At right, the bus that is believed to have attempted to pass on the shoulder.
Authorities have arrested the driver of a bus that caused a three-bus pile-up that killed 13 people on the Mexico City-Pachuca highway Monday night.
México state Attorney General Alejandro Gómez Sánchez said the suspect is believed responsible for colliding with the other two buses, which had stopped on the shoulder to allow passengers to board.
“We have now arrested one of the drivers, apparently the one who hit the other two vehicles,” said Gómez. The other two drivers fled the scene.
Gómez said the dead were being turned over to family members while the 29 people who were injured, 19 men and 10 women, had been taken to various hospitals in Mexico City and México state for treatment.
“It’s clearly a terrible accident,” he added.
The crash occurred when the driver who was arrested allegedly attempted to pass other vehicles by driving on on the shoulder of the highway.
Passengers aboard his bus have claimed that he smelled of alcohol, that he was talking on the phone at the time of the accident and was driving too fast, but none of the claims have been confirmed.
One of those passengers was a 23-year-old student who was sitting on a bench next to the driver because all the seats were occupied. She was flung through the windshield by the impact of the collision and was still conscious when she landed on the road.
The biology student at the National Autonomous University called her parents on her cell phone after dragging herself away from the scene, thinking there might be an explosion due to the strong smell of gasoline.
She was hospitalized with various injuries but they proved minor and she was released a few hours later.
The founder and director of Jalisco brewery Minerva and beer bar chain El Depósito has rejected a media report that his businesses were opened with illicit funds linked to fugitive drug lord Rafael Caro Quintero.
The newspaper El Universal reported on Tuesday that family members and associates of Caro Quintero opened more than 30 businesses in Guadalajara while the cartel founder and convicted murderer was serving a 40-year prison term.
Minerva and El Depósito were named among the businesses because founder Jesús Briseño is married to Roxana Elizabeth Caro, a daughter of the former Guadalajara Cartel leader, who along with other family members is on the black list of the Office of Foreign Assets Control, a financial intelligence and enforcement agency of the United States government.
In an interview, Briseño declared that “not a single peso” of Caro Quintero’s money is invested in his businesses.
“We have wealth generated from other places. We’ve been working hard for 15 years to be at the level we’re at today,” he said in reference to Minerva, one of Mexico’s best-known and most successful craft breweries.
Minerva founder Briseño.
Briseño said the accusation made by El Universal is unfounded and not supported by any evidence.
“We’ve just turned 15 with achievements and a lot of setbacks [along the way] . . . We started as a restaurant with a small brewery called Tierra de Malta, we’re five partners and we decided to take the leap and invest in used [brewery] equipment . . . to start to produce off site, since then we’ve grown little by little every year,” he said.
Minerva now produces 20,000 hectoliters of beer per year in a Guadalajara brewery with an annual capacity of 25,000 hectoliters.
Briseño said that 5% of production is exported, mainly to Japan, South Africa and Australia, and that increased brewing capacity might be necessary in two years.
“There is a lot of interest in Mexican beer so importers seek us out. We’ve developed very good relationships with some of them,” he said.
Briseño and his partners at Minerva – which also imports beer from Belgium, Germany and England – opened their first El Depósito bar in 2010 and there are now 17 branches in Guadalajara and Mexico City.
Caro Quintero’s son-in-law said there will be no further expansion of the chain in the short term because Minerva is involved in a new business venture with the craft breweries Loba and Colima.
“We’re not thinking about growing the El Depósito model at the moment. We’re opening some concept bars with other craft breweries, they’re called Tres Gallos, we already have two and we’ll probably open more with this business model,” Briseño said.
Meanwhile, Caro Quintero, who was convicted of the 1985 murder of U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent Enrique “Kiki” Camarena but released in 2013 on a technicality 12 years before his sentence was due to end, remains a fugitive from justice.
The FBI placed him on its 10-most-wanted list in 2018 and offered a US $20-million reward for information leading to his capture.
