Pemex union boss, family members investigated for corruption

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July 23, 2019

A Mexican union leader whose name has been synonymous with corruption for years but has never been charged is now facing prosecution.

The Treasury Secretariat’s Financial Intelligence Unit (UIF) has presented at least two criminal complaints against the head of the Pemex workers’ union, Carlos Romero Deschamps, and members of his family for money laundering and illegal enrichment.

Authorities say the UIF detected transactions with checks and wire transfers between members of Romero’s family that could not be justified.

The reports have led the Attorney General’s Office (FGR) to open a criminal investigation into Romero, his wife Blanca Rosa Durán, children Paulina, Alejandro and Juan Carlos Romero Durán and daughter-in-law María Fernanda Ocejo.

Suspicions of corruption have been fueled over the years by opulent displays of wealth. Earlier this year, a group of dissident members of the Pemex union accused Romero of illegally selling off union property for personal gain.

In 2017, his daughter Paulina was observed wearing seven Cartier bracelets valued at 1.9 million pesos (US $100,000) at her wedding, while his son Juan Carlos has been seen driving a US $2-million Enzo Ferrari.

Romero’s union is currently negotiating its 2019-2021 contract, and changes are in the air.

President López Obrador said today that in the past the state oil company has given money directly to union leaders but the practice will be discontinued.

“The collective contract for Pemex is being revised with the union, and the orders I’ve given to the CEO of Pemex is that everything be made legal, that there be no privileges for union leaders, and that everything be done with austerity and justice,” he said.

“There are contracts that need to be respected, everything that the workers are required to receive by law, but there are not going to be any more illegal contracts under the table.”

According to the newspaper Reforma, five months before President Enrique Peña Nieto left office Romero negotiated a new “support” payment of 353 million pesos (US $18.5 million) a year.

Source: Reforma (sp), Forbes (en)

In the Bajío, authorities focus on Jalisco cartel: 533 bank accounts frozen

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MND Staff

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July 22, 2019

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Federal authorities have frozen 533 bank accounts linked to the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), Mexico’s most powerful criminal organization and the principal instigator of violence in the Bajío region.

The Financial Intelligence Unit (UIF) told the newspaper Milenio that there is no criminal organization with more accounts blocked than the CJNG.

Of the 533 frozen accounts, 125 with large balances contain a total of 109 million pesos (US $5.7 million), the UIF said.

Both federal and Guanajuato authorities have increased their focus on the CJNG as a result of the weakening of the Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel, a fuel theft gang.

At least 10 high-ranking members of the former criminal group have recently been arrested in the Bajío region or killed in confrontations with authorities, Milenio said.

But the cartel’s suspected leader and Mexico’s most wanted criminal, Nemesio “El Mencho” Oseguera, Cervantes remains at large.

The CJNG is engaged in a turf war with the Santa Rosa cartel in Guanajuato but after a sustained attack by authorities on the latter, the Jalisco cartel’s criminal structure in the state is much stronger than that of its rival.

Like Oseguera, Santa Rosa cartel leader José Antonio “El Marro” Yépez is still on the run but he has no resources to fund his criminal activities, according to federal and Guanajuato authorities.

More than 60 people involved with the cartel have been arrested since authorities began an operation against it in March and several key members of the gang have deserted, leaving Yépez isolated and vulnerable.

Some Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel members have abandoned the fuel theft racket and now collect extortion payments in San Miguel de Allende, according to local business owners.

Despite authorities’ attacks on the finances and manpower of criminal groups operating in Guanajuato, and a significant reduction in fuel theft there, the state remains plagued by violence.

Authorities opened 1,383 homicide cases in Guanajuato in the first six months of 2019, more than any other state.

Source: Milenio (sp)

Mexico City exchange market a win-win for consumers, environment

By

Jeremy Shepherd

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July 22, 2019

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A market stall sells fresh Mexico City produce in exchange for recycled goods.

On the second Sunday of every month, Mexico City residents can barter their recyclables for fresh produce grown by local farmers.

The Mercado de Trueque (exchange or barter market) began in 2012, and its location rotates around the city. The most recent took place on July 14 in Macroplaza Iztapalapa, and the next will be held on August 11 in Bosque de Chapultepec.

The recycle-for-fresh-produce market concept is uncommon, but not unique to Mexico City. The Brazilian city of Jundiaí has had a similar program for 15 years.

Upon entering the market, visitors go first to the sorting area where government employees help sort and weigh materials they have brought. Recyclers receive a printed ticket with points that can be exchanged for puntos verdes (green points) to spend in the market.

