Maya Train will trigger 150bn pesos in real estate investments: Fonatur

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May 23, 2019

The 15 stations on the Maya Train route can expect real estate investments. — The 15 stations on the Maya Train route.

The Maya Train project will trigger real estate investment of at least 150 billion pesos (US $7.9 billion), according to the chief of the National Tourism Promotion Fund (Fonatur).

Rogelio Jiménez Pons said that shopping centers and industrial warehouses among other developments will be built in the vicinity of the 15 stations proposed for the new railway, which will link cities and towns on the Yucatán peninsula and in Chiapas.

“There is no predetermined [investment] figure but I estimate that it will be just as significant as [the cost] that has been proposed [to build] the Maya Train, which is between 120 and 150 billion pesos. I believe it will be an equal amount or more,” he said.

Jiménez explained that a government trust will be set up to determine the zones in which real estate development can occur, adding that sufficient land will be set aside to ensure “long-term growth” in the regions through which the Maya Train will run.

Speaking at the conclusion of an investment summit, the Fonatur director said that 90% of the funds required to build the ambitious rail project will come from the private sector and that the government will provide the remaining 10%.

Both Mexican and foreign banks and asset management companies including BlackRock, Goldman Sachs, Santander and Bancomer have expressed interest in investing in the railroad, Jiménez said.

Initially announced as a passenger rail service, the train will also carry freight in the form of fuels, the Fonatur chief said, estimating that supplying the southeast region of the country with petroleum products would represent a market worth up to 13 billion pesos a year.

The government says that the construction and operation of the Maya Train will generate employment and economic prosperity in the southeast of Mexico.

But environmental experts have warned that that building the railway poses risks to the region’s underground water networks and the long-term survival of the jaguar.

The Mexican Institute for Competitiveness (Imco), a think tank, has warned that the project could end up costing more than 10 times the amount estimated by the federal government, while a range of groups representing Mayan communities rejected it on the grounds that they weren’t consulted about it.

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

‘You know that if you mess up, they’ll kill you:’ a former hitman tells his story

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Simon Schatzberg

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May 23, 2019

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An abandoned cartel training camp in Jalisco.

“Today, we’re going to do some tests to see how much you’ve learned,” the boss told the group of 19 recruits. “Stay calm, please. I don’t want to kill anyone.”

It was noon on a summer day in Talpa de Allende, Jalisco, and the heat was unbearable. The “test” consisted of standing completely still for an hour, wearing two heavy jackets, holding an AK-47 in shooting position.

Fire ants soon started climbing up the recruits’ legs.

One of them, Francisco, later told Spanish-language broadcaster Telemundo about his experience in a Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) training camp.

“The ants started to bite us, it was horrible,” he said. “My foot started to fall asleep from the ant bites, but I couldn’t put the rifle down . . . You know that if you mess up, they’ll kill you.”

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The purpose of the exercise, the recruits were told, was to teach them to separate pain in their minds, a skill that could save their lives if they were ever injured in a battle.

Francisco, 34, remembers how it all started, in April 2018. He was in a bar in a state in southern Mexico when a stranger approached him, asking for a ride to an ATM. Francisco obliged, and when the stranger got out of the car he asked for Francisco’s number, saying, “I like you, I’m going to give you a call.”

Francisco later found out that the stranger was a son of Nemesio “El Mencho” Oseguera, the leader of the CJNG. After the arrest of Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán in 2016, El Mencho became the most wanted person in Mexico, and the U.S. Justice Department offered a $10-million reward for his capture.

Soon after their meeting in the bar, the stranger called Francisco and offered him a job as a private security guard in Jalisco. The pay, 3,500 pesos (US $184) a week, was good, and the job included four weeks of paid training. It wasn’t until Francisco and the 18 other recruits were about to arrive at a training camp in Jalisco that they learned they would be working for the CJNG.

Francisco says they were trained by former military servicemen from Mexico and the United States, who enforced military discipline. The U.S. Defense Department said it does not have information about the activities of former servicemen, while an anonymous police source confirmed to Telemundo that both retired and active-duty Mexican servicemen are involved with the CJNG.

When he was at the training camp in Talpa de Allende, Francisco and the other recruits had to collect wood and build fires in a meter-deep pit where the cartel disposed of the bodies of victims.

“Some of them were still alive when we put them in there,” he said. “It took a whole day for them to burn, and then we had to spread the ashes around.”

The bodies that Francisco helped burn are some of the more than 7,000 missing people in the state of Jalisco.

Francisco fondly remembers his graduation from the training camp, when the cartel held a party for the graduates, with norteño bands, women and expensive whisky. At that point, Francisco still hadn’t killed anyone.

