Interpol arrests steelmaker chief, warrant out for ex-Pemex boss

By

-

May 28, 2019

Ancira, left, has been arrested, and Lozoya could be next.

Mexico’s Financial Intelligence Unit (UIF) has made another move against the country’s biggest steelmaker and the former CEO of Pemex.

Interpol police today arrested Alonso Ancira, the owner and president of Altos Hornos de México, in Mallorca, Spain, and the arrest of Emilio Lozoya may soon follow.

Warrants for both were issued on Sunday in connection with the 2014 sale of a fertilizer plant to Pemex by Altos Hornos.

The UIF froze the bank accounts of both Lozoya and Altos Hornos yesterday, alleging that financial operations had been carried out with illegal resources.

Unnamed sources said the move was in connection with the fertilizer plant sale, for which Pemex has been accused of overpaying.

The UIF has offered no further details.

Source: Reforma (sp)

Sewage from Mexico’s Tijuana river closes San Diego beach

By

MND Staff

-

May 28, 2019

0

A two-year-old file photo of a San Diego beach indicates the problem is not new.

Large amounts of sewage-contaminated runoff moving into southern California from the Tijuana river in Mexico have forced San Diego authorities to prohibit swimming on the entire shoreline of Imperial Beach.

A beach closure has been in place for months at the southern end of the city’s coastline but the San Diego County Department of Environment Health expanded the closure Sunday after recent rains sent yet more polluted water across the border.

The beach closure will remain in place until testing shows that the water is safe.

According to officials, more than 110 million gallons (416.4 million liters) of toxic storm water has flowed north from Mexico since April.

“The sad thing is that with just a quarter inch of rain . . . [contaminated water] can begin to flow and impact our beaches,” said Paloma Aguirre, director of the environmental NGO Wildcoast.

“Every time that it rains, here in Imperial Beach we have the closure of beaches caused by the Tijuana river. The state of Baja California simply hasn’t done enough [to stop the flow of contaminated water],” she added.

Aguirre said last year that the Tijuana wastewater treatment plant, known as San Antonio de los Buenos, or Punta Bandera, is dumping 1,750 liters of untreated sewage into the Pacific Ocean per second.

Before the expanded closure was announced, Imperial Beach resident Patricio Amores told broadcaster Telemundo 20 that he wouldn’t risk swimming in the ocean due to the possibility of catching a contamination-related illness.

Local residents holding signs that read “stop the poop” attended a rally Sunday morning to demand that officials do more to stop the ongoing pollution problem.

In 2017, more than 50 United States border patrol agents became ill after being exposed to contaminants while working in the vicinity of the border, while last year the state of California and the cities of Imperial Beach and Chula Vista sued the United States government over the recurring flows of polluted water from Mexico.

The plaintiffs would like to see a beefed-up diversion system and funding for sewage infrastructure in Tijuana, The San Diego Union-Tribune reported.

Experts and officials say that hundreds of millions of dollars in infrastructure spending is needed to stop water pollution affecting the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Southern California.

Beaches on the Mexican side of the border have also been closed intermittently due to high pollution levels.

To stop wastewater contaminating the beaches of Rosarito, a city 20 kilometers south of Tijuana, a candidate for mayor believes that another treatment plant is needed.

Dora Esquivel Machado, who will represent the Institutional Revolutionary Party at elections this Sunday, said that untreated wastewater flows to Rosarito from neighborhoods in the east of Tijuana.

“We already have one [plant] but it’s not enough because it’s in the rural part of Rosarito. We need one on the central side,” she said.

Source: Telemundo 20 (sp), CBS News (en), The San Diego Union-Tribune (en), El Sol de Tijuana (sp)

Cancún’s ‘Russian Nazi’ claims his rights have been violated in jail

By

Simon Schatzberg

-

May 28, 2019

0

Makeev in a selfie on his Facebook page two years ago.

The Russian citizen who was almost killed by an angry lynch mob in Cancún two years ago and then charged with manslaughter says his rights have been repeatedly violated during his two-year incarceration.

Aleksei Makeev, also known as #LordRussianNazi for racist behaviour in Cancún two years ago, tells of a series of violations of his rights by Mexican authorities in a 15-minute video posted on YouTube by Russian human rights lawyer Gennady Makarov.

In the video, Makeev says his jailers have denied him his right to consular assistance, medical attention and contact with his family. He also says that his government-appointed lawyers have given him ineffective representation and that court interpreters have been translating his statements into Spanish incorrectly.

