Clash kills La Catrina, 21, suspected CJNG boss in Tierra Caliente

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January 13, 2020

La Catrina, 21-year-old gang leader. — 21-year-old suspected gang leader La Catrina.

A 21-year-old woman suspected of being a leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) in the Tierra Caliente region of Michoacán was fatally wounded in a clash with federal and state forces on Friday.

María Guadalupe López Esquivel, also known as La Catrina, died in hospital after a gun battle with the army, National Guard and Michoacán state police in La Bocanada, a community in the municipality of Tepalcatepec.

The security forces came under attack by suspected members of the cartel led by Mexico’s most wanted criminal, Nemesio “El Mencho” Oseguera Cervantes, after dismantling a blockade at the entrance to the town.

López belonged to a cell of the CJNG identified by authorities as being responsible for an ambush on Michoacán police in October that left 13 officers dead and another nine wounded.

According to documents found in cartel vehicles that were seized after that attack, La Catrina was responsible for paying salaries to people who worked as halcones (hawks or lookouts) for her CJNG cell. She was also allegedly a sicaria, or killer, and involved in extortion and kidnapping operations.

Fernández, standing in foreground, and CJNG sicarios.

The daughter of a livestock trader and a housewife, López was reportedly a good student in her younger years in Tepalcatepec before developing a keener interest in attending parties rather than school.

“. . . She started hanging out with gangsters and got lost in drugs,” one local resident told the newspaper El Universal.

Another resident said she moved in with a CJNG member in 2017, stating that “she met a criminal asshole and he took her to live in Aguililla, where she started to work for M2.”

M2 is Miguel Fernández, suspected plaza chief of the CJNG in Tierra Caliente and one of seven alleged criminals, including López and another woman, who were arrested after Friday’s clash.

In audio recordings obtained by authorities, Fernández is heard ordering cartel hitmen to murder the state police officers on October 14.

He also issues a command for a narco-message to be left at the scene of the crime in Aguililla. One banner left by the aggressors said the police were killed for supporting rival criminal groups including the Caballeros Templarios and the Viagras.

Operating in several states beyond its home base of Jalisco, the CJNG is considered Mexico’s most powerful and dangerous criminal group. The cartel has increased its power and extended its reach in recent years, gaining significant notoriety in 2015 when its members shot down a military helicopter in southern Jalisco.

The United States Department of State is offering a reward of up to US $10 million for information leading to the arrest of suspected leader Oseguera Cervantes.

Security authorities in several Michoacán municipalities said in October that they had been made aware that El Mencho planned to return to his home town of Aguililla.

The kingpin wants to retire, be arrested or die in his native land, sources told the newspaper El Universal, adding that he intended to guarantee his security with “human walls.”

Source: El Universal (sp), Infobae (sp)

Paleontological, archaeological finds at airport deemed national security risk

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MND Staff

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January 13, 2020

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Paleontological and archaeological discoveries at the site of the new Mexico City airport will not be made public on the grounds that releasing information about such finds would compromise national security.

In response to a freedom of information request, the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) told the newspaper El Universal that it signed an agreement with the Secretariat of National Defense (Sedena) in August. It requires both parties to reserve information about the discovery of fossils and archaeological relics at the site of the Santa Lucía airport, currently under construction by Sedena at an air force base north of the capital in México state.

The agreement contradicts a pledge made by President López Obrador who said in October that all information related to the construction of the Santa Lucía airport will be made public.

Clause 16 of the agreement states that INAH and Sedena are bound to reserve details about paleontological and archaeological discoveries in accordance with Articles 110 and 113 of the Federal Law of Transparency and Access to Public Information.

The former article says that reserved information can be classified as that whose publication compromises national security, public security or national defense. Article 113 says that confidential information can only be accessed by the heads of the departments that generated it, their representatives and authorized public servants.

Clause 16 of the INAH / Sedena agreement also states that the two parties “will assume the responsibilities” determined by the relevant authorities if they fail to comply with their commitment to keep information about paleontological and archaeological discoveries secret.

The agreement stipulates that Sedena is responsible for responding to freedom of information requests about such finds after consultation with INAH.