After his graduation, Francisco became a soldier for the CJNG, where his responsibilities included packing individual doses of methamphetamine. Later, he had to kill, but he wouldn’t say how many people he has killed.

Eventually, the cartel gave Francisco permission to “put his sneakers on” — to retire. But since he broke off contact with his former employer, Francisco has lived in hiding, afraid that CJNG members who don’t know he was allowed to leave might see him as a traitor or deserter.

It’s been a year since Francisco’s journey began. He hopes that by talking publicly about his experiences he’ll be able to help find some of the thousands of disappeared people in Jalisco and bring closure to their families.

Source: Telemundo (sp), Milenio (sp)

‘Clowns’ attempt to kidnap 7-year-old girl in México state

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Madison Koen

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May 23, 2019

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Popular horror literature came to life yesterday when three men dressed as clowns attempted to kidnap a 7-year-old girl in Nezahualcóyotl, México state.

According to initial reports the clowns used a motorcycle to intercept the girl in the Palmas neighborhood, grabbed her and sped off. The girl’s mother’s desperate pleas for help were quickly answered by neighbors who blocked the men’s route just a short distance ahead.

Arriving on the scene, police arrested the three clowns and turned them in for processing. Among the criminals’ confiscated possessions, authorities discovered a cell phone with a message to an additional party that said they were on their way with the “package.”

The three men, who were identified as Ángel Iván, 24, Ulises Leonardo, 25 and Gerardo Arturo, 35 were brought before a public prosecutor, who will define the charges they face.

Source: Milenio (sp)

Work begins on new police academy in heart of petroleum theft country

By

MND Staff

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May 23, 2019

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Security Secretary Durazo, second from left, and other officials at yesterday's ceremony. — Security Secretary Durazo, third from left, and other officials at yesterday's ceremony.

Construction of a new police academy began yesterday in one of Mexico’s petroleum theft heartlands.

The state police training facility is being built on the outskirts of Santa Rosa de Lima, a town in the Guanajuato municipality of Villagrán that has been made famous by a cartel of the same name.

Until February, the community was under the control of the Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel, a gang of fuel thieves believed to be led by José Antonio “El Marro” Yépez Ortiz.

Authorities seized two luxury homes linked to the criminal organization during a police operation earlier this year and last month arrested a suspected right-hand man to the fuel theft capo in Comonfort, Guanajuato.

But Yépez remains at large despite an assurance by the federal government in March that his capture was imminent.

After the first stone of the police academy was laid yesterday, Guanajuato Governor Diego Sinhue Rodríguez Vallejo said “the project symbolizes the recovery of territory that was difficult to access for authorities [and] where there was impunity and very significant social disintegration.”

The governor thanked the federal government for providing financial support for the facility.

Public Security Secretary Alfonso Durazo, who attended the groundbreaking ceremony along with the heads of defense and the navy, said the federal government presence was evidence of its will to guarantee the safety of all Mexicans.

He added that the police academy will contribute to the achievement of a fundamental objective of the national security strategy: the ongoing training and professionalization of members of public security forces.

“We aspire to have a national policing model that harmonizes and coordinates the forces and resources of the entire republic . . . in order to be ready to give the response society demands on security matters,” Durazo said.

Guanajuato was the most violent state in Mexico last year in terms of sheer homicide numbers and the high murder rate has persisted this year. Much of the violence is believed to be linked to pipeline petroleum theft.

The Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel and the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) are involved in a bloody turf war in Guanajuato to control the lucrative fuel theft racket and to a lesser extent drug trafficking, the now-defunct National Security Commission said last year.

Guanajuato recorded the third highest number of taps on its petroleum pipelines in 2018 behind Hidalgo and Puebla.

Source: El Universal (sp)

Food, beverage companies weigh dropping delivery routes in Red Triangle

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Simon Schatzberg

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May 23, 2019

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Delivery trucks face robbery risk in Red Triangle. — Delivery trucks face robbery risk.

At least four food and beverage companies are considering halting deliveries to the Red Triangle region of Puebla because of insecurity, according to the regional president of the Business Coordinating Council (CCE), Carlos Montiel Solana.

Montiel said that a wave of truck robberies in the region is scaring off the companies, whose drivers often refuse to work after 4:00pm because of the danger of being robbed. Five trucks have been robbed so far this week in the region, which has long been known as a hotspot for fuel theft.

The four companies, which Montiel did not name, will end deliveries to the Red Triangle if the situation does not improve over the next month. He added that the presence of federal security forces has not improved security in the region, and that there has been little cooperation from local governments in the five municipalities of the Red Triangle: Tepeaca, Acatzingo, Quecholac, Tecamachalco and Palmar de Bravo.