Makeev addressed his pleas to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, and asked for assistance from the Russian Consulate.

It is not clear how Makeev was able to record the video and send it to the human rights lawyer.

Makeev in late 2017 when he was still being treated for injuries suffered during an attempted lynching.

After the video was uploaded, the Facebook page Identidad Quintana Roo reported that Makeev was attacked by a group of his fellow prisoners in the Cancún jail, and was wounded with a sharp object. Another prisoner who tried to defend Makeev was seriously injured in the incident, and had to be hospitalized.

Makeev, who had worked as a dive instructor, had lived in Cancún since at least 2015 and earned a reputation for the videos he posted under the name Alextime. The videos show Makeev harassing people and making racist comments in Russian, English and Spanish.

In May 2017 a group of his neighbors, fed up with his antics, tried to lynch him. The mob was able to pull Makeev out of his house and beat him into a coma, but not before the Russian allegedly killed one of his aggressors with a knife.

He is to appear in court on Wednesday.

Mexico News Daily

Oaxaca to go after 1,500 former mayors and other officials for corruption

By

César Hernández

-

May 28, 2019

0

The anti-corruption unit of the Oaxaca Attorney General’s Office has documented over 3,000 cases of corruption, and more than half were allegedly committed by mayors and other municipal officials.

The anti-corruption prosecutor said his office is ready to file formal complaints against more than 1,500 municipal officials who are believed to have diverted over 2 billion pesos (US $104.2 million).

The announcement follows investigations that took place in recent months, Jorge Iruegas said, adding that he hoped judges would issue arrest warrants promptly.

The only delay in bringing the allegedly corrupt municipal officials to justice, he said, is caused by a limited budget.

Iruegas would like state lawmakers to enact reforms to the anti-corruption system in order to strengthen his office and give it the autonomy to create a new specialized anti-corruption police force.

Source: Milenio (sp)

Soldiers freed in Michoacán in exchange for return of confiscated weapons

By

MND Staff

-

May 28, 2019

0

Some of the soldiers who were detained by civilians on Sunday in Michoacán.

A group of soldiers detained by self-defense force members in Michoacán on Sunday was released the same day in exchange for the return of weapons confiscated by the army, the governor said.

Silvano Aureoles said the soldiers were disarmed and detained in the municipality of La Huacana after a confrontation with armed civilians.

They were freed six hours later when other soldiers returned four high-caliber firearms that were seized following the clash.

“What happened is that there was an act of aggression on the part of some armed civilians towards elements of the army,” Aureoles said.

“The aggression was repelled and two civilians died; unfortunately a minor was also injured but he’s stable.”

[wpgmza id=”196″]

According to a report in the newspaper La Jornada, armed civilians detected the presence of nine soldiers in La Huacana and began shooting at them.

After the confrontation, the gunmen fled, abandoning several high-caliber weapons that were seized by the soldiers.

A group of residents who identified themselves as self-defense force members subsequently approached the soldiers to demand the return of the weapons.

A video that circulated on social media shows one man saying to the commander of the group: “Look buddy, we’re not playing around, I want the weapons.”

Footage then shows the residents pushing and disarming the soldiers, who put up little resistance.

Aureoles said the soldiers were unharmed during their ordeal, adding that the situation in La Huacana was now “calm.”

Referring to the incident at his morning press conference today, President López Obrador said “the attitude of the soldiers was very responsible, very honorable and very brave.”

He added: “Abusing our fellow beings is cowardice . . . that’s why [I give] all my support to the soldiers.”

The president described the situation the soldiers faced as “difficult” and said that members of the National Guard are being trained to respond to such cases.

“. . . Prudence is much better than authoritarianism,” López Obrador said, adding that the armed forces will always respect human rights.

Source: Reforma (sp), La Jornada (sp)

Driver survives after his car crushed between truck and bus

By

Madison Koen

-

May 28, 2019

0

The driver survived but his car did not.

A man was lucky to escape with his life after a multi-vehicle pileup completely crushed his vehicle between a semi-trailer and a large bus.

The accident took place near the Xonacatepec bridge at kilometer 133 of the Puebla-Mexico City highway.

Although his small sedan was almost flattened between the two heavy vehicles in an accident that involved a total of six vehicles, the driver sustained only non-life-threatening injuries.