“Something like this should never happen.” Those are the words of Efraín García Domínguez, a survivor of the San Juanico explosions, one of the world’s worst industrial disasters.
Tuesday is the 35th anniversary of the disaster than rocked – and burned – San Juan Ixhuatepec, a neighborhood just north of Mexico City in the México state municipality of Tlalnepantla.
In the early morning of November 19, 1984, a series of huge explosions at a Pemex liquid petroleum gas (LPG) storage plant and the massive fire they triggered killed between 500 and 600 people and left as many as 7,000 others with severe burns.
About one-third of Mexico City’s LPG supply, some 11,000 cubic meters, burned in the fire following the explosions, which authorities said were caused by a gas pipe that ruptured due to excessive pressure.
In the lead-up to the anniversary of one of Mexico’s darkest days, the state news agency Notimex spoke with survivors of the disaster, who described the intense heat, thick smoke and atmosphere of fear that enveloped San Juan Ixhuatepec 35 years ago.
“Fortunately, my parents’ house was far from the point of the explosions but when I went out to the street, it felt like my face was burning because of the blaze of fire,” said García Domínguez, a mechanic who was 16 when the disaster occurred.
“. . . There was a lot of smoke and you could see ash falling as if it were rain,” he added.
García, who lost friends in the disaster, recalled being awoken by his mother’s screams after the first explosion. He also said that he experienced a sensation akin to being in hell.
“My mother told me that if I behaved badly I would go to hell and . . . that those who behave badly burn in that place. When the first explosion occurred at 5:40am . . . I innocently thought that I was already in hell because of the intense heat,” García said.
The now 51-year-old said that he and his family rushed out of their home not knowing what had happened although it was clear that they were in danger because all the windows of their house – two kilometers from the Pemex plant – had broken and the walls were shaking.
“The heat was unbearable, we couldn’t breathe, that was enough reason to escape,” García said, explaining that he and his family went to his aunt’s house in Mexico City.
Gas tanks burn at the Pemex plant in San Juan Ixhuatepec.
“Through an uncle who didn’t leave we found out about the tragedy of entire families who burned to death. The whole neighborhood burned, what happened was worse than the 1985 earthquake,” he added.
Elvira Castro Vazquéz, a 72-year-old who still finds it difficult to talk about the disaster, agreed.
“I never heard of a such a tragedy again. I remember that the [Mexico City] earthquake the next year was devastating but in the face of nature’s power, you can’t do much. But when we’re talking about human errors, that’s when you feel more anger,” she told Notimex during an interview alongside her 77-year-old husband, Juan Camacho.
Castro recalled that she, her husband, their four children and many other residents fled San Juan Ixhuatepec on foot, knowing instinctively that they were in danger.
“. . . There was no public transportation so we walked along the train tracks until we arrived at the lower slopes of the Chiquihuite hill, where people helped us,” she said, struggling to hold back tears.
“It looked like a pilgrimage. A lot of people escaped along the tracks, we walked in the direction of the [Mexico City] borough Gustavo A. Madero and people were saying, ‘this is the end of the world,’” Castro added.
Searchers in the wreckage. More than 500 people were killed.
“Everybody was scared . . . there was another explosion and then more followed so we quickened our pace until Mrs. Agripina, who lived on Chiquihuite avenue, offered us a place to stay and eat breakfast. Since then I’ve lived in gratitude to her,” she said.
Camacho recalled that a neighbor left his home early that day to sell tacos outside the Pemex plant.
“He used to sell in the school area on the Politécnico Nacional avenue but it was far from his home so he decided to go to the gas plant . . . He lost his life in his eagerness to work,” he said.
“Everything felt like hell itself, or a subsidiary of it. I remember the gigantic flames that were seen from afar and the scorching heat that burned out skin and restricted our breathing,” Camacho added.
Smaller explosions continued at the plant until the morning of the next day as more and more gas tanks were consumed by flames. Almost 150 homes were completely destroyed in the disaster.
In December 1984, the federal Attorney General’s Office determined that Pemex must take responsibility for the explosions and pay compensation to victims.
