Just 1.4% of municipal, state and Federal Police officers who failed control and confidence tests last year were dismissed despite a law stipulating that police who don’t pass such tests must be relieved of their duties.
Only 392 of 26,700 officers who flunked the tests lost their jobs, according to a report from the National Public Security System (SNSP). The failure to dismiss the vast majority of officers whose trustworthiness and competence were not verified is a violation of the General SNSP Law.
The report revealed that Jalisco has the lowest percentage of police officers with certification intended to show that they are trustworthy, competent, physically able to carry out their job, meet performance standards, have undertaken initial training, don’t take drugs, don’t have a criminal record and have no links to organized crime.
Just 2.7% of officers in the western state have such certification, while only 13.2%, 13.9% and 14.3% of police in Tlaxcala, Baja California Sur and Mexico City, respectively, meet all the requirements they should.
In contrast, 96.4% of officers in Querétaro are fully certified, making that state’s police forces the most trustworthy and competent and least corrupt in the country, at least on paper.
Colima ranks second, with 86.9% of officers fully certified followed by Guanajuato, with 81.7%; Baja California, with 81.2%; and Durango, with 76.5%.
At a meeting with state and municipal authorities in January, the executive secretary of the SNSP said that low levels of certification among Mexico’s police officers were unacceptable.
“It’s not possible that there are municipalities and states that have only 20% certification,” Leonel Cota Montaño said. “The national average is only 43%,” he added.
The security official said that he expects to see improvements in 2020, adding that the federal government is providing funding for the application of new evaluation tests.
“We have to make significant progress this year in control and confidence tests; the resources we’re giving to the municipalities are for that purpose,” Cota said.
He also said that the SNSP is aiming to improve the operation of the 911 emergency service and establish a new registry of telephone numbers used by criminals for the purpose of extortion.
Hundreds of people attend a march to protest against the number of people who have been murdered or disappeared in Guerrero. Lexie Harrison-Cripps
Members of the LeBarón family from northern Mexico joined forces with local activists, a senator and around 300 members of the community in Chilapa de Álvarez on Saturday to remember those who had been murdered or abducted in the Guerrero community in recent years.
Leading the walk for “Peace, Justice and Truth” were José Díaz Navarro of the association Siempre Vivos, together with Senator Emilio Álvarez Icaza and the president of the organization Causa en Común, María Elena Morera.
Although not directly connected to Chilapa, members of the LeBarón family attended the march as a show of support and mutual understanding after violence touched their family in November last year. Nine members of the family — three women and six children — were killed while traveling in Sonora; other children were also injured but survived.
Adrián LeBarón and his wife Shalom LeBarón attended the march in memory of their daughter, Rhonita Miller, and their four grandchildren who were killed in the attack. Rhonita’s cousins, Julián and Bryan, were also present.
The march began with the laying of flowers on a memorial to the disappeared at a spot where five citizens, including two of Díaz Navarro’s brothers, were found decapitated. Throughout the march, attended mostly by women and children, a local band played as people waved flowers and white balloons in a sign of peace.
Before Sunday’s march in Chilapa, a woman places flowers on the crosses that represent those who have disappeared. Lexie Harrison-Cripps
Many people marched with images of their missing family members. One woman, Beatriz, cried as she recounted the night that men entered her home and took her husband, who has now been missing for more than four years.
In the past seven years more than 243 people have gone missing in Chilapa and more than 452 people have been assassinated, confirmed Morera in her speech in the central square at the end of the march. Álvarez Icaza went on to say, “It is important to raise our voice. We do not want Chilapa to go on being the center of pain for our country.”
Although the LeBarón family had received messages of support suggesting that over a thousand people would attend the march, local cartels broadcast threats beforehand that anyone attending the march would be killed and put up a roadblock on the day of the event, confirmed Bryan LeBarón.
Chilapa is currently regarded as a particularly dangerous area of Guerrero as two cartels, Los Rojos and Los Ardillos, fight for territory. Despite this danger the march ended peacefully, likely due to the dozens of police who also accompanied the procession.