Paramedics transferred the man to Betania Hospital in Puebla City. No one else was injured.

The newspaper Milenio reported that while authorities temporarily closed off the highway toward Mexico City, vehicles were still permitted to travel along the somewhat slower access road.

According to the National Council for Accident Prevention, the Puebla-Mexico City highway is the nation’s most accident-prone and deadliest. Two other major arteries connecting Mexico City were awarded second and third place for the high number of accidents: the Cuernavaca-Mexico City highway and that between Toluca andMexico City.

The Pan-American Health Organization reports that Mexico was the seventh deadliest country in the world in terms of traffic accidents in 2018, while the Secretariat of Public Health reported that traffic accidents are one of the three top causes of death in the country.

Source: Milenio (sp), Poblanerías13.com (sp)

Science council meals a labor right not a luxury, director says

By

MND Staff

-

May 28, 2019

0

Álvarez-Buylla says it's a healthy diet not an elitist one.

The provision of meals for employees is “a labor right, not a luxury,” the National Council of Science and Technology (Conacyt) said after news broke that it spent more than 15 million pesos to contract a gourmet catering company.

The science council said in a Twitter post that the staff dining room is an “achievement” of a collective labor agreement that Conacyt has “respected and strengthened by improving the quality of food” served.

According to a contract posted to a government transparency website, Conacyt hired Pigudi Gastronómico to provide mainly organic, low-fat, low-sugar breakfasts and lunches for 120 employees at its Mexico City office every working day from April 22 to December 31.

Among the ingredients it instructed the caterer to use are organic pork and chicken, salmon, red snapper, wild rice and organic apple vinegar.

Revelations of the science council’s extravagant spending on gourmet meals coincided with news that its public research centers are struggling to pay basic expenses as a result of budget cuts.

In a radio interview, Conacyt director María Elena Álvarez-Buylla denied that the council is forking out more than 15 million pesos (US $787,500) for the provision of meals, stating that the figure cited in the contract is a ceiling, or maximum amount, but in reality the catering costs will be much lower.

“In contrast to what has been disseminated, Conacyt has made provision for annual expenditure of 6 million pesos for the workers’ dining room service whereas the previous administration spent close to 12 million pesos for the same concept,” she said.

“Therefore, the information disseminated by some media outlets is unfortunately imprecise and distorted,” Álvarez-Buylla added.

The Conacyt chief asserted that meals served at the dining room are part of a “traditional Mexican diet,” adding that special care is taken not to use ingredients that could contain toxins.

“By no means is it a gourmet service . . . They are [meals] that we should all be eating,” she said. “We’re promoting a healthy diet not an elitist one, it’s a constitutional right.”

Source: El Universal (sp), W Radio (sp)

Investigators capture leaders of rival Mexico City crime gangs

By

Simon Schatzberg

-

May 28, 2019

0

Flores, left, and Ramírez are leaders of rival Mexico City gangs.

Federal agents have arrested the leaders of the Unión de Tepito and Fuerza Anti-Unión criminal organizations in Mexico City.

The Criminal Investigation Agency arrested Pedro Ramírez Pérez, the leader of the former, and Jorge Flores Concha, head of the rival Fuerza Anti-Unión.

Both men face charges that include homicide, kidnapping, extortion and drug trafficking. Ramírez also faces sex trafficking charges.

Ramírez took control of the Unión de Tepito last October after the arrest of the former leader. Based in the central neighborhood of Tepito, it is one of the largest and most feared criminal organizations in the country’s capital. Its activities include extortion of restaurants and bars around Mexico City, as well as drug sales in neighborhoods like Roma, Condesa, Zona Rosa and Polanco.

Flores, a lifelong criminal who has been sentenced to prison four times, founded the Fuerza Anti-Unión in December 2017 after members of the rival gang kidnapped and killed his younger brother. Authorities believe the conflict between the two groups is one cause of rising violence levels in Mexico City over the past year.

Flores is also believed to have been the intended target of a deadly shooting at Plaza Garibaldi last September.

Source: Milenio (sp), Infobae (sp), La Razón (sp)

Fear in Zamora, Michoacán: ‘We can’t go out into the streets’

By

Simon Schatzberg

-

May 28, 2019

0

police in zamora — One Zamora resident says greater police presence doesn't make her feel safer.

Rising violence in Zamora, Michoacán, is creating terror among residents even as the state and federal governments take actions to restore order.