Recyclable materials include aluminum, glass bottles, metal cans, paper, cardboard and electronics. For plastics, PET (#1), HDPE (#2) and Tetra Paks are accepted. Many other plastics cannot be recycled. Consumers should look for the numbers 1 or 2 on their plastic containers. Any other numbers are not recyclable. Materials like PET that are easier to recycle are worth more points in the market.

A prospective buyer looks at plants for sale.

Each person may bring up to 10 kilograms of recyclable material, and the minimum is one kilogram. Containers such as glass bottles and cans must be rinsed.

Thus far this year, over 5,000 kilos of recyclables have been collected.

Waste vegetable oil is also collected by Biodiesel Biofuels de Mexico at every market. Mexico does not create its own biodiesel, but rather collects waste vegetable oil to send to Europe to be processed for use in automobiles and machinery.

The produce in Mercado de Trueque is all locally grown, coming from the boroughs of Xochimilco, Tláhuac, Milpa Alta, Tlalpan and Magdalena Contreras. These boroughs in the south of the city still have agricultural communities.

It can be difficult for these farmers to subsist on the prices offered on the open market. Sedema buys their produce at a fair price, then exchanges it at the mercado.

Depending on the season, one can buy vegetables such as spinach, tomatoes, radishes, verdolagas (purslane), quelites (wild greens), chard, squash, pumpkin flowers, mushrooms, cactus, parsley, cilantro, lettuce and corn. There are also moles, cheeses, traditional candies and house plants.

Said a volunteer, “I volunteer here because it encourages recycling, and it gives people healthy food. It’s all food from here in the city. That’s why we don’t have much fruit, because they grow fruit in the states and more vegetables here.”

She was working in one of the puestos (kiosks), offering red and green tomatoes for 30 green points per kilo.

She hopes more people will take advantage of the market to recycle their household residuals safely and to support local farming.

“It’s a really cool initiative. It was started in the last presidential term, but it continued after the change of government. We don’t always see that.”

Clearly, Mercado de Trueque offers Mexico City residents and area farmers a win-win.

The writer lives and works in Mexico City.

El Chapo’s lawyer appeals ex-drug lord’s prison sentence

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MND Staff

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July 22, 2019

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A lawyer for convicted drug trafficker Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán filed an appeal against his client’s life sentence the day after it was handed down, court documents published today show.

Federal Judge Brian Cogan sentenced the 62-year-old former leader of the Sinaloa Cartel last Wednesday to a term of life plus 30 years.

Guzmán has already been transferred to the “Supermax” prison in Florence, Colorado, the United States’ most secure penitentiary. He was convicted on trafficking charges in February.

Guzmán’s new lawyer, Marc Fernich, filed an appeal on Thursday.

Fernich told the news agency AFP via email that “Guzmán has strong issues for appeal,” adding “we’ll fight to overturn his conviction and are confident we’ll prevail.”

A decision by an appeals judge could take up to a year, AFP said.

Another lawyer for Guzmán said last week that up to five jurors violated the judge’s orders by following the case in the media during the trial.

“All we had asked for is a fair trial. I’m not here to tell you that Joaquín Guzmán is a saint . . . Whatever you think of Joaquín Guzmán, he still deserves a fair trial, everybody does in America . . .” Jeffrey Lichtman said.

Guzmán himself also claimed that there was “no justice” in his case and described his incarceration in the United States as “psychological, emotional, mental torture 24 hours a day.”

President López Obrador said Thursday that his government will seek to seize the former drug lord’s assets, while Foreign Secretary Marcelo Ebrard said today that a binational working group needs to be created to determine the extent of Guzmán’s wealth in Mexico and the United States.

“There is information about assets in the financial system or in other areas that the United States will have to share with Mexico and we’ll also have to share information with respect [to Guzmán’s wealth] in Mexico,” Ebrard said.

The foreign secretary said he discussed the creation of a binational group with United States Secretary of State Mike Pompeo yesterday, and that he was receptive to the idea.

“. . . I have to wait for the official response [but] I wouldn’t expect a negative one,” Ebrard said.

Handing down his sentence last week, Cogan also ordered Guzmán to forfeit US $12.6 billion, an amount that represents the total amount of illegal drugs the jury determined he smuggled into the United States.

Some U.S. politicians have suggested that the money should be used to fund President Donald Trump’s border wall.

Source: Milenio (sp), Reforma (sp), AFP (en)

San Andrés Cholula to promote its artisanal products, welcome new hotels

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Madison Koen

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July 22, 2019

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Three new boutique hotels will be built in San Andrés Cholula, Puebla, an announcement that ties in with the government’s intention to seek a special designation for its local artisans and their products to attract more tourism.

Investment in the hotels, whose construction will begin this year, will total some 20 million pesos (US $1 million).

