A new survey has found that 34% of online shoppers in Mexico were victims of fraud at least once in the past year.
Conducted by the Mexican Association of Online Sales (AMVO) in collaboration with the market research company Netquest, the survey also found that 60% of online shoppers believe that fraud has increased.
The same percentage said they are wary of entering their credit or debit card details on e-commerce platforms, although 60% said that making online payments is more secure than before.
Despite the wariness, AMVO found that online shopping has become much more popular. In 2017, only 7% of people said that they shopped online on a weekly basis but that figure has now grown to 38%.
One reason for the growth could be that 64% of respondents said that making a purchase online is easy.
The AMVO survey, which mainly polled people aged 16 to 44, found that online purchases are most commonly made using mobile telephones.
Clothes, electronic goods and groceries continue to be the most popular products bought by Mexicans on the internet, while purchases of medications and food from restaurants are on the rise.
The survey also found that eight of 10 people have at least once abandoned their plan to make a purchase after selecting an item or items on an e-commerce site.
The most common reasons why they decided not to buy were because they were asked to provide too much personal information, they had a change of heart or the purchase took too long to process.
A Tamaulipas biologist is calling on the state and federal governments to study the effects of pollution on fish in the Pánuco river, particularly in the Pueblo Viejo lagoon in Veracruz.
“We need to do daily monitoring at the entrance to the Pueblo Viejo lagoon,” said Margarita Vergara de los Ríos, former director of the Regional Center for Fishing Studies (CRIP) for southern Tamaulipas.
Vergara also said that the dumping of wastewater into the Pánuco river should stop, noting a recent mass death of thousands of catfish in a Tampico canal connected to the Pánuco. Tampico officials said the die-off was probably caused by a lack of oxygen or a change in the water’s salinity, but Vergara thinks it could have been caused by pollution.
“I haven’t been able to take samples, but I would say that, if this had happened in a period when there was more serious runoff, we could attribute it to salinity changes or a lack of oxygen in the water,” she said. “However, it’s very possible that it was caused by a spill into the Pánuco river, upstream or downstream, or the illegal dumping that happens around the Carpintero lagoon, because a few weeks ago there were also a lot of fish deaths upstream in the Pánuco.”
Vergara added that if the pollution problem is not addressed, it could damage area fisheries like Pueblo Viejo.
“It’s very important that agencies like the National Water Commission, the Health Secretariat and the CRIP monitor the Pánuco near the entrance to the Pueblo Viejo lagoon in Veracruz in order to prevent harm to people who live from fishing there,” she said.
Pueblo Viejo oyster fishermen who spoke with the newspaper Milenio said that Tamaulipas and Veracruz authorities have gone to the lagoon to take water samples, but that they have not revealed the results. Fishermen fear that the government will impose a ban on fishing in the lagoon because of the pollution.
According to environmental activist Roque Montiel Lozano, at least 600 cubic meters of wastewater are dumped into the Pánuco every second.
Union leader Ayala celebrates conclusion of negotiations.
The federal government workers’ union has negotiated a 5.1% pay hike that will benefit 700,000 administrative and general services employees.
The pay raise and economic benefits came after weeks of negotiations between the Federation of Unions of Workers at the Service of the State (FSTSE) and the Secretariat of Finance (SHCP).
A press release signed by FSTSE president Joel Ayala stated that the raise will be retroactive to January 1, 2019. It includes increased benefits for training, transportation, food, utilities and social security.
Ayala pointed out that the contract includes a pledge not to lay off government employees, emphasizing that job security is one of the FSTSE’s top priorities.
“We have categorically affirmed that job security is a fundamental premise of labor relations, enforcing at all times, in accordance with the law, labor stability with comprehensive social security, guaranteeing labor rights, as well as full respect for union autonomy,” he said.
Ayala also recognized the support of President López Obrador for his role in the process.
In 2018, the final year of the administration of Enrique Peña Nieto, workers received a raise of 6.2%. In 2017 they received a 5.7% increase.