Early Sunday morning, gunmen associated with the Jalisco New Generation Cartel attacked police in two separate ambushes, killing three officers and injuring eight, one of whom later died of his injuries. Two civilian bystanders were also injured in the attacks.

Many residents do not feel reassured by the government response, which has included beefing up police and military patrols.

Although the Secretariat of Education decided not to cancel classes, many individual schools are closing on their own initiative.

One young mother told El Universal that she has avoided going outside in recent days, and that the police and military presence near her house do not make her feel safer.

“There’s a lot of insecurity, and we can’t go outside when we want to,” she said. “We can’t take the kids out after a certain time of night, because we are afraid.”

She added that although the government has made many promises safety has not improved in Zamora, and she does not see any indication that the situation will improve.

“They could start shooting again, and something could happen to one of my kids,” she said.

Fernando, a Zamora resident who only gave his first name, told El Universal that he happened to be present at both of the Sunday morning attacks on police.

“There was a heavy smell of burning, and there was too much tension among everyone.” When it was over, he said, “it was very sad to see the officers lying on the ground.”

In his morning press conference on Monday, President López Obrador confirmed that the National Guard will be sent to help restore security in Michoacán.

Meanwhile, Michoacán Governor Silvano Aureoles announced that the state and federal governments are cooperating on a security plan that includes sending 350 state police officers to Zamora.

“Our response will be far greater than those who try to intimidate us, violate our peace or hurt our society,” he said. “We’re not going to allow them to hurt us, or make people live with fear, uncertainty and anxiety.”

Source: El Universal (sp), El Sol de México (sp)

Officials freeze accounts of steelmaker Altos Hornos, former Pemex boss

By

MND Staff

-

May 28, 2019

0

Altos Hornos is Mexico's biggest integrated steelmaker.

Federal officials have frozen the bank accounts of Altos Hornos de México (AHMSA), one of Mexico’s biggest steelmakers, and the former CEO of the state oil company, Emilio Lozoya, for allegedly carrying out financial operations with illegal resources.

The Finance Secretariat (SHCP) said several operations in the domestic and international financial system were carried out with resources that “allegedly did not come from lawful activities and which are presumed to have derived from acts of corruption.”

Sources told the newspaper El Financiero that the freezing of AHMSA accounts is related to its sale to Pemex of an unserviceable fertilizer plant during Lozoya’s administration. Pemex paid US $475 million for the plant in 2014 but the current government says that it was only worth about $50 million.

In addition, the investigative news website Quinto Elemento Lab reported last August that the steelmaker paid US $3.7 million to a shell company allegedly set up by Odebrecht to pay bribes.

Lozoya, chief of Pemex between 2012 and 2016 and a close associate of former president Enrique Peña Nieto, has been accused of receiving US $10 million in bribes from Brazilian construction company Odebrecht in exchange for the awarding of contracts.

Last week, he was barred him from holding public office for a period of 10 years for providing “false information” about his assets.

The secretariat said that in freezing the accounts of Lozoya and AHMSA, its Financial Intelligence Unit (UIF) was fulfilling its obligations as an authority of the Mexican state.

Its actions are supported by the United Nations Conventions against Corruption and Transnational Organized Crime, it added.

The SHCP said that the legal rights of both Lozoya and AHMSA are guaranteed, stating that “the Financial Intelligence Unit acts at all times in accordance with the law” and that its intention was not to harm the workers, shareholders or suppliers of Altos Hornos de México.

AHMSA employees’ access to their bank accounts will be restored today, the department said.

The case against Lozoya and AHMSA is the highest profile corruption probe since President López Obrador took office last year after winning the 2018 election on a strong anti-graft platform.

Lozoya hasn’t commented publicly on the latest sanction against him but has repeatedly denied allegations of any wrongdoing during his tenure at the helm of Pemex.

AHMSA said in a statement that the UIF had “improperly” frozen its accounts and denied all allegations of unlawful conduct.

“It’s an unprecedented act – arbitrary and a violation of all rights. The UIF, whose purpose is the prevention and combat of crimes of operations with resources of illicit origin, is obstructing the operational continuity of AHMSA, harming its shareholders, more than 20,000 workers and thousands of suppliers, customers and third parties that make up the vast industrial chain,” it said.

The Coahuila-based company also said that the economic stability of that state was at risk as a result of the actions against it.

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