Economic and Social Development Secretary Hernán Felipe Reyes Hernández said the municipality’s designation as a Pueblo Mágico (Magical Town) has brought considerable economic benefit to San Andrés and that the local government believes the town to have additional potential as a tourist destination because of its proximity to the Cholula pyramid.

Tourism recently surpassed agriculture and commerce as the municipality’s principal economic generator. To take advantage of an expected increase in tourism, some residents have sold land to hotel investors, while others have renovated rooms in their homes to accommodate backpackers.

Reyes said current infrastructure is not enough to receive the number of visitors anticipated by the government in the future, so an investment in new hotels is crucial.

A zoning law prohibits construction higher than three stories to preserve the town’s colonial charm, so hostels and boutique hotels dominate the town’s lodging options. Reyes said that each of the three new hotels will have between 15 and 20 rooms.

Meanwhile, the local government is seeking a special designation for the town’s artisanal products and the processes that go into making them to distinguish them from cheaper goods brought in from elsewhere and then passed off as local.

“With this designation, we hope to promote locally-produced goods and in the not-so-distant future create an artisanal market and then promote our artisanal products at local and international fairs.”

Source: El Economista (sp)

Hidalgo reservoir contamination called ‘environmental emergency’

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Simon Schatzberg

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July 22, 2019

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Wastewater from the Mexico City metropolitan area and local industry have led to high levels of pollution in the Endhó reservoir in the state of Hidalgo, amounting to an “environmental emergency” for the inhabitants of nearby communities.

The Secretariat of the Environment and Natural Resources (Semarnat) said it will ask President López Obrador to declare the reservoir an ecological restoration area.

According to a Semarnat report, communities in the municipalities of Tula and Tepetitlán are at risk because they rely on the reservoir for potable water.

It receives wastewater from Mexico City’s central drainage system as well as from nearby industry, including the Atitalaquia Industrial Park.

“We are facing an emergency situation: of the 11 potable water wells, three have higher than recommended levels of barium and phenols, eight exceed lead levels and four exceed those for arsenic,” the Semarnat report says.

A study by the National Water Commission also found that the reservoir has above-regulation levels of arsenic, mercury and magnesium. Fecal coliform levels are 24 times higher than the recommended limit.

Federal Environment Secretary Víctor Toledo blamed the problem on the “neoliberal model,” which he promised to end when he took office.

“The Tula region faces problems related to the presence of several industries related to the Pemex refinery, but also to four cement plants and three lime plants,” he said. “The reservoir receives wastewater from Mexico City, and it’s in a deplorable situation. There are 175,000 people who live in the region, of whom 5,000 are indigenous.”

Semarnat has not decided how much money will be spent on the restoration program, nor what criteria would be used to determine that the reservoir has been restored, because the design of the program is just starting. Toledo added that Semarnat will convene a meeting of everyone responsible for the environmental damage to determine a plan of action.

Source: Reforma (sp)

Mexico stopped 43,000 migrants in 42 days, reducing US border crossings 36%

By

MND Staff

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July 22, 2019

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ebrard-pompeo — Pompeo, left, and Ebrard met on Sunday in Mexico City.

More than 43,000 undocumented migrants were detained in the first 42 days after Mexico and the United States reached a migration agreement that ended President Donald Trump’s threat to impose blanket tariffs on Mexican goods.

According to preliminary data, Mexico stopped 43,279 migrants between June 8 and July 19, an average of 1,030 arrests per day.

The daily detention rate is 88% higher than that recorded between January and May when there was an average of 547 arrests per day.

Deportations have also increased since the June 7 agreement was signed. The National Immigration Institute said that 21,912 migrants were repatriated last month, the highest single month figure since the new government took office last December.

As part of the pact, Mexico agreed to deploy 6,000 National Guard troops to the southern border to step up enforcement against undocumented migrants.

The government also agreed to an expansion of the so-called “Remain in Mexico” policy, meaning that it will accept the return of all migrants seeking asylum in the United States as they await the outcome of their claims.

Around 10,000 migrants have already been returned to Baja California under the policy and shelters in the state are at 90% capacity as a result, according to government secretary Francisco Rueda.

On June 24, the government announced that almost 15,000 federal security force members had been deployed to the northern border to contain illegal migration flows into the United States.

Foreign Affairs Secretary Marcelo Ebrard said today that the number of migrants crossing into the U.S. from Mexico has decreased 36% since the June 7 pact was signed.

Ebrard, who held talks with United States Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in Mexico City yesterday, said that the success in reducing migration flows to the U.S. had allowed Mexico to avoid having to negotiate the implementation of a safe third country agreement.