Beekeepers in Tizimín, Yucatán, have once again reported a massive die-off of bees and like last year, it appears that crop dusting is to blame.
Three apiarists who work in the Yohactún de Hidalgo area told the newspaper Milenio that the bees in at least 50% of their hives have been killed.
Joel Ramírez Francisco said that the problem began 10 days ago after the aerial spraying of crops near the forested land where the hives are located.
“. . . When I arrived at my apiary I was surprised to find that I’d lost 15 hives, the bees were dead . . .” he said, adding that the crop dusting also affected vegetation in the area.
“The kind of spraying they do with light planes affects us a lot,” Ramírez said. He claimed that those responsible are ranch owners who are not originally from the local area.
Yohactún de Hidalgo is 18 kilometers east of the Mayan community of Dzonot Carretero, where bees belonging to more than 30 beekeepers died en masse in July 2018 after a nearby farm was sprayed with pesticide.
In that case, beekeepers filed a complaint with the environmental protection agency, Profepa, against an agro-industrialist responsible for the corn and soybean crop spraying that allegedly killed their bees. However, no action was taken against him and, according to the beekeepers, Profepa officials never showed up to collect samples of the dead bees for testing.
Ramírez said that affected beekeepers in Yohactún de Hidalgo also intend to file a complaint against those who carried out the aerial spraying.
“We’re looking for other [beekeepers] who were affected. We’re going to collect evidence to send it to Mérida,” he said.
Ramírez explained that the deaths of the bees came just before the annual honey harvest, so apiarists will take a big financial hit.
“. . . We fight for a year to keep the bees alive and suddenly they spray and they die, imagine the loss . . .” he said.
Statistics suggest that crop spraying has killed bees across Yucatán this year. Data from the information agency of the federal Secretariat of Agriculture shows that honey production in the state fell to 206 tonnes in August, a 64.6% decline compared to the same month of 2018.
The board’s decision came just after the statistics agency Inegi announced that the economy contracted 0.58% in July compared to the same month of 2018, while inflation cooled in the first half of September to a three-year low of 2.99%, which is within the Bank of México’s target range of 3% give or take a percentage point.
“Considering the reduction of headline inflation, the ample slack in the economy and the recent behavior of external and domestic yield curves, the Bank of México’s governing board decided by majority to lower the target for the overnight interbank interest rate to 7.75%,” the bank said in a statement.
Two of the board members voted for an even bigger cut of half a percentage point to 7.5%.
With the economy slowing, the central bank said that maintaining “prudent and firm monetary policy” was “particularly important.”
It added that the “adoption of measures that foster an environment of confidence and certainty for investment [and] greater productivity” is equally important and that public finances need to be “sustainably strengthened.”
It also follows a quarter-point cut made last week by the Federal Reserve of the United States, where borrowing costs are now set at a rate of 1.75% to 2%.
Federal security forces have increased patrols and their community presence in the municipalities of Empalme and Guaymas, Sonora, the Secretariat of Security and Citizens Protection (SSPC) said Wednesday.
The communities are the test areas for a pilot project begun on September 2 that temporarily replaces municipal officers who do not pass control and confidence checks with armed forces personnel.
The SSPC stated that marines, National Guardsmen and state police have reinforced vigilance in high-crime areas, as well as in areas where drugs are presumably sold.
Additionally, security personnel have increased their community presence with vehicle patrols and officers on foot around schools and in town centers in order to deter crime.
“In coordination with municipal police we have set up drunk driving checkpoints and vehicle search points in various locations of the city. We have tightened the response time for the activation of a code red and optimized the sectorization of the municipalities with immediate response groups,” said the SSPC in a press release.
In Empalme, citizens have been in mourning since September 10 after criminal gang hitmen took a man from a house before setting it on fire with molotov cocktails, killing an 8-year-old boy and seriously injuring two other occupants.
As part of the agreements with the local police forces, the SSPC is currently carrying out evaluations to purge corrupt officers.
Beginning September 30, local police will also attend training in human rights, crime prevention, protection and the moderate and rational use of force.
