The mayor of Mazatlán, Sinaloa, has accused state police of extortion of local residents and tourists.
In a November 16 letter that municipal authorities made public on Sunday, Luis Guillermo Benítez Torres cites two cases of alleged extortion in the Pacific coast resort city.
In the first, a vehicle driven by a Mazatlán resident was stopped by state police who conducted an inspection of the vehicle “in an overbearing way and without any justification” before demanding an unspecified quantity of money from the driver, Benítez claimed.
In the second case, tourists from Durango traveling on motorcycles were stopped at 12:30am on November 16 on a road near the Galerías shopping center, the Morena party mayor said. The police then “practically snatched” 3,000 pesos (US $155) from the tourists, Benítez said.
The mayor provided the identification numbers of the two police cars in which the allegedly corrupt officers were traveling.
Benítez said municipal authorities had already notified the Sinaloa government about the “irregular conduct” of state police but claimed that no action had been taken.
“For that reason, in the most courteous and respectful way, I express to you my discontent with respect to the conduct of the officers deployed to this municipality,” he said in the letter to Governor Quirino Ordaz Coppel.
“. . . Far from offering security and protection to the population, their acts generate an environment of insecurity and distrust . . . toward authorities.”
Benítez added that Mazatlán’s positive image as a tourist destination for both Mexicans and foreigners was damaged by the conduct of the police.
He said on Sunday that similar cases of police abuse have occurred in the municipalities of Rosario and Escuinapa although the mayor of the former municipality said he had no complaint about the conduct of state officers.
In response to the allegations, Sinaloa Public Security Secretary Cristóbal Castañeda Camarillo said he will speak to Benítez at a security meeting Tuesday and ask him to present proof to support his claims.
Piloncillo empanadas are best right out of the oven.
As someone who likes to bake, I was surprised not to find brown sugar as I knew it in any stores when I first moved to Mexico. I actually remember bringing it from the States and hoarding it; in fact, I know of a friendship that was broken over a bag of brown sugar promised and then given to someone else.
Eventually I realized that piloncillo – those cones of what looked like brown sugar in every market and grocery store – is similar enough to use as a substitute. True, it takes some effort to grate them, but the flavor is well worth the effort.
A bigger issue perhaps was how to pronounce “piloncillo” (pea-loh-n-SEE-yo). It’s actually quite a pretty word, and here is exactly what it should sound like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lf6SK3i0JhM
So what exactly is piloncillo? Some people think it’s like a solid form of molasses, but that’s incorrect. Piloncillo is its own product; molasses is a by-product of refining sugar, and thus has a much more bitter taste.
What we know as “brown sugar” is just refined white sugar with molasses added. Piloncillo has a richer, earthy flavor and an abundance of B-vitamins and minerals not found in other refined sugars.
Grating piloncillo takes some effort but it’s well worth it.
In the simplest terms, piloncillo is evaporated sugar cane juice. The sugar canes are crushed, releasing a clear, greenish liquid – sugar cane juice, which is actually quite delicious to drink, chilled, on its own. That liquid is boiled and boiled, and as it evaporates what’s left gets darker and sweeter as it concentrates.
Finally the thickened syrup is poured into molds, most commonly small cones or blocks,and cooled. Voila! Piloncillo.Other countries have similar products: In India, it’s called jaggery or gur; in most other Latin and South American countries it’s known as panela (confusing in Mexico because that’s a kind of cheese) and in Brazil it’s called rapadura.
It’s OK to store the little cones in a glass jar or plastic bag or container in a cupboard, but I prefer keeping them in the fridge just because, well, it’s sugar, y’know? It’s not a bad idea to have a little jar of it already grated on hand for easy use.
Depending on the recipe, there are different ways to use piloncillo. It dissolves surprisingly quickly in hot water, if that works for your recipe. This can also be done in a microwave, as long as the bowl is big enough for it to bubble up a lot. Otherwise, you’ll need to grate it with a hand-held cheese grater.
Piloncillo Empanadas
Best eaten warm right out of the oven, these empanadas can also be reheated in a conventional or toaster oven. Use a prepared pie crust or your own recipe to make the dough from scratch.
