese, softened butter or requesón, with herbs, minced nuts or dried fruit.
In the case of butter, make more than you need, roll into a log, wrap and freeze. Then just cut off small portions as needed.
Honey Mango Lassi
3 cups mango, cubed
1½ cups plain yogurt
1½ cups regular, almond or coconut milk
1/3 cup honey
In a blender, combine mangoes, yogurt and milk. Add honey and pulse until just combined. If you like, add an ice cube or two and blend again. Serve cold.
Honey Cucumber Salad
English cucumbers are slightly sweeter than “regular” cukes, and sold wrapped in plastic due to their thinner skin, which doesn’t have to be peeled.
3 medium English cucumbers, thinly sliced
¼ cup honey
½ cup white wine vinegar
1-2 Tbsp. water
½ red onion, slivered
1 Tbsp. fresh dill, minced
Salt and pepper to taste
Place cucumbers in bowl, sprinkle with salt, toss and set aside. In another small bowl, mix honey, vinegar, water and red onions. Pour mixture over cucumbers and toss. Marinate in refrigerator about 1 hour before serving.
This honey-mustard salad dressing is a classic.
Hot ‘n’ Sweet Broccoli
You’ll want to use this easy, delicious sauce on chicken, shrimp and other veggies too.
1 large shallot
1-inch piece fresh ginger, minced or grated
¼ cup honey
2 Tbsp. soy sauce
½-1 tsp. crushed red pepper flakes
2-3 Tbsp. water
½ lb. broccoli, trimmed
2 tsp. olive oil
2 tsp sesame oil
Cut broccoli into bite-size florets; cut sugar snap peas diagonally into bite-size pieces. Heat oil over low heat in large skillet; add water, honey, soy sauce, ginger and red pepper and stir gently to combine. Turn heat to medium and continue stirring for 3 minutes till sauce begins to thicken. Add broccoli, stir to coat, then cover and cook a few minutes until tender-crisp. Uncover and let sauce cook 1-2 minutes more. Serve immediately over rice or noodles.
Honey-Roasted Cherry Tomatoes
Serve atop pasta or rice, or for breakfast, piled on toast with some crumbled queso fresco.
1 lb. cherry tomatoes
2-4 garlic cloves
1 Tbsp. honey
3 Tbsp. olive oil
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
Preheat oven to 375° F. Lightly oil a cookie sheet or roasting pan. Halve the tomatoes and place them cut side up in the pan, fitting them snugly with little or no space between them. Crush or mince the garlic with a pinch of salt, then beat it with the honey, olive oil and a good grinding of pepper. Spoon this sticky, garlicky mixture over the cherry tomatoes. Roast for about 30 minutes, until golden, juicy and bubbling.
Classic Honey-Mustard Salad Dressing
Honey
Dijon mustard
Apple cider vinegar
Olive oil
Salt & pepper
Using equal amounts of each ingredient, shake in a jar or whisk in a small bowl. Add salt and pepper to taste. Store in refrigerator.
Janet Blaser has been a writer, editor and storyteller her entire life and feels fortunate to be able to write about great food, amazing places, fascinating people and unique events. Her first book, Why We Left: An Anthology of American Women Expats, is available on Amazon. Contact Janet or read her blog at whyweleftamerica.com.
President López Obrador declared Monday that the worst of the country’s economic hardships are behind it and that the hemorrhaging of jobs largely due to Covid-19 shutdowns would begin to stabilize in July.
He predicted that June’s job losses in the formal sector would come to about 100,000, down from a drop of 344,000 in May and a staggering loss in April of 555,247 jobs.
That would bring the three-month total to just under one million jobs lost out of a total formal sector work force, as registered with the Mexican Social Services Institute, of 20.5 million before the pandemic began.
“Everything indicates that we have hit bottom and are heading toward the surface. We are going to emerge,” he said in his daily morning press conference. “We are going to grow economically. We have the indications that the worst has passed in economic terms.”
He also stressed the importance of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, the new trade deal that goes into effect on Wednesday. It will help reactivate Mexico’s economy by encouraging foreign investment and the generation of jobs, he said.
However, in terms of gross domestic product, a measurement which the president holds in some scorn, the economic malaise had begun to set in well before the effects of the coronavirus were felt.