Montiel said that since the federal government cracked down on fuel theft, criminal groups in the Red Triangle have been diversifying, turning to new criminal activities such as stealing cargo from trucks.

“[Fuel theft] hasn’t increased, but it hasn’t gone down either,” he said. “But the criminals are moving into cargo robbery, and that’s what’s hurting us a lot.”

Although only four companies are actively considering halting operations, continuing insecurity could cause economic problems for the whole state, Montiel said.

Pepsi, Bimbo and Grupo Modelo halted deliveries in the Red Triangle last fall for the same reason.

Source: El Economista (sp), Milenio (sp), El Sol de Puebla (sp)

Could dirigibles with pollution capture device clean up Mexico City’s air?

By

César Hernández

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May 23, 2019

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Three dirigibles are proposed in the US $25-million project.

A Mexico City engineer and architect is proposing an airborne laboratory and pollution capture device to clean up the air in the country’s capital.

Salvador Silva Contreras this week presented an atmospheric clean-up and rehabilitation project, which utilizes a dirigible balloon flying at an altitude of 100-300 meters over areas with high concentrations of pollutants.

The airship would be equipped with an atmospheric laboratory, a suction device, a filter and a storage container.

Pollutants captured through a thermo-chemical process could be buried in the Sonora desert, in an area already used for similar purposes, explained the inventor, who has been working on his plan for 10 years.

Silva has identified the Chichinautzin volcano south of Mexico City as a suitable place to perform a trial run.

He proposes the use of three airships in areas with the worst air pollution levels.

Silva explained that each airship could clean 11% of the city’s polluted air in two years for a total investment of US $25.5 million.

Some funding could be obtained by selling advertising space on the Zeppelin’s surface, he said.

The inventor wants to present his project to Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum and is waiting for an opportunity to do so.

Another proposal for addressing the city’s air pollution, which was so bad last week that an Extraordinary Environmental Contingency was in effect for four days, was to install giant exhaust fans that would push the bad air out of the Valley of México through tunnels in the mountains. The mayor has nixed the idea on the grounds that it would not address the root cause of the problem.

Source: El Sol de México (sp), Puerto Libre (sp)

Ikea announces it will open medium-sized store in Mexico City in 2020

By

MND Staff

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May 23, 2019

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Representatives of Ikea met yesterday with the president and other government officials.

Swedish furniture multinational Ikea will open its first store in Mexico in the capital next year.

Malcolm Pruys, country retail manager for Ikea México, told a press conference yesterday that the company plans to open a store in eastern Mexico City in the fall of 2020. It will be called Ikea Oceanía, he said.

Oceanía is an area of the capital near the Benito Juárez International Airport.

The chain, the world’s largest furniture retailer, will also sell its products online in Mexico, Pruys said.

The country manager said in an interview that Ikea is planning to open more stores in other Mexican cities but didn’t specify when.

“We’re setting a reasonably aggressive expansion plan,” Pruys said.

The Mexico City store will be medium-sized, offering customers a range of 7,500 products. It will also house a 650-seat Ikea restaurant, where both Swedish and Mexican dishes will be on the menu.

Ikea México retail project leader Annie Chandler said the store will employ between 300 and 350 people. A separate e-commerce warehouse will also be set up.

Executives from the company met yesterday with President López Obrador, who according to Pruys, was pleased by Ikea’s confidence in Mexico.

“There is great movement in Mexico around cleaning up corruption,” he said. “We think there’s a big opportunity for Mexico’s economy to continue to grow.”

Plans to launch in Mexico began four years ago, while Ikea announced late last year that it also plans to enter other Latin American markets including Chile, Colombia and Peru.

The expansion strategy is designed to offset increased competition in its core markets of Europe and the United States.

Ikea has 427 stores in 52 countries.

Source: El Financiero (sp), Reuters (en)

Presumed leader of Arellano Félix Cartel captured in Tijuana

By

Madison Koen

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May 23, 2019

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The cartel leader captured in Tijuana yesterday.

One of the presumed leaders of the powerful Arellano Félix Cartel, historically based in Tijuana, Baja California, was detained by state police in the border city yesterday.

Felipe Avitia Sarellana, better known by his nickname “El Boca de Bagre” (Catfish Mouth), was captured in the Valle Verde neighborhood in an Audi that a police patrol identified as having been stolen in the United States. Police also secured four firearms, three kilograms of methamphetamines and ammunition.

According to state police, Avitia had been threatened on several large narcomantas hung from overpasses in the Sánchez Taboada neighborhood, which is hotly disputed by rival drug gangs.

Tijuana and its valuable access to the border was the undisputed territory of the Arellano Félix Cartel in the 90s until 2010 when it became embroiled in violent conflict with Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán’s Sinaloa Cartel and later, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel under the command of Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes.