Following the march, the LeBarón family and Navarro visited houses that had been abandoned after family members had been targeted and ultimately abducted. “Seeing the abandoned houses made a huge impact on me,” said Bryan LeBarón after the visit.
When asked about the purpose of the march, he said, “I don’t see [Guerrero] as how everyone describes it, as an unconquerable situation that is losing control with no hope. I think that even with limited resources and attention from the government, it could make a huge impact. It could save lives.”
The Sea Shepherd vessel Sharpie. sea shepherd conservation society
Conservationists and authorities on board a Sea Shepherd Conservation Society vessel came under gunfire in the upper Gulf of California on Saturday while on a voyage to protect the critically endangered vaquita marina porpoise.
Four fishing skiffs known as pangas approached the M/V Sharpie and began to chase it at full speed just after 10:00 a.m., Sea Shepherd said in a statement.
At least two shots fired from the pangas landed in the water near the Sea Shepherd vessel but it was not hit. There were no injuries among the conservationists on board nor the officials from the navy, Federal Police and Environmental Protection Agency (Profepa) who accompanied them.
The incident occurred in an area of the upper Gulf of California known as a “critical zone” because several vaquitas have been sighted there.
In response to the attack, the captain of the Sharpie carried out anti-piracy procedures, which included the use of water cannons.
The Sharpie activates water cannons as one of the attacking boats lies nearby. sea shepherd conservation society
“This just shows how aggressive the poachers are here,” said Captain Jacqueline Le Duc.
“It proves to us that they are armed and that we need to take every panga that we come across seriously, because we have no idea what they are capable of,” she said.
Profepa condemned the attack in a statement and said that it would cooperate with investigations to bring the perpetrators to justice. It also said that it would continue to collaborate with Sea Shepherd and security forces in the effort to protect the environment.
The vaquita marina population has been decimated by the illegal use of gillnets to catch totoaba, whose swim bladders are considered a delicacy in China and sell for thousands of dollars. The mammals often become entangled in the nets and drown.
Experts estimate that there are only between six and 19 vaquitas left in the Gulf of California, the only place in the world they live.
The attack on Saturday occurred in the same area where Sea Shepherd found a dead vaquita trapped in a net last March. Profepa said that the vaquita was in a state of advanced decomposition but had stab wounds consistent with the cutting of the net in which the animal was entangled.
Sea Shepherd has been collaborating with Mexican authorities for six years to remove gillnets from the Gulf of California.
Desperate to protect the fat profits they make from selling totoaba on the black market, poachers have resorted to violence in the past.
The Sea Shepherd vessel M/V Farley Mowat was attacked last January by crew members on more than 50 skiffs, who threw rocks and molotov cocktails at the ship, breaking its windows and causing its hull to catch fire.
The same vessel was ambushed and boarded by poachers earlier the same month, the United States-based marine conservation organization said.
Scientists said in October that they saw over 70 fishing boats in the 150-square-kilometer zero-tolerance zone on a single day that month. They also photographed a vaquita swimming alongside one of the vessels working in the area where the use of gillnets is prohibited.
People often crow about the fantastic deal they got on a giant bottle of “real vanilla extract” in Mexico. Despite what the label says, though, chances are it isn’t real vanilla at all; it’s imitation vanilla made with ingredients you probably don’t want to be ingesting.
Why do I say this? For me it started with Patricia Rain and her informative website. She’s a socially conscious author, educator and culinary historian dedicated to the promotion of pure, natural vanilla and the support of vanilla farmers around the world. It was through Rain’s research and work that I began to understand why vanilla – made from the seed pods of a fragile orchid — costs so much and what my options really were in terms of buying it.
Just last week, the Mexican Comité Sistema Producto Nacional de la Vainilla (National Vanilla Product Committee) released a statement declaring that “95% of vanilla consumed in Mexico is artificial.” The article goes on to describe widespread use of coumarin – used to make rat poison and banned in the U.S. — and the formation of the Mexican Institute of Vanilla (Instituto Mexicano de la Vainilla) to increase production and bring back the integrity of Mexican vanilla.