Preheat oven to 350° F. Grate piloncillo to make 2 cups. Spray a cookie sheet lightly with cooking spray. Roll pie crust flat on a lightly floured surface. Cut crust into 4 equal sections. Fill each triangular section with 3-4 Tbsp. of grated piloncillo.
Moisten edges of each triangle with milk, then fold in half. Using a fork, pinch the edges to seal and then poke several holes in the top of each empanada to allow steam to escape.
Arrange empanadas on prepared cookie sheet. For a more crunchy, shiny crust, brush with the beaten egg and sprinkle with a bit of granulated sugar. Bake 12-15 minutes or until golden brown. Makes 4 yummy empanadas. —Adapted from QueRicaVida.com
Piloncillo Syrup
This is a wonderful simple syrup to serve with waffles and pancakes, stirred into oatmeal, as an ice cream topping, in barbecue sauce, with fruit and yogurt, as a sweetener for coffee or tea – its sweet, earthy, caramel-like flavor tastes good in almost everything.
Rich with flavor, it’s also what’s drizzled over the bunuelos, the big, round flat fritters traditionally served during the Christmas holidays in Mexico.
2 cones piloncillo
2 cups water
Piloncillo syrup tastes good in almost everything.
Put the whole piloncillo cones and water in a heavy pot and boil, covered, until the piloncillo dissolves, 15-20 minutes. (Stir frequently until cones are dissolved.) Remove lid and continue boiling to reduce the syrup. The cooled syrup will have a consistency similar to maple syrup when it coats the back of a spoon. (104°C / 220°F on a candy thermometer.)
Serve immediately while warm, or let cool and store in an airtight container in the refrigerator. Makes about 1 ¾ cups. Keeps in the refrigerator for about a month.
For a more complex flavor you can add orange zest, cinnamon, star anise and cloves to the boiling syrup. Vanilla extract can be added after you remove the syrup from the heat.
Spicy Piloncillo Vinaigrette
The kick comes from the jalapeños, either roasted or you can substitute rajas, which are canned marinated jalapeño peppers. Use as a salad dressing or marinade for fish or shrimp.
2 Tbsp. grated piloncillo
¼ cup champagne, rice or other lightly flavored vinegar
2 medium jalapeños or equivalent rajas
1½ tsp. Dijon mustard
3/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
Salt & pepper
Put sugar and vinegar in a small bowl and mix until sugar dissolves. Roast jalapeños in toaster oven or over open flame till blackened. Cool and remove stems and seeds. Using a blender or food processor, mix together the jalapeños, Dijon mustard and vinegar/sugar mixture. Blend on high speed and slowly add olive oil until thoroughly mixed. Season to taste with salt and pepper as needed.
Janet Blaser of Mazatlán, Sinaloa, has been a writer, editor and storyteller her entire life, and feels fortunate to write about great food, amazing places, fascinating people and unique events. Her work has appeared in numerous travel and expat publications as well as newspapers and magazines. Her first book, Why We Left: An Anthology of American Women Expats, is available on Amazon. Contact Janet or read her blog at whyweleftamerica.com.
A mother and her boyfriend of Villagrán, Guanajuato, were arrested and charged with murder after they beat her four-year-old son to death because he would not stop crying.
The public prosecutor brought murder charges against the two, identified only as Nidia N. and Omar N., for the killing of the former’s son in the early morning hours of November 17. Both are being held in preventive custody.
Police said the couple beat the child repeatedly after he began to cry. The crying stopped but only because he was dead. Paramedics said the child suffered chest and head trauma.
Over 350 people cleaned up more than four tonnes of garbage from the Santa Catarina river in San Pedro Garza García, Nuevo León, on Saturday.
The event, called 50TON, brought together high school and university students and other residents of the city that neighbors Monterrey to collect all kinds of waste from the river.
The head of the San Pedro Environmental Department, Ada Marcela Ita Garay, said the large number of people who came out emphasizes how the clean-up event is growing.