“The government of Mexico reaffirms its commitment to maintain the effort and deployment of all its capabilities, and also reiterates that the coordination of responsibilities of the three levels of government will allow for a significant decrease in crime rates,” said the SSPC.
Parents of the missing students and supporters at a demonstration in Mexico City.
Eight search operations conducted over 48 days produced no “positive findings” in the case of the 43 students who disappeared in Iguala, Guerrero, in 2014, human rights undersecretary Alejandro Encinas said on Thursday.
Speaking at the presidential press conference on the fifth anniversary of the students’ disappearance, Encinas said that the search efforts concentrated on the Guerrero municipalities of Iguala, Cocula, Huitzuco, Tepecoacuilco and Mezcala.
The operations extended across 210 different locations including a second garbage dump – the previous federal government said that the students were burned in the Cocula municipal dump, safe houses used by criminal groups in Iguala and wells in the same city, he said.
Personnel from the federal Attorney General’s Office and a forensic team from Argentina conducted the searches, Encinas said.
The undersecretary also announced that a reward of 1.5 million pesos (US $76,000) will be paid to any person who provides reliable and verifiable information about the case.
López Obrador and other officials wore special t-shirts in tribute to Ayotzinapa at Thursday’s press conference.
A reward of 10 million pesos (US $509,000) is on offer for information that leads to the arrest of Alejandro Tenescalco Mejía, who was the shift commander of the Iguala municipal police at the time of the students’ abduction.
According to the former government’s “historical truth,” corrupt police officers intercepted the students and handed them over to the Guerreros Unidos crime gang, who killed them, burned their bodies and disposed of their remains in a river.
However, that version of events has been widely rejected.
“The only truth,” Encinas said today, “is that there is no truth.”
As part of the search for the students, he said that authorities have analyzed 184 bodies that were found in hidden graves in Guerrero but of the 44 that have been identified, none were the young men from the Ayotzinapa Rural Teachers College.
Encinas explained that the truth commission set up by the federal government last December analyzed 80 million telephone calls, including all the calls the students made and received during a period of four years.
However, no evidence was found that the students had contact with any criminal group, he said.
Encinas added that members of the Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts, a team formed by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, began collaborating with the government on its investigation in August. The remainder of the group will join the investigation in the coming days, Encinas said.
The official also said that the government is looking at information from the Federal Police and the recently-disbanded Center for Investigation and National Security, which he claimed the previous government failed to consider in its probe into what happened to the 43 students.
The government will begin to summon Guerrero officials who were in office at the time of the students’ disappearance next week, Encinas said.
They include former governor Ángel Aguirre, ex-attorney general Iñaki Blanco and ex-security secretary Leonardo Vázquez.
The federal Attorney General’s Office has previously announced that it will investigate former attorney general Jesús Murillo Karam – who first announced the “historical truth” – as well as former Criminal Investigation Agency chief Tomás Zerón and former Ayotzinapa investigation chief José Aarón Pérez.
In a radio interview on Thursday, Murillo defended the veracity of the “historical truth” he first declared on January 27, 2015.
“What am I sure about in the investigation? That police handed the young men to a criminal group and a large group [of them] were burned in the Cocula dump . . .” he said.
Murillo also said that he was prepared to fully cooperate with the government when summoned to provide a statement.
Meanwhile, parents of the missing students traveled today to the Chamber of Deputies in Mexico City, where they demanded justice and the return of their sons.
“Vivos se los llevaron y vivos los queremos [they were taken alive, we want them back alive]” they shouted, a slogan that has been chanted at countless protest marches across the country during the past five years.
U.S. authorities alleged that the H-2 Cartel, engaged in trafficking cocaine, heroin, marijuana and methamphetamines to the United States, bribed Veytia on a monthly basis from 2013 until his arrest in 2017.
Veytia told the judge that he committed an error by accepting the bribes in exchange for using wire taps and other police tools to protect the cartel.
The former attorney general holds dual citizenship, and at times lived in San Diego, California, where he was arrested by U.S. authorities in 2017.
