Green balls on Sonora beach are made of marine algae

-

October 4, 2018

A Pemex truck drives past a pipeline theft in progress in a video shot earlier this year.

Stopping petroleum theft is difficult because mayors and Pemex are involved in the crime, Mexico’s energy secretary says.

Speaking during a visit to Guanajuato yesterday, Pedro Joaquín Coldwell said that the “many roots” of the crime have made it “hard to eradicate,” explaining that “there are personnel inside the company [Pemex] who are complicit with criminals.”

He added that the federal government is currently implementing a new strategy to combat the scourge, which includes greater cooperation between the Secretariat of Finance (SHCP) and Pemex in the sharing of information as well as increased coordination between federal, state and municipal security authorities.

Petroleum theft, committed by gangs of thieves known as huachicoleros, costs Pemex 30 billion pesos (US $1.6 billion) a year, CEO Carlos Treviño said in April.

Elaborating on Coldwell’s remarks, Federal Police Commissioner Miguel Ángel Simental said that while complicity of mayors in the crime has been detected in Puebla, there is no evidence to suggest the same has happened in Guanajuato.

“There have been no cases here in which municipal officials were involved, and now with the change of strategy there will be improved investigations in coordination with Pemex, the federal Attorney General’s office and the federal taxation administration . . .” he said.

Earlier this week, the navy carried out an operation against pipeline fuel theft in Palmarito Tochapan, Puebla, to which residents responded by blocking the Mexico City-Puebla highway for more than six hours.

The mayor-elect of Quecholac, where Palmarito is located, is reportedly a person of interest to authorities in relation to the crime although he denies any involvement.

In August, Federal Police arrested the wife of the mayor of Venustiano Carranza, Puebla, on suspicion of petroleum theft.

Source: El Financiero (sp)

Dead crocodile in Puerto Vallarta carried message: control crocs or more will die

By

-

October 4, 2018

Crocodile hangs from a tree with a message attached.

Too many crocodiles in Puerto Vallarta? Someone seems to think so.

A dead crocodile was found hanging from a tree on Tuesday in the Villas Universidad neighborhood with a message attached to its head.

“We want security. We will continue killing these disgusting animals if controls are not put in place by . . . the government of Puerto Vallarta,” the message said in Spanish.

The incident is being investigated by the federal public prosecutor’s office in Puerto Vallarta and the federal environmental protection agency, Profepa.

Meanwhile, Profepa is collaborating with the navy, the University of Guadalajara, the municipal government and state and municipal agencies to all reports of crocodiles in the urban zone of the municipality.

Profepa has urged the local government to install even more signs in areas where there is a high risk of contact between people and the reptiles to avoid incidents such as two that occurred in recent weeks.

A man was killed by a crocodile in the Ameca river while a tourist was injured by one in a tourist area in the north of the city.

In the latter case a 30-year-old French woman had gone into the water on the beach in front of the Marriott Hotel at about 11:30pm when she felt something bite her leg. She began kicking her leg and ran for the beach, calling for help.

Hotel security guards responded and called an ambulance.

She was treated in a private hospital for minor injuries and released shortly after.

A total of six crocodiles have been found dead since 2017 in the Puerto Vallarta area. Intentional or accidental human intervention was a factor in five of those cases.

Source: Vallarta Independiente (sp), Noticias PV (sp)

AMLO pledges coordination and unity to combat Guerrero crime

By

-

October 4, 2018

Governor Astudillo, left, and AMLO meet in Guerrero.

President-elect López Obrador has pledged that federal, state and municipal authorities will work together to combat insecurity in Guerrero.

López Obrador made the commitment yesterday after holding a “very productive” meeting with Governor Héctor Astudillo in Acapulco.

“We’re going to work in a coordinated way on the issue that people are very worried about: that of security and violence. We’re also going to ensure that there is order, that there is coordination and the Mando Único [a single-command policing system],” he said.

“We also agreed to join forces, we’re going to work in an organized manner . . . There will be unity between the Secretariat of Defense, the Secretariat of the Navy, the Secretariat of Public Security, the state government and the municipalities,” the president-elect added.

Guerrero, a large opium poppy and marijuana-producing state, recorded the third highest number of homicides in the first eight months of 2018 behind only Baja California and Guanajuato.

Federal and state police and the military took over policing duties in Acapulco last week after the entire municipal force was disarmed due to suspected infiltration by criminal gangs.

Last year, The Washington Post described the resort city as Mexico’s murder capital.

Violent crime, however, afflicts many parts of Guerrero including state capital Chilpancingo, the notoriously dangerous Tierra Caliente region and the Montaña region, where poppy cultivation has driven the economies of many communities for decades.

In Chilpancingo today, the mayor lamented that security efforts were hampered by a shortage of resources. Antonio Gaspar Beltrán said the municipal police force consists of just 120 officers, 580 short of what it needs.

He said a request for more funds will be made to the federal government. The municipality of Chilpancingo has a population of at least 200,000.