However, some people claimed that they never received a peso even though they were burned or their homes were damaged by the explosions or ensuing fire.
Design of the new airport by architectural firm FGP Atelier.
Traveling via the new Santa Lucía airport will be a “memorable experience,” according to the architect chosen to design it.
In his project proposal, Chicago-based Mexican architect Francisco González Pulido said he envisions a relaxation zone in the terminal building that will incorporate spaces for yoga, meditation and massage therapy as well as rest areas with garden views.
To help passengers de-stress after a long journey, soft Mexican and classical music will be piped into baggage collection areas, González said in his pitch for the 92-billion-peso (US $4.8-billion) project to be built at the Santa Lucía Air Force base in México state.
He said the terminal walls will be made largely of glass, while its ceiling will have plenty of skylights, allowing outside views from all parts of the building.
The architect also proposed that airport restaurants and shops promote environmental sustainability by avoiding single-use plastics and providing customers with cloth bags and compostable containers for their purchases. They will source local produce including herbs grown on farms near the airport, González suggested.
The government has not disclosed details about the monetary value of the contract it has signed with González’s firm, FGP Atelier, which collaborated on the design of the Suvarnabhumi international airport in Bangkok, Thailand, and a Mexico City baseball stadium inaugurated in March.
Preparation for construction at the Santa Lucía airport site began last month, the day after the last of seven suspension orders against the project was revoked by a federal court.
President López Obrador pledged that the airport will be built in 2 ½ years, meaning that it will be ready to open in early 2022.
On its website, FGP Atelier said “the extremely condensed timeframe for design and construction as well as the very limited budget could have been seen as negative limitations.”
However, the firm said it “saw the existence of these constraints as an opportunity to refine our longstanding interest in modularity and honest use of unornamented materials on a vast scale in order to create an exceptional work of architecture.”
A 130-year-old locomotive has been put on display in the Mexico City zócalo to mark the 109th anniversary of the beginning of the Mexican Revolution.
The train will be the symbolic centerpiece of a parade that will take place in downtown Mexico City on Wednesday after it was moved for the event from its permanent home at Mexico City’s Railroad Museum.
The display consists of a steam-powered locomotive named Petra and two cars, one for passengers and one for cargo.
Named after Petra Herrera, commander of a women’s brigade who participated in the taking of Torreón, Coahuila, on May 30, 1914, the locomotive is 130 years old. It weighs 66 tonnes and is 15.6 meters long and 3.7 meters high.
The two cars are similar to those that transported troops and loads of weapons, food and other necessities for the armed conflicts during the Revolution.
In his morning conference on Monday, President López Obrador said the parade will highlight horses and railroads as they were vital forms of transportation during the Mexican Revolution, which began on November 20, 1910.
The parade will recreate the revolutionary movements led by Francisco “Pancho” Villa, Emiliano Zapata and Lázaro Cárdenas. It will begin at 10:00am in the zócalo.
The opening ceremony will feature the awarding of medals and a concert by María “La Rumorosa” Inéz Ochoa, who will sing folk songs from the Revolution era.
From the zócalo, the parade will make its way west along 5 de Mayo to the Avenida Benito Juárez, from which it will turn left onto the Paseo de la Reforma. The parade will end at the Campo Marte equestrian and military events center in Chapultepec Park.
Caro Quintero has been a wanted man since he was released in 2013.
Family members and associates of drug lord Rafael Caro Quintero opened more than 30 businesses in Guadalajara, Jalisco, while the cartel founder and convicted murderer was serving a 40-year prison term.
The still-active businesses extend across real estate, fuel distribution, mining, beer, new and used car sales, restaurants, fashion, footwear and beauty products, according to a report published Tuesday by the newspaper El Universal.
Twenty-five members of Caro Quintero’s inner circle – 15 associates and 10 family members including the former Guadalajara Cartel leader’s ex-wife, four of his children and a woman believed to be his current partner – were allegedly involved in the creation of the businesses using illicit funds.