“More people come each time, but still, we never clean everything because apart from what was already there, we’ve also got what tropical storm Fernand dragged in,” she said.
She stressed that despite the preventative actions and campaigns to encourage the public to reduce and reuse the waste generated in their homes, bad habits continue to wreak havoc on the river.
“Here we’re making a call to the public to be more conscious when consuming products and later disposing of them, and to be more responsible for their waste,” she said.
Saturday’s garbage included tires, paper, plastic bags, Styrofoam, cardboard boxes and even furniture.
A number of local environmental organizations, universities, schools and museums teamed up with the local government to take part in the clean-up.
Family members of missing persons and other volunteers have begun searching a Tijuana property where more than 50 bodies could be buried.
According to a report in the newspaper El Universal, a 21-year-old woman received a phone call last Wednesday from an unidentified man who told her that her missing brother was buried in the 10 de Mayo neighborhood of the Baja California border city.
The woman, who asked to be identified only as Lucía, was told that her 18-year-old brother, Cristian – missing since October 31 – was in a grave amid thick vegetation inhabited by pigs and strewn with rubbish. The site is near Arroyo Alamar, a tributary of the Tijuana river.
With members of groups made up of relatives of missing persons, Lucía set out to find her brother on Saturday. After a three-hour search, the collective found two decomposed bodies, one of whom was Cristian.
“. . . As soon as I saw the body, I recognized him,” Lucía said.
Angélica Ramírez, a member of a group that participated in the search, said that one of the bodies was found in the open air while the other was in a shallow grave.
After the discoveries, Lucía told El Universal that she received a second call from an anonymous man who said: “Keep searching because there, in the same place, there are another 50 bodies.”
A contingent of about 20 people returned to the site on Sunday accompanied by state police but no further bodies were found.
According to Ramírez, it was the first time that authorities showed an interest in assisting in the search for their loved ones.
“The search brigade hasn’t had a good response from the authorities. Petitions have been submitted, we’ve spoken to the missing persons prosecutor and we hadn’t had a response until today [Sunday]. It’s very regrettable that we have to reach this point . . . for the authorities to start to take notice,” she said.
For his part, Baja California investigation agency chief Alejandro Corona Zamora said the property hadn’t been searched previously because state authorities hadn’t received any information to suggest that bodies were buried there.
A bus was set on fire during violence Friday in Acapulco.
At least 30 schools in Acapulco will begin their Christmas break early, but not to give students and teachers more time to enjoy the vacation period: it is believed to be too dangerous to remain in school.
Teachers have advised the Guerrero Secretariat of Education stating that the holiday vacation will begin on December 6, two weeks early, due to the current wave of violence in the city.
Teachers said in a letter that the situation is becoming “more dangerous,” calling the violence “a scourge that is becoming more uncontrollable each day.”
The recent wave of violence is part of a rising trend that has been growing over the last decade in the popular tourist destination.
In an analysis published by the newspaper El Universal in October, journalist and native Acapulco resident Arturo de Dios Palma recounted how his hometown has changed during his lifetime.
“I’m from Acapulco and I’ve seen how the port city has gone from being a paradise to a living hell,” he wrote.
“I grew up in an Acapulco very different from the one of today . . . I spent Christmases awake all night looking for posada celebrations, lighting fireworks and drinking cider with my cousins.”
This Christmas promises to be quite different from those of the author’s childhood.
“I’ll admit that Acapulco has never been a place of peaceful tranquility, but nor has it been the hell that it has become in the last decade,” wrote de Dios Palma.
“The violence has brought us many scenes of terror, pain, desolation, many scenes of death, many disappearances.”
Deputy Bank of México governor Heath: downturn not significant.
The economy entered a light recession in the first half of the year, according to revised data published Monday that also showed that third-quarter growth was lower than first estimated.
The national statistics agency, Inegi, reported that the economy contracted 0.09% in the first quarter and 0.06% in the second. It also said that GDP shrank by 0.1% in the last quarter of 2018.
In addition, Inegi reported that growth between July and September was just 0.01%. Preliminary figures published at the end of October showed a third-quarter expansion of 0.1%.