Whoa!
Let’s back up a bit. Mexico has a long history of vanilla-growing; without getting too detailed, a host of factors have contributed to its current difficulties. These include petroleum companies stripping hardwood forests in the Gulf’s vanilla-growing region, the declining bee population, climate change, increased production of lower-grade vanilla in Madagascar and Indonesia and saturation of the market with artificial vanilla extract labeled otherwise.
Like many other products, vanilla is a popular target for thieves.
Each year, the majority of vanilla beans grown in Mexico – a declining total crop of less than 10 tonnes in 2019, compared to about 1,700 tonnes from Madagascar — are purchased to make extract in the United States. Nevertheless, supposed Mexican vanilla beans and extract are still for sale in Mexico, where stores and vendors hawk bottles of “PURE VANILLA EXTRACT.”
But consumers should be aware that vanilla beans are brought into Mexico from other countries (mainly Madagascar) and are then sold as Mexican. The same is true of extracts: the sad fact is that almost all of so-called “real vanilla extract” bought in Latin America is imitation vanilla.
How can that be? Well, in Mexico labeling laws aren’t enforced so don’t believe that the label screaming “100% REAL MEXICAN VANILLA!” is an accurate account of the ingredients. Synthetic vanilla may include paper pulp and coal tar, and most likely also coumarin, mentioned above. It doesn’t matter if it’s clear or dark, or how good it smells — it’s still nothing but synthetic vanillin.
“If you want synthetic, buy it in the U.S.; it’s the same price as you’d pay in Mexico but American synthetics aren’t adulterated with dangerous additives,” says Rain. “If you want pure Mexican vanilla extract, and are prepared to spend for it, buy it from a reputable dealer.” (Full disclosure: yes, that includes from her website.)
Basically, you get what you pay for. In 2018 vanilla beans cost more per ounce than silver. (Because they’re so valuable, theft of immature beans from the vines often makes nervous farmers pick too early, resulting in an inferior product.) Current vanilla prices are US $400 a kilo for beans at source, depending on size and quality, and extract-grade beans are even more expensive. When shipping, customs and other fees are added, the price can be $100 more per kilo.
“How much did you pay for it? That’s the biggest tip-off,” says Rain. “Pure vanilla extract usually costs more in Mexico than in the U.S. If it’s in a big bottle and you paid $20 or less, it’s not pure vanilla extract, no matter what the label says.”
Vanilla beans inside dried pods.
With that in mind, here are a few unusual recipes that include vanilla.
Roasted Beet Salad with Whipped Ricotta & Mint
2-½ pounds beets
Olive oil
2 Tbsp. fresh lemon or lime juice
1-2 Tbsp. tangerine or orange juice
Zest of 1 lemon and 1 orange/tangerine
¼ tsp. vanilla extract
Salt and pepper
1 cup requesón or ricotta cheese
1 Tbsp. milk
Fresh mint, minced
Heat oven to 375 F. Cut off beet root and end tops, wash, then cut into quarters. Place in a baking dish and add enough oil so beets can be rolled in enough to coat all sides. Roast, turning a few times, until knife-tender but not soft. Allow to cool until easy to handle. Remove skins by running under cold water, then cut into chunks and set aside in a medium bowl.
For dressing, pour any leftover oil into a small bowl, adding more if needed. Add lemon juice, orange/tangerine juice, zest, vanilla, salt and pepper. Whisk together, taste, and pour over warm beets. In another bowl, whisk requesón or ricotta with cream or milk until smooth and creamy. Add mint. Serve at room temperature or chilled, topped with a dollop of ricotta mixture, on a base of baby greens. – www.VanillaQueen.com
Easy Tortellini or Ravioli Soup
1 carton (32 oz.) chicken or vegetable broth
2 garlic cloves
1-2 scallions, thinly sliced
About 1 cup water
1 pkg. tortellini or ravioli (any filling)
1 cup fresh or frozen peas, corn or mixed vegetables
Fresh baby spinach or chard, chopped
Salt and pepper
Splash vanilla extract
Parmesan cheese
Optional: Lemon juice
Thinly slice garlic cloves lengthwise. Combine broth and water in medium saucepan. Over high heat, bring to boil. Reduce to medium and simmer 5 minutes. Add pasta and vegetables and cook 3 minutes or until pasta is done. Remove from heat, season with salt and pepper, add vanilla and lemon juice. Garnish with Parmesan. Adjust seasonings and serve.