The convicted murderer of a United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agent accumulated a fortune of close to half a billion US dollars, El Universal said, but it is unclear how much revenue the Guadalajara businesses have generated for his family and associates.
Caro Quintero was arrested in Costa Rica in April 1985 for the homicide earlier the same year of DEA agent Enrique “Kiki” Camarena.
The Caro Quintero organization in 2013.
He was convicted and sentenced to 40 years in jail but was released in 2013, 12 years early, after it was ruled that he was improperly tried in a federal court when the case should have been heard at the state level.
A new arrest warrant was issued soon after Caro Quintero’s release, and in 2018 he was placed on the FBI’s 10-most-wanted list and a US $20-million reward was offered for information leading to his capture.
But the notorious criminal has evaded arrest, and U.S. law enforcement officials said last year that he had returned to the narcotics business as a leader of the Sinaloa Cartel.
However, in an interview published in April 2018 by the news website Huffington Post, Caro Quintero denied that was the case and also recanted his admission of guilt for Camarena’s murder.
Family members of the 67-year-old ex-leader of the now-defunct Guadalajara Cartel have also attracted the attention of U.S. authorities.
All 10 members of his family who were allegedly involved in the establishment of the 30 Guadalajara businesses are on the black list of the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), a financial intelligence and enforcement agency of the United States government.
Diana Altagracia Espinoza Aguilar, believed to be Caro Quintana’s current partner, was added to the list in 2016. She was allegedly involved in the creation of 24 of the Guadalajara businesses.
Associates of the fugitive have also appeared on the OFAC black list although four were removed in August.
Diana Aguilar has also attempted to benefit financially from the use of the former capo’s full name: Rafael Caro Quintana was registered as a trademark with the Mexican Institute of Industrial Property in 2017, El Universal reported.
Aguilar, a former beauty queen and mother of Caro Quintana’s fifth child who was previously imprisoned on organized crime charges, is listed as the sole financial beneficiary of the commercial use of the trademarked name.
One of the photos that caught readers' attention on Facebook.
An artisan from Michoacán saw the sales of her hand-embroidered napkins soar after a local business owner promoted her work on Facebook.
Doña Adela Vidales, a Purépecha woman from the town of Turícuaro, was sitting in downtown Uruapan looking dispirited when Leopoldo Álvarez saw her.
A Purépecha himself from Pamatácuaro, Álvarez felt moved to ask her what was wrong.
“She looked sad. I took two photos of her back and I asked her why she was sad, and she told me that she hadn’t sold anything . . .” he said in an interview with the newspaper Milenio.
Later, he posted the photos he had taken on Facebook, writing: “Doña Adela was sad because she hadn’t sold her artisanal napkins, and I told her that I was going to promote her products on social media . . . I invite you all to buy from her, she works in downtown Uruapan . . .”
Doña Adela and her embroidery.
The next day, Doña Adela’s napkins sold out.
As of Tuesday, Álvarez’s post had earned over 2,500 likes and 619 comments, and had been shared more than 8,000 times.
“I didn’t think it would have such reach,” he said.
After many followers asked him how to contact Doña Adela, he went to Turícuaro to find her.
“I went back to see her and we spoke. She told me that the next day . . . she went to work and sold everything that day and even finished early . . . people even wanted to take pictures with her,” Álvarez said.
The owner of a catering business, Álvarez said he was happy to help Doña Adela.
He said he plans to promote the work of all artisans of his hometown of Pamatácuaro, who make wooden spoons, whisks and palm frond baskets.
“I’d like to benefit my community, the artisans, that was my intention with Doña Adela, because there are many more artisans like her who live off their sales.”
One of the pleasures of driving through remote parts of Mexico is expecting or hoping to find the unexpected.
During six transits over 18 months to Guatemala I’ve encountered a unique Mothers’ Day celebration in a cantina in Ensenada, a moving — and far removed from Halloween and trick or treat — All Saints celebration in Zitácuaro and, on the most recent, the Treasure of the Sierra Madre.