This year, the Mexican nonprofit Citizens’ Council for Public Security and Criminal Justice gave Tijuana the dubious title of being the world’s deadliest city based on 138 killings per 100,000 residents, an average of seven murders a day.

Source: Infobae (sp), Zeta Tijuana (sp), Fox News (sp)

Government sanctions former Pemex boss for providing false information

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MND Staff

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May 23, 2019

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The federal government has sanctioned former Pemex CEO Emilio Lozoya for providing “false information” about his assets.

The Secretariat of Public Administration (SFP) announced yesterday that two unnamed state oil company executives had been prohibited from holding public office for periods of 10 and 15 years respectively.

Lozoya’s lawyer, Javier Coello, told the newspaper El Financiero that his client received the 10-year punishment.

“Today [Wednesday] he was notified; the issue was that he did not declare that his mother opened an investment account,” Coello said.

Financial Intelligence Unit (UIF) chief Santiago Nieto posted on Twitter last night to congratulate Public Administration Secretary Irma Sandoval for the ruling, which disqualifies Lozoya from exercising any public role for 10 years.

He described it as “a fundamental step in the fight against corruption and impunity.”

The SFP said in a statement that Lozoya had provided “false information” when asked to provide details about his assets.

“On two occasions, he omitted [to disclose] a bank account that included balances of hundreds of thousands of pesos,” it said.

Coello said that he will challenge the SFP ruling in the federal tax court.

Lozoya headed the state oil company between 2012 and 2016 during the administration of Enrique Peña Nieto and was reportedly close to the former president.

The SFP sanction could be just the beginning of trouble for the former Pemex CEO.

Lozoya has also been accused of receiving US $10 million in bribes from the Brazilian construction company Odebrecht – which has been implicated in corruption scandals in several Latin American countries – but has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.

Attorney General Alejandro Gertz Manero said earlier this month that a new probe will be launched into Odebrecht within 60 days.

The SFP said that a second unidentified Pemex executive was sanctioned due to “irregularities in the purchase” of a fertilizer plant owned by Fertinal.

“After a meticulous investigation, it was proven that the official responsible misused public resources by paying excessive costs of close to 620 million pesos [US $32.6 million],” the secretariat said.

In addition to receiving a 15-year ban on holding public office, the executive was issued a fine “equivalent to the damage caused.”

Source: El Financiero (sp)

AMLO denies health cutbacks, blames ‘looting’ by previous government

By

MND Staff

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May 23, 2019

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New IMSS chief Robledo speaks at the presidential press conference.

President López Obrador today denied that funding to the health sector has been cut or withheld, and blamed the previous government for “looting” the public health care system and leaving it in “crisis.”

Speaking at his morning press conference, López Obrador asserted that “there is no retention [of resources],” adding “it has to be clarified, all the funds are being transferred.”

The president’s defense of his government’s health funding comes after a day after the newspaper Milenio reported that a reduction in federal funding is affecting hospitals in 24 states, and two days after the chief of the Mexican Social Security Institute (IMSS) announced his resignation, citing budget and staffing cuts at the agency and “pernicious influence” by the Secretariat of Finance (SHCP).

The Secretariat of Health supported those claims in a report that says the SHCP has withheld 1.2 billion pesos (US $63 million) in funding for the sector this year including 123.3 million pesos allocated for the purchase of medicines and 390 million pesos destined for pharmacist services and inpatient care.

However, López Obrador insisted that state governments are getting the funding they were allocated in the 2019 budget, and stressed that his administration is “ensuring that that there is no lack of medicines” in the public health system while stamping out corrupt practices in their purchase.

From July 1, the federal government will be solely responsible for the purchase of medicines and their distribution to the states.

The president also claimed that reports of cutbacks and layoffs were propaganda intended to discredit the government.

“No one is being laid off, it’s propaganda, it’s to damage us. Now you’re seeing the ‘underworld of journalism,'” he charged.

Although the former IMSS chief was the first to report there were layoffs, the president has refused to respond to that and other issues he raised in his letter of resignation.

López Obrador also blamed the administration of his predecessor, charging that problems plaguing the health sector – including shortages of doctors, nurses and medicines – are the legacy of the previous government.

“That’s the way the government left us. In crisis! Those who devoted themselves to looting,” López Obrador said.

The Seguro Popular health care program, whose replacement was announced last month, was a scheme of “total corruption,” he added.

The president also said he has “complete confidence” in the newly appointed general manager of IMSS, Zoé Robledo.

The social security institute manages a large proportion of Mexico’s public hospitals but according to outgoing chief Germán Martínez, its capacity to provide health services is threatened by the government’s “neoliberal” cuts.

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