Spiced Vanilla Poached Pears
4-8 ripe, firm Anjou or Bosc pears
1 bottle fruity white wine such as Reisling or Gewurtztraminer (can substitute white grape juice)
½-1 cup sugar or honey
1 vanilla bean, sliced lengthwise but still intact
1 cinnamon stick
4 allspice berries
4 black peppercorns
1 star anise
2 whole cloves
Carefully peel pears, leaving stems intact if possible. Cut ¼ inch off the bottom of each so they stand up more or less straight. In deep saucepan, combine wine or juice, sugar and spices and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to high simmer and add pears. Poaching liquid should cover pears at least half-way. Add more water, juice or wine if needed. Cover pan and poach pears for 15–30 minutes (depending on variety of pears and ripeness), basting frequently.
When pears are tender when pierced with a knife, remove from heat, and using a slotted spoon, carefully place on plate. Bring the liquid back to a boil and cook until reduced by half and slightly thicker. Remove liquid from stove and strain out spices and vanilla bean. (Rinse and save vanilla bean for another use.) Pour liquid over pears and serve with vanilla ice cream.
Janet Blaser of Mazatlán, Sinaloa, has been a writer, editor and storyteller her entire life and feels fortunate to write about great food, amazing places, fascinating people and unique events. Her work has appeared in numerous travel and expat publications as well as newspapers and magazines. 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.
Corruption is now seen as “gross” thanks to the efforts of the federal government, President López Obrador stated on Sunday.
Speaking at an event in the southern Mexico City borough of Milpa Alta, López Obrador said that people who participate in corrupt practices are now “frowned upon” and “stigmatized.”
Corruption is “gross, it’s shit,” he said. “There’s a new school of thought and that’s due to our movement. Before, the issue of corruption wasn’t even dealt with in the academic world, in the universities, least of all in the parliament; in political discourse, the word wasn’t even mentioned.”
The president, who has made combating corruption the raison d’etre of his administration, said that the fight against the scourge began at the top echelons of government but “will reach all levels.”
His remarks came five months after he declared that there is “zero corruption” in the government as a result of his dedication to “sweeping away” what developed during the six-year terms of the previous five federal administrations.
The president’s audience in Milpa Alta on Sunday.
Previous governments spent more than 100 billion pesos on travel for high-ranking officials but no improvements were made to the lives of ordinary people, López Obrador told a gathering of mainly indigenous residents of Milpa Alta.
“I inform you – [and] this really rankles the conservatives [government critics] – that we’re going to [hold a] raffle [for] the presidential plane and [the money] raised will be used to buy equipment for health centers and hospitals,” he said.
López Obrador accused past governments of leaving the public health system in ruins, charging that corruption was a factor that contributed to its current poor state.
“Even the money for medicines was stolen and not just by corrupt politicians — some doctors did as well. It’s a disgrace that such a humanistic profession has been used to corrupt the health system. Fortunately, the majority of doctors have a different idea, they’re honest people. We’re going to lift up the country’s health system!” he said.
Apart from his musings on corruption, the president also announced that the federal government will establish an indigenous languages university in Milpa Alta.
López Obrador said that his administration and Mexico City authorities will collaborate with the National Institute of Indigenous Peoples to create the new university, which will offer Náhuatl and Mayan language classes.
“We’re going to create this university because we need to strengthen traditions, customs, languages, social organization … [and] identity,” he said before urging the nation’s indigenous peoples not to abandon their cultures.
“To say that [preserving culture] was backwardness and that you had to become civilized was absurd, nonsense. That’s a conservative, racist and discriminatory idea.”