Despite the two departments commitment to keep information secret, El Universal said that INAH was able to reveal that relics of the Teotihuacán culture have been found at the Santa Lucía site.

The pre-Hispanic city of Teotihuacán, now a popular tourist attraction featuring two enormous pyramids, is located approximately 15 kilometers southeast of the airport’s location.

INAH said that pre-Hispanic pots and other ceramic remains dated to the period between 200 and 650 AD as well as fragments of stone artifacts were found in the area where the airport’s central runway will be located. The finds are currently being analyzed by INAH experts.

Excavations carried out at Santa Lucía since 1956 have also unearthed fossils of Pleistocene-era fauna, including mammoths, saber-toothed cats and camelids.

Source: El Universal (sp)

Boeing 737 becomes a library in Mexico City

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Cody Copeland

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January 13, 2020

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Young people in the Mexico City borough of Iztapalapa can now let their imaginations take flight at a new library built into a converted airplane.

Part of the borough’s “Utopias” cultural program, which aims to transform public spaces in the notoriously unsafe neighborhood, the Boeing 737 houses 26 internet-connected computers with which readers can access 25,000 titles.

The library also has a collection of printed books for children and young people, audio books and a semiprofessional flight simulator. Another 40 computers will be installed in facilities outside the plane and there will also be free wifi.

In addition to this 230-book collection, which will gradually increase, readers will also be able to access titles digitally in PDF form and audiobooks both online and on CDs.

Iztapalapa Mayor Clara Brugada Molina announced the opening of the library, called Volando a la Utopía (Flying to Utopia), in a tweet on Sunday.

“When we bet on reading and books, we bet on knowledge, education, science and culture; we invest in the present, but build for the future. #VolandoALaUTOPÍA aims to bring children and young people closer to discovering the world through words,” she said.

Brugada hopes the library will revive a part of the borough that was previously a hangout for people using drugs and alcohol.

“We want all girls and boys to come and read at the #AirplaneLibrary and want the community to appropriate this space,” she said in another tweet.

She also announced the development of a boat library, which will have 30 “cabins” made from repurposed shipping containers, currently under construction in another part of the borough.

The airplane library is not a new concept. A converted Boeing 727 has served as a library in Ciudad Hidalgo, Michoacán, since 2018.

Source: El Financiero (sp)

Sonora Grill to expand in Mexico, enter United States market

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Cody Copeland

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January 11, 2020

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Mexico City-based restaurant operator Sonora Grill Group has big plans for expansion in 2020 and beyond.

The company, which started as a taco restaurant in Mexico City’s Del Valle neighborhood in 2004, plans to increase its presence in Mexico by 50% this year and is aiming to enter the U.S. market by 2022.

Founder and CEO Ricardo Añorve said the company plans to open 15-20 restaurants in 2020 with an investment of around 800 million pesos (US $42.6 million).

He said the growth will be through all of the group’s brands, which include Sonora Grill, Sonora Grill Prime, Parrilla Urbana, Terraza Stella and Holstein, as well as Fisher’s, a seafood chain that the company is now developing.

The number of openings in 2020 will be the largest in the group’s history. In 2019, the company opened six outlets in Mexico and signed a deal to develop the Fisher’s brand.

Añorve says the goal is not only to continue to expand in Mexico, where there is a good market for grilled meat, but out of the country as well, for which they are looking for alliances.

“We have talked about having alliances with an [investment] fund that can help us grow the company more rapidly and even export the brand. We really like the United States because it’s a place that eats meat and likes Mexican stuff, tacos, meat and Mexican wine. It’s a market that is very interesting to us and we’re now looking toward it,” he said.

The company is already carrying out market studies in the United States and plans to break into the market there with the help of a U.S. restaurant operator.

The brand is aiming to break into the restaurant markets of Texas and California, markets that are good due to the presence of Mexican populations and influence.

“We also like Chicago, Nevada and other markets for growth,” said Añorve, who hopes to open the brand’s first unit in the United States in 2022.

Some U.S. restaurant operators are thinking of going in the opposite direction, bringing concepts to Mexico. Such is the case with Hema Group, which is planning on bringing the Arby’s fast food chain south of the border.