U.S. authorities said he used his position as Nayarit’s chief law enforcement officer to obstruct investigations into the cartel in Mexico.
Veytia directed other corrupt Mexican law enforcement officers under his supervision to assist the H-2 Cartel, released members and associates of the cartel from prison after they had been arrested for drug trafficking-related crimes, instructed corrupt Mexican law enforcement officers to target rival drug traffickers for wiretaps and arrests and assisted the H-2 Cartel in carrying out murders and other acts of violence, the U.S. Justice Department said.
Veytia pleaded guilty to charges of international conspiracy to manufacture and distribute heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine and marijuana.
The Justice Department said the H-2 Cartel, based in Nayarit and Sinaloa, moved an estimated 500 kilograms of heroin, 100 kilos of cocaine, 200 kilos of methamphetamines and 3,000 kilos of marijuana into the U.S. every month between January 2013 and February 2017.
The cartel is named after a former leader, Juan Francisco “El H2” Patrón Sánchez, a drug trafficker who left the Sinaloa Cartel to join its rival, the Beltrán Leyva Organization. He was killed in a gunfight with security forces in Tepic in 2017.
Supporters of abortion law cheer yesterday in Oaxaca.
Oaxaca lawmakers on Wednesdsay approved removing criminal penalties for abortion in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy.
Cries of “Murderers!” and “Yes we can!” were heard as the results were announced in the Chamber of Deputies. Of Oaxaca’s 42 deputies, 24 voted in favor of the law, 12 voted against it and six abstained.
Abortion after 12 weeks of pregnancy will remain illegal and punishable by three to six months in prison or 100 to 300 days of community service. The same punishment can be applied to anyone who provides an abortion to a woman with her consent, while those who cause an abortion without a woman’s consent face between three and 10 years in prison.
“We made history for dignity, the right to life and the rights of women in Oaxaca,” said Deputy Magaly López of the Morena party.
López also noted that no one is in favor of abortion, and legalizing the practice is a measure to protect women who see themselves obligated to end their pregnancies.
Complications from illegal abortions are the third cause of death in Oaxaca, according to official statistics.
Oaxaca joins Mexico City to become the second state to decriminalize abortion for any reason. Some other states allow abortion in cases of rape or to protect the life of the mother.
The economy contracted 0.58% in July compared to the same month of 2018, the biggest year-over-year decline since November 2009.
Seasonally adjusted data from the statistics agency Inegi shows that negative growth in the construction and mining sectors put a heavy burden on the economy in the first month of the third quarter.
Activity in the former declined by 9.1% – the industry’s worst performance in 18 years – while the mining sector, which hasn’t recorded any growth since 2013, contracted by 7.39%.
The industrial sector as a whole recorded negative growth of 2.76% in July compared to the same month a year earlier.
The weak construction sector activity is the result of lower investment in public infrastructure, delays to the start of the government’s signature projects such as the Santa Lucía airport and the postponement or cancellation of private sector works due to economic uncertainty.
Eduardo Ramírez, president of the Mexican Chamber of the Construction Industry, said last week that the situation is causing “great despair” among builders and construction companies.
The service sector, the engine room of Mexico’s economy, grew in July but only by 0.25% – the worst result in four months. The manufacturing industry fared better, recording 1.15% growth, which was an improvement on both May and June.
Inegi’s Global Indicator of Economic Activity (IGAE) report also shows that the economy contracted 0.1% in July compared to the month before.
“In our opinion, the report shows that economic activity at the start of the third quarter remained stagnant,” Banorte analysts said, adding that the economic environment remains challenging but there are some signs that activity could pick up.
Alfonso Esparza, senior analyst at foreign exchange company Oanda, said the IGAE data “validates the decision of the Bank of México to cut [interest rates].”
With inflation levels at a three-year low and economic activity continuing to stagnate, many analysts believe that the Bank of México will announce an additional interest rate cut on Thursday. The rate currently stands at 8%, five points higher than inflation.
