A search brigade in Sinaloa found more than 5,000 human bones — mostly from the hands and feet, according to preliminary analysis — and four bodies in clandestine graves in the municipalities of Culiacán and Mazatlán last week.
The first discovery took place at the La Primavera neighborhood of Culiacán, a wealthy residential neighborhood where bodies have been found in the past.
On Saturday, a brigade made up of family members of missing persons found bags containing more than 5,000 fragments of bones. A forensic scientist working with the brigade said the bones correspond to adults, adolescents and children, and the absence of complete bodies suggest that the victims were mutilated before being killed.
Juan Carlos Saavedra, who heads the state commission charged with searching for missing people, said that forensics will determine how many people’s bones were found at the site.
“The forensic scientists will determine it, they will count how many bone fragments there are . . . and how many people or how many hands were mutilated,” he said.
Two bodies were also found at La Primavera, both with gunshot wounds to the back of the neck.
Pieces of clothing were also found and the brigade has not ruled out that more bodies will be found there.
Later, another group that is also part of the brigade found two bodies in Playa de Cerritos in the municipality of Mazatlán. The bodies were buried around a meter under ground.
At both sites, forensic specialists from the state Attorney General’s Office removed the remains and turned them over to the Medical Forensic Service, which will begin the process of identifying them.
The state search brigade is made up of local search collectives throughout Sinaloa.
Baja California will have a new tourist route based on artisanal beer beginning next month.
The route will be promoted via a smartphone app developed by beer conglomerate Grupo Modelo and the state’s Secretariat of Tourism.
The project is intended to encourage both domestic and international tourism to cities including Tijuana, Mexicali, Ensenada and Rosarito.
In the last two years, Baja California has experienced a boom in artisanal beer production. According to state Tourism Secretary Óscar Escobedo Carignan, there are 87 registered artisanal breweries and 40 more are in the registration process.
“Our state has grown to stand out on the national level in this arena, thanks to the creativity of our state’s brewers, the availability of raw material and also the influence of California, cradle of artisanal beer in the United States, with which we have worked to nurture the offering of this great touristic product,” said Escobedo.
Cinco Raíces in Ensenada.
Also planned in the near future is a museum dedicated to the country’s beer. The concept has yet to be fully developed, but it is planned to be located near the border with the U.S.
The app for the route, with information in both English and Spanish, will be launched at the end of September.
It will present information on local beers and their respective producers, many of which have tap rooms for tastings and food parings. It will also feature hotels and restaurants that offer beer-related experiences.
The Beer Route will be preconfigured in the app, but users will be able to change the routes to fit their own trips. It will also have a calendar of festivals, tastings, new beer launches and other events related to the beverage.
The application will have a connection to an e-commerce platform that will help artisanal brewers offer their products at the national level.
It will also have an educational section with recommendations for those with little experience with artisanal beers.
The app has been designed for users to keep on their phones after their trips, allowing them to personalize it and receive updates and other Baja California beer information.
There are currently 70 independent brewers participating in the project.
Two construction workers in Nuevo León narrowly escaped a 24-story fall when a cable snapped, upending the platform on which they were working.
The workers were replacing a broken window on the 24th floor of the Real Inn hotel in San Pedro Garza García when the cable broke, leaving the scaffold hanging almost vertically.
Other workers called the Civil Protection agency but when agents arrived, the two men had already been rescued by the hotel’s security and maintenance teams, who helped them climb through the window they were going to replace.
Joint ventures by Pemex would focus on deepwater reserves.
President López Obrador is poised to reverse his position and allow Pemex to resume joint ventures with the private sector in 2020, according to a report in the Financial Times.
The report cites an unnamed senior government official who said the president is set to reopen private exploration in deepwater oil reserves in the Gulf of Mexico.
“We are working with the president so farm-outs [joint ventures] can start up in 2020,” the official told the Times.
“For deep water, it would all be for the private sector,” he added, explaining that included the Trion project, for which Pemex has a partnership with the multinational company BHP.
The president’s aim, the Times said, is to kick-start investment and production in the oil sector and prevent the possibility of another credit rating downgrade for the beleaguered state oil company, which has debt in excess of US $100 billion. Fitch downgraded Pemex to junk status in June and if Moody’s follows suit, a huge sell-off of the company’s bonds would ensue.