Initial Inegi data showed a contraction in the first quarter of 2019 but growth in both the last quarter of 2018 and the second quarter of this year, meaning Mexico had not entered a recession.
Most economists classify two consecutive quarters of negative growth as a technical recession. However, others take a different view.
Deputy Bank of México governor Jonathan Heath pointed out in July that the National Bureau of Economic Research, a United States non-profit organization, classifies a recession as a period in which there is a significant downturn across all sectors of the economy as well as higher unemployment and lower industrial production, among other indicators.
He acknowledged that there has been a downturn in the economy but charged that it was far from “significant.”
Health also said that not all sectors of the economy have contracted, pointing out that manufacturing has grown, albeit at a slow pace.
Alonso Cervera, chief Latin America economist for Credit Suisse, expressed a similar opinion on Twitter Monday.
“Some will say ‘see, we were already in recession.’ I call it stagnation more than recession. The decline in activity hasn’t been significant nor has it hit the whole economy,” he wrote.
Whatever way it’s interpreted, the revised data is bad news for President López Obrador, who has overseen a lackluster economy in his first year in office.
His pledge to achieve average 4% growth during his six-year term now appears more difficult to attain than ever.
Marcelo Ebrard tells president's press conference that a narco-terrorist designation is unnecessary.
The extended family of three women and six children who were murdered in Bavispe, Sonora, earlier this month is asking the United States government to designate Mexican drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations.
Uploaded to the White House online platform “We the People,” the LeBarón family petition says that cartels control the flow of illegal drugs into the United States from Mexico, including heroin, methamphetamine, cocaine and “ultra-deadly” fentanyl.
“With seemingly unlimited resources it has proven almost impossible to stop them. They run major human trafficking networks. They kidnap and extort with almost complete impunity. Their unbridled acts of violence and murder have overrun our borders and created an international crisis. They seek political power in order to create a narco-state in Mexico,” the petition says.
“Each year, there are approximately 35% more murders committed in Mexico than by all officially designated terrorist groups combined. We cannot afford to continue the same failed policies used to combat organized crime. They are terrorists, and it’s time to acknowledge it!”
The petition needs 100,000 signatures by December 24 in order to get a response from the White House.
The LeBarón commmunity in Galeana, Chihuahua.
Bryan LeBarón, a California-based activist with close links to the Mormon communities in northern Mexico, told the newspaper El Universal that the aim of the petition is to attract the attention of the presidents of both the United States and Mexico and encourage them to develop a joint strategy to combat drug cartels.
“People are afraid that Mexico’s sovereignty will be affected but there are ways to respect the country’s laws and achieve more effective collaboration,” said the dual U.S. and Mexican citizen.
LeBarón claimed that “Mexico doesn’t have enough resources, soldiers or weapons” to combat organized crime on its own.
“We saw that in the release of the son of El Chapo Guzmán and also in the massacre of my family. They [the security forces] took almost eight hours to arrive,” he said.
“The hugs, not bullets, strategy isn’t going to work,” LeBarón added, referring to President López Obrador’s plan to reduce violence through social programs rather than the use of force.
The social change that López Obrador is trying to achieve is unattainable without security, he said.
“It doesn’t matter how much is invested in education or how much they seek to help the middle class or the poorest people, without security it’s not possible, as honorable as the president may be,” LeBarón said.
The activist said that members of the LeBarón family will ask López Obrador during a scheduled December 2 meeting to accept United States President Donald Trump’s offer to help Mexico “wage war” on cartels.
AMLO, as the president is widely known, quickly declined the offer, telling reporters on November 5 that his response to Trump was a “categorical no,” explaining, “we have to act independently in accordance with our constitution.”
Both the president and Foreign Affairs Secretary Marcelo Ebrard repeated that message on Monday morning. The latter said the the petition to have narcos declared terrorists was unnecessary because Mexico would not permit any kind of foreign intervention.
Furthermore, he said, there have been advances in the joint investigation into the November ambush of the Mormon women and children but declined to offer details.