But the short-term forecast for the U.S. restaurant industry isn’t looking good according to some measures. A survey of credit cardholders carried out by Capital One revealed that 71% are considering saving money, for which 51% plan on reducing how much they spend eating out.

Still, according to a study by real estate brokerage firm CBRE, the U.S. restaurant sector has maintained positive growth rates in recent years thanks to technological advances in food delivery services and ghost restaurants (delivery-only establishments). In 2018, the sector grew 6.3%, its biggest growth rate since 2015.

Source: Expansión (sp)

Gold ingot confirmed to have been lost in Cortés’ flight from Tenochtitlán

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MND Staff

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January 11, 2020

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The gold ingot that was part of Cortés' plunder.

A scientific analysis of a gold ingot found beneath a Mexico City street almost 40 years ago has confirmed that it was part of the Spanish plunder with which conquistadores led by Hernán Cortés attempted to escape the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlán in 1520.

The National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) said in a statement that a fluorescent X-ray chemical analysis had determined that the ingot was cast between 1519 and 1520. The timeframe corresponds to a period in which Cortés ordered gold stolen from the Aztecs to be melted into bars so that they could be transported more easily to Spain.

That information, coupled with the fact that the gold bar was found along a route used by the conquistadores to flee Tenochtitlán after a battle on June 30, 1520 that cost the lives of many Spaniards, led archaeologists to conclude that it was part of the Spanish booty.

The announcement from INAH comes six months before the 500th anniversary of La Noche Triste (The Night of Sorrows) as the Aztec revolt that drove the Spaniards out of the city came to be known.

The day before the battle in which many of the Spaniards’ indigenous allies also lost their lives, the Aztec, or Mexica, emperor Moctezuma II was killed, triggering the uprising.

The ingot – which weights 1.93 kilograms and is 1.4 cm thick, 26.2 cm long and 5.4 cm wide – was found 4.8 meters underground on March 13, 1981 during a government construction project on Hidalgo Avenue, located adjacent to the Alameda Central park in downtown Mexico City.

The bar is believed to have fallen or been thrown into a canal as the Spanish fled on horseback along a causeway leading out of Tenochtitlán, which was built on an island in Lake Texcoco.

INAH archaeologist Leonardo López Luján said the ingot is a “key piece” in the “puzzle” of the events of June 30, 1520. He noted that its length is exactly the same as ingots described by conquistador and chronicler Bernal Díaz del Castillo.

López also said that the Florentine Codex, an encyclopedic work about the people and culture of pre-Hispanic central Mexico, says that the Mexicas searched the canals after the battle of La Noche Triste to look for plundered objects. One illustration shows a man with a gold bar in his left hand, he added.

The gold ingot, which is on display at the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City, is a “material witness” of the Spanish conquest and a “unique archaeological” relic of the Night of Sorrows, the archaeologist said.

Mexico News Daily

Attorney general keeps her job as city switches to new prosecutor’s office

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Cody Copeland

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January 11, 2020

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Ernestina Godoy will head the independent prosecutor's office.

Mexico City Attorney General Ernestina Godoy will continue to head up the justice system as the city switches over to the new fiscalía general (FGJ), which began operations on Friday.

Godoy, who will hold the office for four years, said the new public prosecutor’s office will transform the way the city seeks justice and “will put reparation of damages first.”

“It’s an autonomous institution of the state that belongs to all of us. [The former Attorney General’s Office] that was left behind was anchored to old practices and stuck in the past,” she said at an inaugural ceremony outside Mexico City’s Interactive Museum of Economy.

“The creation of the FGJ represents a unique opportunity to build a true institution at the service of justice, which acts with the perspective of gender and investigates with professionalism and scientific rigor.”

She emphasized that violence against women will continue to be a priority for the new office and that her decisions as public prosecutor will not be subject to political calculations or media judgments.

Among her objectives are attending to complaints within 15 minutes, improving digital reporting of crimes, creating a DNA database and forming a group of professionals to work alongside the prosecutor’s office, investigative police and experts, among other goals.