Violence continues to rock Irapuato, Guanajuato, where a commando of armed civilians attacked a rehabilitation clinic and the surrounding houses and businesses before making off with five kidnapped victims on the weekend.
It was the second such raid on an addictions treatment center in the city in three months.
Patients at the Beginning a New Life of Hope clinic were asleep early Saturday when five trucks carrying some 20 armed men began an attack at around 4:00 a.m.
The men kidnapped four of the clinic’s 31 patients and doused the building with gasoline and set it aflame.
They then proceeded to open fire on the neighboring houses, at one of which they kidnapped another victim, a 44-year-old factory worker named Jesús González Castillo.
They also burned a nearby auto repair shop called El Nazi, in which 12 vehicles were damaged. Upon turning the corner, they threw an explosive device at another house sending it up in flames, but it was empty and no one was hurt.
The attack was similar to one carried out in the early morning hours of December 4 of last year. That morning a commando of around the same number of armed civilians raided a different rehab clinic and kidnapped 26 youths from the facility as well as other people from nearby homes and on the street.
The trouble isn’t over for the alleged gang leader known as El Lunares, who was arrested immediately after being released from prison on Saturday.
Identified in news reports as Óscar Andrés Flores, El Lunares is believed to be the leader of the Mexico City gang called La Unión de Tepito.
He was first arrested on January 31 in Hidalgo state on drug and weapons charges, but a federal judge ordered his release on Saturday after ruling that due process was violated during his arrest.
However, upon leaving Mexico City’s Reclusorio Norte prison, Flores was once again taken into custody, this time on charges of express kidnapping and extortion. The arrest warrant for the crime was issued by a Mexico City judge on November 30 of last year.
The Mexico City Attorney General’s Office alleges that Flores and two other men kidnapped a businessman and took him to a safe house, where they beat and tortured him, demanding he pay them 10,000 pesos (US $533).
“They told him they would kill him if he didn’t give them the money,” the Attorney General’s report states.
Environmental activist Tracie Willis is ready for a fight. And she needs others to join her.
“We need a shift in consciousness, globally. Fast,” she says and looks out through the windows of the swanky Mediterranean restaurant in the Condesa neighborhood of Mexico City where we’ve met to chat.
Her eyes are still wet from the tears she cried as she told the story of Tomás el Tejón, a white-nosed coati she rescued from 10 years of captivity that recently died. She had found it toothless in a tiny cage in a neighbor’s yard, sick from the fumes of garbage burned right next to it.
“I couldn’t believe that my species could be so cruel,” she said. “But he died happy, he was OK. He was never hungry anymore. He started the whole movement.”
That movement led to her founding Ser Su Voz (Be Their Voice), an environmental nonprofit based in Sayulita, Nayarit, which Willis has called home for the last three decades.
Willis has dedicated her life to protecting wild species that are not able to speak for themselves. She has worked to protect the endangered vaquita with the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society.
Her most recent conservation work focuses on parrots, macaws and the small green parakeets that, despite their threatened status, are a common pet all along Mexico’s Pacific coast.
That work has had its consequences. In January Willis was attacked by two men connected to the illicit exotic bird trade in Nayarit. The men stabbed her in the head, abdomen and leg.
Two days later, she filmed herself smashing metal birdcages to bits with sandaled feet and posted it to Facebook. Two hours after that the man she had identified to police as a local illegal bird vendor called her and threatened to kill her.
Willis with Tomás el Tejón, a a white-nosed coati.
She believes that she is somewhat protected by virtue of her Canadian citizenship but that does not guarantee her safety.
Her Mexican counterparts, however, are usually not afforded the luxury of a warning.
She laments the recent losses of butterfly conservationists in Michoacán. The body of Homero Gómez González, director of the El Rosario butterfly sanctuary in Angangueo, was found in a well on January 29 after a two-week disappearance. An autopsy showed signs of head trauma.
The common thread that runs through these and so many other attacks on environmentalists in Mexico in recent years is the utter impunity enjoyed by the perpetrators of such violence.