Of course I found it in the Sierra Madre, and of course I won’t disclose its exact location.
Treasure comes in many forms. The Sierra Madre treasure’s form today is not bags of gold dust like the ones Bogart lost in the movie, but a spectacularly beautiful and extraordinarily valuable European grand piano, posing regally but totally incognito in a hotel lobby. In a mining town.
Maybe worth over 2 million pesos (US $100,000), a modern treasure.
Move over Steinway and Yamaha. From the late 1700s on, the most prized pianos in the music world have come from the ateliers of the French Erard family, so how did one end up in Mexico’s Sierra Madre?
If pianos could talk, I’d ask it whether it was made for a honky-tonk, a touring culture show featuring a soprano and a Shakespeare reader or the drawing room of the home of a lucky prospector.
Did it get to Mexico from France with the help of burros or mules? Or was it moved inch by inch by a band of struggling laborers like a piano I know in Guatemala that took weeks to deliver to a mountainous road-less destination?
As the photo suggests, the Erard family were also famous for making harps, and true Erard pianos have a distinctive harp feature. The sounding board is polished hardwoods, no doubt of European origin, adding measurably to an image of beauty.
“They’re supposed to be beautiful. It’s part of the act,” according to John, my co-pilot and pianist (and harpist).
Maybe one of the world’s piano sleuths can answer my questions.
Over 1,000 Guerrero families are living as refugees after fleeing their homes due to threats they received from the La Familia Michoacana cartel.
The families are staying in Zirándaro, where Mayor Gregorio Portillo Mendoza said three people had been kidnapped on Sunday and Monday.
He said the kidnappers travel to communities and force local men to arm themselves and go with them. As a result, residents have been fleeing their villages in order to avoid the kidnappers, who also rob families of their homes and vehicles, he added.
The families have fled from at least 14 communities located within the municipality of Zirándaro, and are being provided food and shelter by the local government.
Portillo complained that although federal and state authorities are aware of the insecurity in his municipality, they have not provided support to combat the cartel. He said that around 50 young men have been forced to join the cartel so far this year.
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He said Guerrero Governor Héctor Astudillo promised on Monday to send a contingent of state police and National Guard troops within hours, but none had arrived by Monday evening.
But an official in the Zirándaro municipal headquarters told Mexico News Daily on Tuesday that they had finally arrived.
Carlos Slim receives the National Engineering Award from President López Obrador.
Mexico needs a “jolt” in infrastructure spending to trigger economic growth, business magnate Carlos Slim said on Monday.
In an address after receiving the National Engineering Award from President López Obrador, Slim highlighted that China has spent 12% of GDP on public works during the past decade and asserted that Mexico needs to boost its own outlay on infrastructure in order to stimulate the economy.
“We need a jolt, a transformation, a change that allows us to start to have the growth that our country deserves,” he said, adding that people’s purchasing power also needs to increase in order to have sustained economic expansion.
Slim said that infrastructure projects are especially important in the southeast, where the government is planning to build the Maya Train and a new oil refinery, and develop a trade corridor across the Isthmus of Tehuantepec.
As a starting point, the government and private sector should together aim to reach annual investment of 5% of GDP in infrastructure (926.86 billion pesos or US $47.9 billion, according to statistics agency Inegi) and the latter should take advantage of low-interest loans to fund their projects, he said.
“I believe that private investment [in infrastructure] can be substantial, the majority,” Mexico’s richest man said in an interview, adding that a lot of low-interest loans are available across the world.
“We have to take advantage of this funding . . . There is liquidity in the banking sector, there are a lot of resources so what needs to be done is to carry out the greatest number of projects possible,” Slim said.
“Now with your telephone, if you have an internet connection, you can take Harvard, Stanford or Khan Academy courses in the Tarahumara Sierra, a lot of off-site learning opportunities open up,” Slim said.
The tycoon said that his companies will have invested 36 billion pesos (US $1.9 billion) in Mexico by the end of the year and that the outlay “will be even bigger” in 2020 – “practically 25% of the investment we make in the world.”