She will also hire more forensic experts and increase training for her office’s agents and the investigative police, as well as create a system that allows victims of home burglaries to make reports from their homes, attended by officers.

Godoy said her goal is to create a climate in which citizens are more likely to report crimes, saying it was the best tool for combating impunity, adding that the new office will get rid of the disincentives people have for not reporting.

“The challenge ahead of us is enormous and demands an unbreakable commitment to justice and honesty of all who work here,” she said.

“For the majority of people, going to the public prosecutor’s office is a problem, not the solution,” she said after listing off over a dozen reasons people are afraid to report crimes.

Among them: opacity, corruption, inefficiency, poor treatment, enormous wait times, negligence, leaks, fabricated guilty verdicts, revictimization, omissions, deficient investigations, torture practices, complicity with crime, lack of personnel, technological delays, violations of due process, nepotism and clandestine prisons.

She also promised to execute all the arrest warrants in her office that have gone unresolved for years.

Creation of the fiscalía general is part of a process that began several years ago to strengthen the justice system with a public prosecutor’s office that was autonomous and independent of the executive branch of the government.

The federal Attorney General’s Office became the Fiscalía General de la República last year but criticism followed the appointment of someone close to President López Obrador to be the chief prosecutor. Naming Alejandro Gertz Manero to the position would affect its impartiality, critics said.

Critics spoke again following Godoys’ appointment as Mexico City’s chief prosecutor in December, citing her role as an activist in a political party. She is a former federal deputy and one of the founders of the ruling Morena party.

Gertz and Godoy have each been described by critics as a fiscal carnal, meaning they are government-friendly.

Source: Milenio (sp)

Parents rejected backpack searches at school where boy killed his teacher

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Cody Copeland

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January 11, 2020

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Grief after the school shooting in Torreón, Coahuila.

Parents of students at the Coahuila school where an 11-year-old carried out a deadly shooting on Friday morning had rejected the state’s backpack inspection program in October.

The boy smuggled two Glock pistols into the school in his backpack and shot his teacher, killing her and wounding six others before turning a gun on himself. The wounded have been reported in stable condition.

A document released after the shooting reveals that superintendent María Mayela Escobedo Carrillo notified state education authorities of the parents’ refusal to participate in the program.

“Parents were urged to agree to the Healthy and Safe Backpack Operation, which they rejected,” said the document.

“They expressed their refusal to participate in the searches and opposed others checking their children’s backpacks, also arguing that it was not necessary, since they themselves do so.”

In light of the attack, Coahuila Governor Miguel Ángel Riquelme said the operation would be reinforced and made mandatory in all schools in the state.

“[The operation] will be obligatory, in fact it was already being carried out in private [schools], but in some campuses where teachers and parents did not approve they rejected it in written declarations,” he said.

As to the source of the weapons used in the attack, Riquelme said the boy’s grandfather is being investigated.

“[The grandfather] is an essential part of the origin of the weapons. The grandfather is probably the owner of the guns,” he said.

Although he had initially said he believed the shooter had wanted to recreate a favorite videogame by carrying out the attack, Riqelme later said he only meant the game’s influence was part of the investigation.

The videogame theory was rejected by the Network for Children’s Rights in Mexico (REDIM), which attributed the attack to the “climate of war” in the country.

REDIM director Juan Martín Pérez said the attack wasn’t “a magical event,” nor was it influenced by a videogame, but was a product of the violence that has racked the country since former president Felipe Calderón declared war against drug traffickers in 2006.

“In this culture of war and militarization that we have in the country, this little 11-year-old socially and culturally reproduced this dynamic of armed violence, and the message in his environment clearly was that things are resolved through force,” said Pérez.

He said that as in all countries at war there are weapons, for which he called for the government to continue working with the United States to inhibit arms trafficking.

“The fact that the little one had access to weapons . . . speaks to the impressive quantity of small guns in circulation, which we can speak of in the millions, since families want to protect themselves and arm themselves illegally because they are in an environment of organized crime,” he said.

He also called on the Public Education Secretariat (SEP) to work to prevent such cases, as there are warning signs that can alert authorities to attacks like this before they happen.