Security Secretary Alfonso Durazo said on November 11 that suspects had been arrested in connection with the attack, which federal authorities believe was perpetrated by La Línea, a gang with links to the Juárez Cartel. But no additional details regarding the arrests have been given.
Authorities said the gang may have mistaken the vehicles in which the murdered women and children were traveling as those of a splinter cell of the Sinaloa Cartel known as Los Salazar. However, family members rejected the hypothesis.
Actresses Vanessa Arias and Esmeralda Ugalde were traveling with Sandí on Sunday.
A Mexican actor and a French tourist were kidnapped Sunday on the Xinantécatl volcano, better known as the Nevado de Toluca, a popular hiking area in México state.
Unofficial reports state that the actor was Alejandro Sandi, 37, who has appeared in a number of television series including the popular telenovela El Señor de los Cielos (Lord of the Skies). The French tourist was identified as Frederic Michel.
According to police, the victims, who were traveling separately, were near the top of the mountain when they were kidnapped.
A witness traveling with Sandi, 39-year-old Vanesa Arias of Mexico City, told police they were stopped in their vehicle around 8:45am. The kidnappers forced her and another friend out of the car and escaped in it, taking the actor with them.
Meanwhile, Mathieu Noirot Julien told police a similar story. He said that he and his friend Michel were riding in a Toyota truck when they were forced to stop. The kidnappers forced him out and took the truck with Michel in it.
A search effort led by the National Guard and state and local police was initiated after the reports were filed.
As of Monday morning, there were still no reports of the victims’ whereabouts or whether the kidnappers had made contact with their families.
Neither Attorney General Alejandro Gómez Sánchez nor his office had issued an official statement related to the case.
According to the National Public Security System (SESNSP), kidnappings have increased by 9% in the first year of President López Obrador’s administration.
There were 1,273 reported kidnappings from January to October 2018, and 1,392 in the same period in 2019, amounting to 119 more cases during the new administration.
Monday's march will be accompanied by 1,000 female police officers.
One thousand policewomen and 2,000 female government workers will accompany a march in Mexico City on Monday to mark International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women.
Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum told a press conference on Sunday that the city employees – dubbed “women of peace” – will walk side by side with the various groups participating in the anti-violence march, which will take place four days after a gender violence alert was activated in the capital.
She said that the workers will help to keep the peace but stressed that “they won’t intervene; they’ll simply be accompanying the march in a peaceful way.”
The mayor said the participation of the government in the march wasn’t planned, explaining that the employees themselves asked to be included.
“A lot of colleagues said they wanted to help and participate . . . They decided to attend voluntarily but it won’t be like before,” Sheinbaum said, referring to the cinturón de paz, or peace belt, of government workers that lined the route of the October 2 march to commemorate the 51st anniversary of the 1968 Tlatelolco massacre.
Mayor Sheinbaum announces measures to guarantee peace during Monday’s march.
“Now they will accompany the demonstrators in their march,” she explained.
The mayor said the role of the 1,000 policewomen will be to “guarantee peace” during the march, which will depart at 5:00pm from two points, the Angel of Independence and the Monument to the Revolution, and conclude in Mexico City’s historic center.
“It’s important to say that if anyone is empathetic with the demand for there not to be violence . . . it’s policewomen . . .” Sheinbaum said.
The mayor said that 37 historic monuments along the route will be walled off or covered to ensure that they are not vandalized and that the police will carry fire extinguishers to put out any blazes lit by radical demonstrators.
“There is a very clear instruction from the secretary of citizens’ security to the policewomen who will participate and that’s for there not to be any police abuse . . . All of them have this instruction . . .” she said.
“. . . We’re not going to fall into a provocation. A lot of the time what they [radical demonstrators] are seeking is for there to be police abuse, a confrontation . . . but we’re not going to do that . . .” Sheinbaum said.
The mayor on Thursday issued a gender alert for Mexico City, activating a range of measures to address violence against women. Gender alerts are now active in 20 states across the country.
There were 3,662 murders of women in 2018, according to official statistics, and 1,834 in the first six months of 2018.
Ten women are killed on average every day in Mexico, making the country one of the most dangerous for females in the world.