A supplementary agreement to the June 7 pact said that if the United States decided after 45 days that Mexico was not achieving the desired results in stemming migration, the government would “take all necessary steps” to implement such an agreement.

National Guard on patrol at the Suchiate river on the southern border.

In a statement, the Secretariat of Foreign Affairs said that Ebrard told Pompeo that Mexico will continue to implement the same migration strategy over the next 45 days. The two men will meet again in Washington at the beginning of September.

Critics of the stricter enforcement of immigration policy, including Catholic bishops, have argued that Mexico is turning itself into President Trump’s long-promised border wall.

In addition to stepping up enforcement against undocumented migrants, the Mexican government is betting that investment in development in Central America and southern Mexico will help curb migration.

The government announced in June that it will provide US $30 million for a reforestation program in El Salvador and this month it said that a similar plan will go ahead in Honduras.

Citizens of those two countries and Guatemala have made up the bulk of the members of several large migrant caravans that have entered Mexico since late last year.

Mexico and the United States agreed in December to work on a US $35.6-billion development plan in southern states and the Northern Triangle countries of Central America.

As part of the plan, the U.S. government this month committed to mobilizing public and private investment of more than US $500 million in southern Mexico to create jobs and stimulate development.

Source: Milenio (sp), El Financiero (sp)

Thieves target bank clients after making cash withdrawals in Mexico City

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Simon Schatzberg

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July 22, 2019

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Polanco is one of the neighborhoods where thieves target banking customers.

Robberies targeting people leaving banks in Mexico City have more than doubled in the first six months of 2019, according to an analysis by the newspaper Milenio.

There were 313 robberies committed against people who had just withdrawn cash from banks, 111% more than in the same period in 2018.

Most of the incidents occurred in affluent areas with high concentrations of offices and middle and upper class residences.

The three areas with the highest rates of robbery were the Polanco neighborhood and the adjacent neighborhoods of Granada and Anáhuac, followed by Del Valle and Roma Norte.

The robberies usually occur within three and five blocks of banks. In Polanco, most of the crimes targeted customers of the Multiva and Santander banks on Presidente Masaryk avenue, while in Roma Norte most of the robberies took place near the Glorieta de los Insurgentes.

Source: Milenio (sp)

Honest cops: in 2 incidents, officers turn in lost cash

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Madison Koen

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July 22, 2019

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The unidentified officer, right, turns in the cash. — The unidentified officer, right, turns in the cash left at an ATM.

Mexican police have a poor reputation for honesty but not all can be painted with the same brush.

In two separate incidents, two Mexico City police officers turned in cash to authorities after failing to locate the owners who had left it behind.

On Friday morning, a member of the auxiliary police force found US $1,100 in $100 bills at the Mexico City airport. Although the sum is roughly equal to two months’ salary, the officer immediately reported the discovery and turned in the money at the airport’s security center. No one has yet claimed it.

In another incident, a member of the banking and industrial police found 4,200 pesos (US $220) left in an ATM at the World Trade Center in the Nápoles neighborhood of Mexico City yesterday afternoon. Following police protocol, the officer first attempted to locate the owner.

After being unable to do so, the officer turned the money over to his superior, who informed him that the cash would be held for one day at a security desk before being turned over to the bank where it was found.

Source: Milenio (sp), La Prensa (sp)

Environmental agency shuts down Grupo México terminal in Guaymas

By

Simon Schatzberg

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July 22, 2019

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Grupo México's Guaymas terminal after it was closed by Profepa.

A Port of Guaymas terminal where a sulfuric acid spill took place on July 9 will be temporarily shuttered, the environmental protection agency Profepa announced Saturday.

According to a Profepa press release, the terminal owned by Grupo México will be closed because the mining company did not have environmental authorization from the Secretariat of the Environment and Natural Resources (Semarnat).

Profepa carried out two inspections of the terminal after the spill, the first on July 10 and the second on July 16. Although it found that the company was lacking the required documentation, the agency has not determined the scale of the environmental impact of the accident.

The closure applies to all Grupo México facilities in the Port of Guaymas used for the storage and loading of sulfuric acid. Other company facilities will remain open.

According to Grupo México, a report by the navy found that the spill did not cause serious environmental damage because the 3,000 liters of acid were rapidly diluted and neutralized when it spilled into the sea.

“The spill was inoffensive, and it was determined that there was no effect on the flora or fauna in the port area, according to the navy report,” a company statement read.

The report referred has not been made public and the navy did not respond to a request for comment.

On Tuesday, Semarnat announced that it will investigate Grupo México’s history of environmental accidents, although Secretary Víctor Manuel Toledo said it was likely the July 9 spill has not had a serious environmental impact.

Source: El Economista (sp), El Financiero (sp)