The international nonprofit Save the Children also called on the SEP to improve security conditions in schools, attend to students’ mental health and carry out active shooter simulations to prepare them for possible attacks.

It said that the generalized violence in Mexico has severely affected the mental health of children and young people, as even the places where they should feel the safest, such as their homes and schools, have become dangerous.

A Save the Children survey of over 3,000 children and youths found that 37% had witnessed a shooting. It said that such an environment causes anxiety, constant fear, post-traumatic stress disorder and lowered academic performance, among other afflictions.

The organization asked president López Obrador to make strategies to prevent violence against minors a national priority.

Sources: Milenio (sp), El Universal (sp)

Suspect in rape and killing of 6-year-old burned alive in Chiapas

By

Cody Copeland

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January 11, 2020

0

Lynching victim in Chiapas after his arrest by police.

A man suspected of raping and killing a six-year-old girl in Chiapas was beaten and burned alive by angry residents on Friday morning.

Residents of the community of Faja de Oro accused Alfredo Roblero, 37, of raping and decapitating Jarid N., who had been reported as missing on Thursday night.

Although police from the neighboring city of Tapachula had come to arrest Roblero, a mob of angry citizens surrounded their patrol vehicle and pulled him out. They took him to a community park, tied him to a pole and beat him before dousing him in gasoline and burning him alive.

The Tapachula police officers reportedly did nothing to stop the crowd from killing Roblero.

State police officers later arrived on the scene with forensics experts from the Chiapas Attorney General’s Office (FGE) to investigate.

The FGE said it would “not allow the public to carry out justice by its own hand.”

Sources: Milenio (sp), Diario de Chiapas (sp), Proceso (sp)

Elements in government don’t respect presumption of innocence: attorney general

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MND Staff

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January 10, 2020

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One needn’t look much farther than social media (or some of the comments on Mexico News Daily) to be aware that the presumption of innocence is a foreign concept for many.

Now there are elements within the federal government that don’t respect that presumption either, according to Attorney General Alejandro Gertz Manero.

The attorney general’s claim came in response to a question asked at a gathering of diplomats in Mexico City.

“The Attorney General’s Office as an autonomous entity has been very respectful of the presumption of innocence . . . [but] there are elements, not in the Attorney General’s Office, but in the government that don’t respect that presumption,” he responded.

“. . . We have it very clear, we don’t make . . . assertions that go against the presumption of innocence,” Gertz Manero said, adding that statements of such a nature are not legitimate and create a “serious crisis” in the process of prosecuting a suspected criminal.

The attorney general declined to name the “elements” to which he was referring but added that “we all know” who they are.

One of the people Gertz Manero is believed to have been referring to is Santiago Nieto, head of the government’s Financial Intelligence Unit (UIF).

Nieto, who was fired from his role as the top electoral crimes prosecutor in the previous government, has taken on a leading role in the fight against corruption initiated by the current administration and spoken out about several investigations conducted by the UIF.

He has revealed at press conferences that the UIF has frozen or requested the freezing of bank accounts held by high-profile figures including former cabinet secretary Rosario Robles, ex-Pemex chief Emilio Lozoya and former Pemex workers’ union leader Carlos Romero Deschamps.

Nieto also announced that the UIF has blocked 11 accounts linked to former security secretary Genaro García Luna – currently in negotiation with United States authorities to change a not guilty plea to drug trafficking conspiracy – and referred him to the FGR for the possible embezzlement of billions of pesos.

Constitutional lawyer Alberto Woolrich told the newspaper Milenio that the freezing of accounts in itself is not a violation of the presumption of innocence because the UIF has a legal right to freeze accounts until it can verify the origin of funds they hold.

“It’s a means created . . . to avoid [money] laundering so there is not a lack of respect for the presumption of innocence,” he said.

In turn, a criminal lawyer who requested anonymity expressed skepticism that merely speaking out about a current investigation amounted to disrespecting a person’s right to the presumption of innocence.

“. . . It’s one thing to say that we’re investigating to find out if a crime was committed and another thing to say that [a person] committed a crime,” the lawyer told Milenio.

However, the lawyer conceded that statements made about investigations could act as a hindrance to probes being conducted by the FGR.