Investigators have not found official links between Gómez’s death and his conservation work, but it is well known that his efforts had come into conflict with the interests of illegal logging and organized-crime-related avocado growing operations in the region.
People like Rarámuri activist Julián Carrillo — murdered in October 2018 after being threatened for defending ancestral land in the Sierra Tarahumara — have been killed despite being ostensibly safeguarded by a government program that offers protection to activists and journalists.
The principal flaw in the program seems blatantly apparent on its website, which asks, “Have you suffered an aggression as a result of your work as an activist or journalist?” For people like Gómez, Hernández, Nora López, José Luis Álvarez Flores and too many others, the government seems to be asking that question far too late.
The environmental and human rights organization Global Witness reported in October that such violence in Mexico saw a drastic spike in 2017, when the number of murdered activists rose to 15 from three the year before. The trend has continued since: 14 in 2018 and 12 in the first 10 months of 2019.
I ask Willis why she thinks that is.
“Lack of space. Human population growth. We think the whole planet is ours, and it isn’t. We’re spreading out and we need more land to grow more food, and it’s encroaching into animal habitats … It’s supply and demand. Follow the money,” she says.
“[If] we want to save any animal, we just have to save its habitat and leave it alone. That’s the only way.”
But that is easier said than done when their protectors need protecting themselves.
In the apparent lack of government efforts to protect them, aside from hiring personal bodyguards, environmental activists have few resources available to stay safe.
A private company donated security cameras to Willis, but beyond that she has received little institutional protection. A police officer assigned as security detail after her attack stopped by her house twice to take photos.
She believes that public attention is the best protection she and other activists can hope for.
She has the whole town watching out for her now and says that the only reason she is still alive is because the news of her attack and videos of her antics (she can also be seen online dressed up in a big green bird costume at events) went viral.
“I think Mexico is under pressure to be more environmentally concerned, under pressure on a global level,” she says, and hopes that the pressure can lead to the consciousness shift she mentioned.
But she isn’t waiting around for the world to change. Despite the threats to her life, she sees Ser Su Voz expanding to other parts of Mexico, finding more people to speak out for nature’s voiceless inhabitants.
“I’m going to fight my species to the end. I’m going to defend nature to the end … and I’m not scared. I’m really not scared.”
A lack of resources, growing insecurity and the difficulty of accessing some parts of the country are preventing the National Water Commission (Conagua) from carrying out the measurements required to determine the quality of Mexico’s water and the quantity available.
In a December 2019 document submitted to the Secretariat of Finance, Conagua outlined the problems it faces and requested just over 10.3 billion pesos in financing (US $548.6 million) to expand and upgrade the National Water Measurement Network.
Obtained by the newspaper El Universal, the document reveals that Conagua is only completing a small fraction of the water supply and quality control measurements that it should be carrying out.
The water commission is conducting just 6.63% of the minimum water supply measurements considered essential for the country, and just 0.75% of the quality control measurements that it should at surface water sites such as rivers and dams.
Conagua said that it doesn’t have sufficient resources, personnel, infrastructure and equipment to carry out all the measurements.
It also said that growing insecurity has prevented its personnel from accessing some of the sites where water monitoring should be taking place. The commission cited the presence of armed criminal groups in some regions, highway robbery and drug trafficking as among the reasons why its personnel haven’t been able to reach some sites.
In addition, Conagua said that road closures, landslides and protests against public infrastructure projects have made it difficult to access some parts of the country where water measurements should be taken on a regular basis.
The Conagua document said that systems to measure water volumes are only installed at 72 of Mexico’s 222 most important dams. Rain gauges are installed at almost all of the dams but are not capable of collecting information about evaporation, humidity and soil temperature, the commission said.
Conagua also said that its groundwater measurement system is not up to the standard it requires, meaning that it doesn’t have access to real time information about the quantity of water in the 653 aquifers that make up Mexico’s water table.
The resounding failure to meet quality control targets means the commission is not testing water at sites where problems have already been identified.
The water quality at 29.2% of 4,142 sites assessed by Conagua has been classified as “red” on a traffic-light scale, while an additional 29.1% of sites have a “yellow” rating.