“If he makes this [joint venture] announcement soon, it could be like a one-two punch in boxing after the approval of the pipeline deal,” said Mario López, an analyst at the consultancy Empra, referring to an agreement the government struck with three pipeline companies this week that settled a dispute between the parties.
“It would be the perfect combination, sending the right signals to the world that he is more open to the private sector. It could clearly reduce the risk of a downgrade if he manages to announce it before the end of the year.”
If would also be a major reversal in policy direction for the López Obrador administration.
The president was a staunch opponent of the previous government’s energy reform, which opened up the oil sector to foreign and private companies after almost 80 years of state control.
It was also intended to bring in expertise that Pemex did not have, particularly in deepwater drilling.
But upon taking office López Obrador put an end to joint ventures with Pemex and postponed oil block auctions.
Now, with economic growth slowing and investment stagnating, he is facing pressure to pacify investors.
López Obrador met on Wednesday with Claudio Descalzi, head of the Italian gas and oil company Eni, providing a sign that his attitude towards private investors could be less fierce than it once was.
Petroleum production in Mexico has been on the wane for a decade and a half and Pemex is continuing to struggle to boost production.
The government announced a US $5.5-billion rescue plan for the state-run company in February that was aimed at reducing the oil company’s financial burden and strengthening its capacity to invest in exploration and production.
In July, the government presented a new business plan but many analysts said that it ignored the concerns of rating agencies and experts.
“It’s a very ideologically loaded business plan, it limits the participation of private companies in a big way and forces Pemex to do everything itself,” said Pablo Medina, vice president of Welligence Energy Analytics, adding that the state oil company needs “to take advantage of what the energy reform allows, leverage capital and stop trying to do it all by themselves.”
It appears that the president may have come around to that view.
A spy camera was found in a meeting room in the National Palace, President López Obrador revealed Thursday morning.
“A few days ago, in one of the rooms in our offices, a sophisticated camera was found, one of those little-bitty ones, they were recording us,” he said in his morning address. “In a room here in the palace, not in my office, but one of the rooms where we have meetings.”
“And what do they accomplish with it? If what we talk about is totally legal, transparent, then there’s nothing they can use against us,” he added.
The president was questioned about longtime employees of Nacional Financiera (Nafin), a federal development bank, who allegedly inform adversaries of the government. He said he did not believe they were a problem, reiterating that they would not have anything to inform about.
“I don’t view it as a sensitive situation, because he who owes nothing fears nothing. There are times when we have meetings and we take care that we’re not being recorded, but the truth is that it shouldn’t matter to us, because everything we say should be in the public domain. Public life must be more and more public,” he said.
With respect to the camera, López Obrador said that his administration has not filed complaints about such matters, and it will not start now.
“Why get involved in this? You get rid of the camera and that’s it, move forward. These are practices of the old regime. Imagine investigating where it came from. I mean, I’m now working on a report, I don’t have time to busy myself with this.
“No, get rid of it and move forward. We’re going to keep working on what’s in front of us,” he concluded.
The federal government paid out more than 71 billion pesos (US $3.5 billion) to settle contracts for the canceled Mexico City airport project.
Communications and Transportation Secretary Javier Jiménez Espriú told a press conference yesterday that an analysis determined that 692 contracts had to be settled.
For work already completed at the abandoned airport site in Texcoco, México state, the government paid contractors 60.29 billion pesos, Jiménez said.
An additional 14.93 billion pesos in compensation was paid to contractors to cover the non-recoverable costs they incurred, meaning that the government forked out a total of 75.22 billion pesos to the builders of what was to be the previous government’s signature infrastructure project.
The payout represents 26% of the 285 billion pesos (US $14 billion) that had been allocated to build the airport.
“When we began this analysis, we calculated that the commitments would be about 100 billion pesos. Today we see that it turned out to be 25 billion pesos cheaper, which is good news,” Jiménez said.
He explained that because all the contracts have now been settled, the concession for the construction of the airport has been terminated.
The return of materials purchased – including huge quantities of basalt, tezontle and steel – allows the government to reduce its net loss by 4 billion pesos.