In contrast to those views, National Action Party Senator Xóchitl Gálvez charged that the government is using the UIF to carry out a campaign of “fiscal terrorism.”

“. . . I think that it should be more discreet,” she said.

The Democratic Revolution Party expressed a similar sentiment, asserting in a statement that President López Obrador uses the UIF to carry out revenge attacks on his political enemies.

Responding to Gertz Manero’s insinuations, López Obrador defended Nieto at his morning press conference on Thursday.

“Santiago doesn’t do anything without consulting with the president, you can’t blame him. Speaking frankly, imagine if I, here, devoted myself to reporting about money laundering, it’s not my job, another public servant has to do it as long as it doesn’t affect due process. We’re obliged to act with adherence to the law, it’s a matter of coming to an agreement [with the FGR],” he said.

Yet according to the operating guidelines established by the international network of UIFs, they should operate autonomously and independently, which would likely rule out consultations with the president.

Meanwhile, López Obrador himself has come very close to disrespecting the presumption of innocence if he hasn’t actually crossed the line.

At a press conference on January 2, López Obrador questioned where García Luna’s wealth could have come from if he didn’t accept bribes from the Sinaloa Cartel as the United States government alleges.

“Where did [his] houses and apartments come from,” he asked.

López Obrador has also insinuated that former president Felipe Calderón was complicit with organized crime although he has ruled out an investigation in relation to the charges against his security secretary “because it would create the perception that we’re doing it for political purposes.”

Source: Milenio (sp), Infobae (sp), El Universal (sp), Político (sp)

Long-awaited Sea of Cortés cruise sets sail from Puerto Peñasco

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Cody Copeland

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January 10, 2020

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The Astoria departed Thursday on its maiden cruise.

The first cruise ship to do an exclusive tour of the Sea of Cortés set sail from Puerto Peñasco, Sonora, on Thursday with 500 passengers aboard for its 11-day Treasures of the Sea of Cortés voyage.

UK-based Cruise and Maritime Voyages announced in September that its boutique cruise liner Astoria would be offering the cruises in December, but its first cruise was delayed until the new year.

The ship will visit the ports of Topolobampo, Mazatlán, Cabo San Lucas, La Paz, Loreto, Santa Rosalía and Guaymas before returning to Puerto Peñasco.

The cruise was inaugurated with the blessing of Sonora Governor Claudia Pavlovich, Puerto Peñasco Mayor Ernesto Munro and Cruise and Maritime Voyages vice president John Dennis as a 200-person crew awaited the ship’s first passengers.

Pavlovich was pleased to welcome a new era of tourism in her state, as the passengers include people from England, Australia, the United States and Mexico.

“We’re putting Puerto Peñasco [also known as Rocky Point] on the international level,” she said, adding that the cruise is expected to bring in 190 million pesos (US $10.1 million) of revenue to her state alone.

The total revenue boost for all of the ports the ship will visit is expected to be around 380 million pesos (US $20.2 million).

Aside from the tour that left on Thursday, Cruise and Maritime Voyages has two others scheduled for this month, one that leaves on the 20th and another on the 31st. The first two have already sold out and the third is almost full.

The US $1,500 price tag includes all meals, afternoon tea and late-night snacks, cocktail parties, entertainment, activities, port taxes and more.

The Astoria is smaller than other cruise liners, allowing it to maneuver into ports that larger ships can’t enter. Its eight passenger decks and 277 cabins allow for 500 passengers, and it also boasts a spa, beauty salon, casino, gym, sauna, steam room, show lounge and nightclub.

Currently the world’s oldest cruise ship still sailing, it was built in 1944 and made its maiden voyage in 1948.

Originally called the Stockholm, the Astoria famously collided with the Andrea Doria transatlantic ocean liner in 1956. Although the Stockholm survived the collision, the Andrea Doria did not, and 46 people died when it sank.

The ship’s storied history also includes a pirate attack in the Gulf of Aden in 2008 and its use as a pleasure cruise liner for leaders of East Germany’s communist government during the Cold War.

Tickets for the cruise can be booked via the Cruise and Maritime Voyages website.

Sources: El Universal (sp), AZ Central (en)