Bearing signs and waving Mexican flags, about 300 protesters in cars and on motorcycles took over Mexico City’s Paseo de la Reforma Sunday to demand that President López Obrador resign for what they said were destructive government policies and poor handling of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The protest, organized by the Frente Nacional AntiAMLO (National Front Against AMLO), moved between the Fuente de Petróleos and the Monument to the Revolution for two hours in a noisy convoy to voice complaints that López Obrador’s presidency has damaged the country since taking power in 2018.
Protesters say the administration is taking the country on a path toward communism, and that the president has put Mexico’s autonomy, integrity, and independence at risk during a health crisis.
“I am participating for the love of my country, for those who came before. Mexico deserves better things,” Yolanda Reyes, a housewife riding in a Chysler LeBaron, told Reforma. “Neither chairo [a disparaging nickname for AMLO supporters] nor fifi [a disparaging name for those with money], I am a working woman, earning bread with the sweat of my brow, not like Mr. López Obrador, who has never worked.”
Caravans of opposition groups have gathered on two previous occasions to demonstrate against the president. Sunday’s protests also took place in at least 21 other cities, including Querétaro, Puebla, Cuernavaca, Querétaro, Acapulco, Monterrey, Guadalajara, Chihuahua, Cancún, and Mérida.
It’s a 15-hour drive from the Pacific coast port city of Lázaro Cárdenas, Michoacán, to the northern border city of Reynosa, Tamaulipas.
The former city – along with other Pacific coast ports such as Manzanillo, Colima, and Acapulco, Guerrero – serves as a gateway for the importation of drugs such as methamphetamine and the synthetic opioid fentanyl from Asian countries, especially China.
Reynosa, like other northern border cities, lies on the brink of the world’s largest drug market, the United States.
That makes the route between the two of major importance to criminal organizations such as the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), easily the most dominant such organization in the Pacific coast port cities of Lázaro Cárdenas, Manzanillo and Acapulco.
It operates in almost every state in Mexico, according to the United States Drug Enforcement Administration, but while it completely controls criminal activities in some states, it doesn’t have the same dominance in the north of the country.
The Sinaloa Cartel, once led by imprisoned notorious kingpin Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, dominates in much of the border region between Tijuana, Baja California, and Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, while the CJNG wields substantial, although not uncontested, influence in Tamaulipas, the border state where Reynosa is located.
Therefore, moving drugs from the Pacific coast to the United States via Reynosa has two advantages: it saves the CJNG time because it is the shortest route to the northern border, and smuggling efforts into the U.S. are more likely to succeed because of its established – and significant – presence in Tamaulipas.
But there’s a catch. Getting from Lázaro Cardenas, or Manzanillo, to Reynosa in 15 hours entails going through Guanajuato, a state that the CJNG would like to control, criminally speaking, but doesn’t – at least for now.
In addition to the possibility that cartel operatives could run afoul of government security forces, hindering a smooth run from the glistening waters of the Pacific to Texas’ doorstep is the Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel, a Guanajuato-based fuel theft, drug trafficking and extortion gang headed by one of Mexico’s most wanted men, José Antonio “El Marro” Yépez.
In that context, according to a report published by the newspaper Milenio, CJNG leader Nemesio “El Mencho” Oseguera Cervantes – a man with a US $10-million price on his head in the United States – sent one of his nephews to Guanajuato in January 2017 to negotiate with the Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel with the aim of securing a safe passage through the state.
Yépez and his cartel henchmen, Milenio reported, were offered the opportunity to form a loose alliance with the CJNG. In exchange for accepting the offer, El Mencho and his men would stay out of the Santa Rosa gang’s lucrative fuel theft activities in Guanajuato, home to one of Pemex’s six refineries and hence several petroleum pipelines ripe for illegal tapping.
Guanajuato is important territory for the Jalisco New Generation Cartel.
However, the conversation with Oseguera’s nephew didn’t go well, Milenio said. El Marro wasn’t interested in striking a deal with – or serving – anyone and was apparently sufficiently offended to have his sicarios, or hitmen, murder the CJNG envoy at an Irapuato coffee shop where the meeting took place.
Rejecting Oseguera’s offer, and having his nephew killed, made El Marro enemy No. 1 of El Mencho, an animosity that endures to this day and which has made Guanajuato the most violent state in the country.