The materials could be used in the construction of the government’s priority infrastructure projects such as the Maya Train, the Dos Bocas oil refinery and the Santa Lucía airport, Jiménez said.
He said the canceled airport site can be converted into an ecological park once the government has resolved 60 injunctions filed against the government’s decision to scrap the project.
To terminate the concession for the Texcoco airport, the government also had to reach a deal with private investors.
A police officer stands watch over the Coatzacoalcos crime scene.
The deadly attack on a Veracruz bar Tuesday has revived the animosity between Veracruz Governor Cuitláhuac García and Attorney General Jorge Winckler.
Winckler has denied a claim repeated by García and President López Obrador that one of those responsible for the attack in Coatzcacoalcos had previously been arrested and released by the Veracruz Attorney General’s Office (FGE).
García said that Veracruz police freed Ricardo “La Loca” N., presumed to be a low-level hitman for the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) who is a suspect in several arsons, before he went on to carry out the Coatzacoalcos attack.
According to Winckler, Ricardo N. was arrested and released twice by the Veracruz delegation of the federal Attorney General’s Office (FGR), not by state authorities, once in July and once in August.
Friends and relatives of victims share their grief after Tuesday’s assault on Veracruz bar.
Winckler also questioned whether Ricardo N. was involved in the attack at all.
The attorney general was appointed by García’s predecessor, Miguel Ángel Yunes, a member of the National Action Party (PAN). The two officials have had a troubled relationship since García, a member of the president’s Morena party, took office.
Winckler has also been a target for criticism by President López Obrador, who called Wednesday for the Veracruz attorney general to be investigated, questioning his honesty.
He suggested that part of the country’s insecurity problem is dishonest authorities.
The bar attack was bad enough, López Obrador said, but another factor is that “there exists conspiracy [by organized crime] with authorities.”
The federal FGR began its own investigation of the Coatzacoalcos incident on Wednesday. In a statement on Wednesday night, the FGR conceded that it does not have conclusive proof that Ricardo N. was responsible for the attack, but it has connected him to at least five other similar arsons.
Winckler said Thursday that lines of investigation include a fight between rival gangs, extortion and revenge. Four people are believed to have been responsible.
Twenty-three people died at the scene and five more in hospital yesterday. Another eight victims remain in hospital.
The attackers threw gasoline and molotov cocktails inside the bar and sealed the exits before fleeing.
The president's performance rating on a scale of one to 10 from August 2018 to August 2019. el universal
Almost three-quarters of respondents to a new poll said they would vote in favor of President López Obrador completing his six-year term, while just under seven in 10 approve of his performance.
If a revocation of mandate vote was held today – as the president has pledged to hold three years into his administration – 74.1% of those polled by the newspaper El Universal said that would support the continuation of López Obrador’s term, while 19.3% indicated they would not.
The other 6.6% of respondents said they didn’t know which way they would vote.
The president’s approval rating remains strong at 69% although it has declined almost four points compared to El Universal’s June poll and 10 points since March.
López Obrador’s performance rating on a scale of one to 10 also slipped to an average of 7.22 compared to 7.33 in June and 7.72 in March.
Nevertheless, only 9.5% of respondents to the August survey said that they “totally disapprove” of López Obrador’s performance.
Seven in 10 said the president has demonstrated the capacity to solve the country’s problems even though 54% asserted that Mexico’s troubles have exceeded the government’s capacity to deal with them.
Six in 10 said they are optimistic that Mexico will continue to improve under López Obrador’s leadership, while one in five said that things will stay the same and 13% said that the country will get worse.
Just under two-thirds of those polled said they didn’t regret voting for López Obrador in the 2018 election, while just 5.9% of respondents said they did rue their decision.
Just under 22% of respondents said they didn’t vote for López Obrador in the presidential election, while 6.5% said that they didn’t vote at all.
Those numbers indicate that just over 70% of poll respondents voted for the president last year, 17% higher than the 53% support he garnered among all voters on polling day.
The AMLOve endures.
The survey also shows that the president scores much better than state governors and mayors in terms of rapport with the citizens they represent.
Just under 47% of respondents said they believed that López Obrador would take their petitions and proposals into account were they to meet with him face to face, while just 23% and 27% respectively said the same about their governors and mayors.