Low oxygen levels and high levels of bacteria such as E. coli as well as fecal coliforms and heavy metals are among the reasons why water quality is rated as “red” or “yellow” rather than “green.”
Although the water at more than 2,400 water surface sites isn’t up to the standard it should be, Conagua is not testing the quality of the water at more than 99% of them at least twice a year as recommended.
As a result, the commission has no way of guaranteeing the quality of the water on which a significant proportion of the national population depends. The lack of quality control is of particular concern to residents of central Mexico – especially the Valley of México area – where surface water contamination is more prevalent than in other parts of the country.
The quality of groundwater is also a concern: the water at almost 60% of 1,240 sites assessed by Conagua has been classified as “red” or “yellow.”
The poor quality of much of the water supplied to homes exposes people to a range of health risks including gastrointestinal diseases, skin issues and even cancer. In order to mitigate those risks, the taking of frequent and reliable water measurements is considered an important first step.
Consequently, Conagua is seeking 10.3 billion pesos (US $550 million) to purchase state-of-the-art measuring equipment and to cover the costs of installing, maintaining and operating it across the country.
In its submission to the Finance Secretariat, the commission also proposed the construction of a command-and-control center where it can monitor Mexico’s water resources, analyze data and carry out modeling exercises, among other tasks.
New equipment and a control center would provide Conagua with timely access to information about Mexico’s water resources, which, in turn, would allow it to provide prompt alerts to the public to risks such as flooding and respond to problems, the document said.
Above all, Conagua added, the proposed investment in the National Water Measurement Network would enable it to monitor contamination in Mexico’s water bodies, determine actions to reduce the transmission of water-borne diseases, collect information about industrial pollution discharges with a view to sanctioning those responsible and decide ways in which damage to water resources can be remedied.
Unión de Tepito chief El Lunares is free once again.
Arresting and holding criminal suspects continues to be a challenge for the justice system.
Just days after the wife of a cartel boss in Guanajuato was ordered released on technicalities, a federal judge ruled that the suspected leader of the Unión de Tepito gang be set free due to a lack of evidence to corroborate the legality of his arrest.
Oscar N., also known as “El Lunares,” was arrested along with two others in the municipality of Tolcayuca, Hidalgo, on January 31.
But after a 13-hour hearing Judge Beatriz Moguel Ancheyta said that federal prosecutors were unable to provide sufficient evidence to back up the official version of the capture of the presumed leader of the Mexico City cartel.
She also ordered the release of the two other suspected members of the gang, identified as Eric N. and Hugo Armando N.
Moguel based her ruling on a video taken by a neighbor at the moment of the arrest in Hidalgo. She said it offered sufficient evidence to disprove the version in official police reports.
Those reports said the three individuals were arrested in the act of committing a crime, claiming that they were found to be in possession of drugs and weapons after being stopped for speeding.
The police officers reportedly smelled marijuana when the driver rolled down the window, and one of the men was said to have dropped a 9mm pistol upon getting out of the vehicle.
El Lunares and the third man were reportedly in the vehicle, as well as drugs and military-grade weapons and ammunition.
The report said that the men were arrested at 6:27am and were being transported to the airport to be taken to Mexico City by 9:00am.
However, the neighbor’s video submitted by the defense showed that there was an arrest at the house at 9:19am. Military officers are seen escorting a person with Hugo Armando N.’s complexion, but his face covered, into their vehicle.
Judge Moguel said that although there was no evidence to prove that the man being detained in the video was Hugo Armando N., the recording opened up the possibility of a fourth arrest not mentioned in the official reports.
She added that the prosecution’s version of events would fall to pieces in the case that the man in the video was Hugo Armando N.
The release was the latest stroke of luck in a series of fortunate events for El Lunares. He is believed to have avoided capture during a raid on the gang’s Mexico City bunker in October by using a secret tunnel to escape.
On Thursday, a judge ordered the release of Karina Mora, wife of Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel chief José Antonio “El Marro” Yépez Ortiz, because police had not obtained a search warrant to enter the house in which we was arrested.