Instead of leaving the Bajío region state as the criminal domain of the Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel, and using it solely as a piece in the drug smuggling puzzle between the Pacific and the Mexico-United States border, the CJNG moved into Guanajuato and launched a full-blown turf war against El Marro and his co-conspirators.
And thus two underworld kings, El Mencho, rey de metanfetamina (meth king) and El Marro, rey de huachicol (fuel theft king), have turned once-peaceful Guanajuato into a blood-soaked battlefield in a near-incessant war that both men are loathe to lose.
There were more than 3,500 homicide victims in Guanajuato last year – with a significant proportion of the murders attributed to the turf war – and the state has hung on to the unwanted title of Mexico’s most violent in the first five months of 2020.
The third participant in the dispute is, of course, the Mexican state but neither federal security authorities, nor their state counterparts, have succeeded in quelling the violence in Guanajuato – the killing just goes on and on.
Authorities have thus far also failed in their attempts to apprehend El Mencho and El Marro, although members of both men’s families have been detained.
However, keeping the men’s family members in prison has proven to be a challenge: Oseguera’s wife, an alleged CJNG financial operator, was released on bail in September 2018, while Yépez’s wife, mother, father, sister, cousin and niece, among other relatives, have all been arrested only to be later set free.
While El Mencho and El Marro remain at large, the demand for drugs in the United States stays high and authorities’ apparent incapacity to combat the two cartels continues, the violence in Guanajuato appears set to persist.
A truce between the two criminal “kings” could perhaps put an end to the bloodshed but given their history, that scenario seems about as likely as President López Obrador’s non-confrontational “hugs, not bullets” security strategy ending all violence in the country tomorrow.
Governor Echevarría also blamed 'stupid conspiracy theories'
The governor of Nayarit has warned residents to prepare for the worst as the coronavirus pandemic continues to grow in the Pacific coast state.
In a video message posted to social media on Saturday, Antonio Echevarría García said that Nayarit is recording a high number of new infections on a daily basis and apportioned blame to irresponsible citizens.
“There are thousands of people who are not taking care of themselves and who place those around them at risk,” he said.
The governor also claimed that some people are spreading “stupid conspiracy theories” about Covid-19 that promote “murderous ignorance” about the disease.
“The hospitals are full,” Echevarría declared, a claim that is not backed up by federal data that shows that less than 60% of general care beds and just 23% of those with ventilators are currently in use in Nayarit.
“Soon we will have to improvise tarp camps to receive the thousands of people who will get sick because they didn’t wear face masks and [follow the coronavirus mitigation] measures.”
The National Action Party governor highlighted that a prediction made in March that 1,500 Nayarit residents would get sick with Covid-19 and that 80 people would die has already been exceeded. (As of Sunday, Nayarit had recorded 1,667 confirmed cases – including more than 800 in Tepic – and 190 deaths, according to state data.)
“In a period of three months, about 200 Nayarit residents have lost their lives because of Covid, more than half of them in … June, the month in which the majority of productive activities restarted. … Today, we are assured, we’re not even at the halfway point” of the pandemic, Echevarría said,
After reiterating his criticism of those who haven’t complied with coronavirus restrictions, the governor announced that people who fail to wear face masks in public places or use the streets as a “recreational space” will face fines.
Businesses that fail to implement measures to protect their employees and customers from the risk of infection will also be sanctioned, Echevarría said before urging nayaritas, as residents of the state are known, to be responsible.
“Today I appeal to your maturity but I don’t rule out painful measures of great institutional force if citizens’ conduct doesn’t change soon,” he said.
Towards the end of his virtual address, Echevarría warned that not only the elderly and people with existing health conditions are vulnerable to complications if they are infected with the coronavirus.
“Countless young people who were apparently healthy have also lost their lives,” he said.
“I ask you to take this danger seriously, I don’t expect you to do it for me. I sincerely want you to do it out of love for you and yours. I am also a son, a father, a husband, a brother, a friend and a work colleague, and like you I don’t want to lose anyone from something that could have been avoided.”
Nayarit currently has 615 active Covid-19 cases, of which 296 are in Tepic and 78 in the coastal municipality of Bahía de Banderas.