The poll also indicates that people believe that quality of life has improved under the current government.
Asked for an evaluation on a scale of one to 10, in which one is “very unsatisfied” and 10 is “very satisfied,” the average was 7.74 compared to 7.48 in June and 7.38 in March.
More than four in 10 respondents said their quality of life was much better or better than in recent months whereas only 16.5% said it was worse.
However, almost three-quarters of those polled said their family’s income had not increased in recent months, while just over one-quarter said it had. López Obrador stresses regularly that providing income support payments and welfare programs to the nation’s poorest and most vulnerable is a priority for his government.
Asked to name the government’s greatest achievement in its almost nine months in office, 25% cited social programs, 16% mentioned the crackdown on fuel theft and 8% referred to the fight against corruption.
Almost 10% more cited either the response to violence, or to drug trafficking, as the López Obrador administration’s No. 1 error, meaning that almost a quarter of poll respondents are unhappy about how the government is dealing with the security situation.
Despite increasing violence and a slowing economy, almost 12% of those polled said that the government hasn’t put a foot wrong.
On a personal level, López Obrador was rated highly for his management of public education, his governance skills and his efforts to combat poverty and corruption.
In contrast, his response to protests, the migration issue and the security situation found the highest disapproval ratings among poll respondents.
Almost six in 10 people said they didn’t agree with the government allowing migrants without documents to enter the country and seek asylum. Six in 10 said the government should block their entry to Mexico.
The international power tool company Milwaukee Tool will build a factory in Torreón, Coahuila, that will bring 2,600 jobs to the city when it starts operating in April 2020.
At a ceremony on Wednesday, Governor Miguel Riquelme welcomed the company to Torreón and said that construction will start on the US $86-million factory in September.
“Today, the city receives a message that will give us strength,” he said. “The company is going to do well, they will have qualified workers. I’m very happy that they chose Torreón. Here they will find stable labor relations, safety and qualified workers. We’re going to make sure they stay here.”
Riquelme added that the new factory will have a technological innovation center that will elevate the quality of the tools produced there.
Torreón Mayor Jorge Zermeño Infante thanked the the state government for its efforts to attract investment.
“Investments don’t happen by chance, they happen when there’s certainty, when there are elements that allow a business to have what it needs to open up shop,” he said. “I see the work the state government is doing to bring investment to Coahuila.”
Zermeño added that the company visited 15 cities around Mexico and the world before deciding on Torreón.
“I am thankful to the businesses who have been involved in this,” he said. “It is good for the Laguna region and good for Coahuila.”
Carlos Braña Muñoz, the president of a Torreón chamber of commerce, said the plans for the new plant are the result of an investment tour organized by the state government in China.
Founded in 1924, Milwaukee Tool became a subsidiary of the Hong Kong company Techtronic Industries in 2005.
One of the most-wanted criminals in México state was caught red-handed doing a low-level drug deal in Mexico City on Tuesday.
According to the city’s Public Security Secretariat (SSC), Israel “El Bucanas” Molina Monroy was spotted by police while exchanging drugs for cash with another man in the borough of Miguel Hidalgo.
“. . . two men were observed leaning against a blue Nissan Sentra that was the object of an investigation exchanging several bags . . . with green vegetable material inside for cash,” said the SSC in a statement.
When the officers approached the men and identified themselves they attempted unsuccessfully to flee in the vehicle.
The seller, who was found to be in possession of 39 plastic bags of what police suspect to be marijuana, was later identified as 39-year-old Molina, a former police officer in the México state municipality of Tultitlán.
He was wanted for the April 2018 murders of state homicide chief José Luis Mendoza Espinoza and his partner Orlando López Arrendondo. He was also wanted in connection with an incident where a body was abandoned near the Barrientos Jail in Tlanepantla last Thursday, with a message signed by the organized crime group La Unión de Tepito.
In December, the state attorney general published a most-wanted list of 47 people, which included Molina, offering a reward of 300,000 pesos (US $15,000) for information leading to his arrest.
His nickname is more than likely derived from a fondness for Buchanan’s whisky, but lost a couple of letters in translation.
Molina is not to be confused with Roberto de los Santos de Jesús, a suspected gangster in Puebla who shares the same nickname.