Guerrero is one of Mexico’s most impoverished, a fact that López Obrador recognized yesterday.

He said that his government will aim to stimulate economic development in Guerrero to help people “to get ahead” and reaffirmed his commitment to move the federal Secretariat of Health to the state.

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

Ex-governor of Tamaulipas will go to trial for unlawful enrichment

By

-

October 4, 2018

Former Tamaulipas governor Eugenio Hernández Flores will go to trial on new charges of unlawful enrichment and conducting financial operations with resources of illicit origin after a marathon 14-hour hearing yesterday.

The state Attorney General’s office now has three months to finish its investigation, including a background check on the ex-governor and a report on his real estate holdings in Mexico City and Quintana Roo.

It will also request a report from a Texas court that has been investigating the former governor as well.

According to the Attorney General’s office, Hernández amassed a fortune of nearly 41 million pesos (about US $3.3 million at the time) during his term as governor between 2005 and 2010.

Hernández, 58, declared before the court that he has been a businessman since 1987, involved in real estate, construction and shopping malls.

Hernández has been in custody since his arrest a year ago for embezzlement, a case which is still in process.

The former Institutional Revolutionary Party governor also faces extradition to the United States where he faces charges of organized crime and money laundering. The Mexican government authorized his extradition in March but Hernández’s legal team has applied for an injunction, or amparo, against it.

That legal team includes the attorney for ex-Quintana Roo governor Roberto Borge, also in jail facing corruption charges, and the attorney who has defended the presumed leader of Mexico City’s Unión de Tepito, a gang that is believed responsible for much of the violence in the capital.

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

North Korean hackers attempted theft of millions from Mexican bank

By

-

October 4, 2018

Bancomext was target of North Korean hackers.

An elite group of North Korean hackers has been identified as responsible for cyberattacks on banks around the world — including Mexico’s state-owned development bank Bancomext — that netted hundreds of millions of dollars, security researchers said yesterday.

A report by United States cybersecurity company FireEye said the mission of the newly-identified group, dubbed APT38, is to raise funds for the North Korean regime headed by Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un.

“They are a cyber-criminal group with the skills of a cyber espionage campaign,” said Sandra Joyce, FireEye’s vice-president of intelligence. “They take their time to learn the intricacies of the organization.”

The attack on Bancomext occurred in early January and attempted to steal around US $110 million but was shut down before the funds were removed.

“Fortunately, the protocol and quick reaction of the area responsible for operation, with the help of banks, corresponding authorities and the Bank of México, contained this incident,” Bancomext said in a statement.

In May, the Bank of México revealed that five financial institutions had been targeted by cyberattacks that resulted in the loss of 300 million pesos (US $ 15.7 million at today’s exchange rate) although it is unclear whether the North Korean group was the source of the attacks.

The FireEye report said that APT38 is one of several hacking cells within a larger umbrella group known as “Lazarus” but that it has unique skills and tools that have allowed it to carry out some of the world’s largest cyber heists.

Joyce said that APT38 takes several months or longer to learn the workings of its targets before it launches an attack.

Once it succeeds in extracting funds, “they deploy destructive malware on their way out” to hide its traces, she added.

Joyce explained that FireEye decided to go public with its investigation because the group appears to be still operating and is “undeterred by any diplomatic efforts.”

APT38 appears to have “the scope and resources of a nation state,” she added.

Nalani Fraser, a member of the FireEye research team, said that APT38 attacks have attempted to steal at least US $1.1 billion since 2014 and have succeeded in siphoning off “hundreds of millions of dollars based on data that we can confirm.”

Source: AFP (sp)

1 kidnapper dead, 2 victims freed in Chapala confrontation

By

-

October 4, 2018

Taking down a gang of kidnappers brought a heavy police presence to Chapala yesterday.

A kidnapping in Chapala, Jalisco, concluded yesterday with one kidnapper dead, five arrested and the safe release of their two victims.

More than 100 state and federal officials participated in the successful rescue operation, which took place in a hotel where the victims’ relatives were about to deliver a ransom payment.

“An operation was set up in the establishment . . . with the goal of apprehending the members of this gang,” said acting state Attorney General Marisela Gómez Cobos. “When the alleged criminals realized their cover was blown, they opened fire on state agents, who repelled the aggression.”

[wpgmza id=”90″]

An agent of the prosecutor’s office was injured in the gunfight, but the gangsters fled the scene and took cover on a hill on the Chapala-Ajijic highway. State anti-kidnapping agents gave chase and a second gunfight followed in which one of the kidnappers was killed and five were arrested, including the suspected leader of the gang and three women.

Following the arrests, officials determined that the kidnappers’ victims were being held in a house in a house in nearby Jocotepec. “Both were rescued alive and in good health,” said Gómez.

Sources consulted by the newspaper Milenio said the gang operated in the Chapala-Ajijic-Jocotepec corridor, mostly targeting local berry farmers. It has been linked to at least eight kidnappings in Ajijic and Jocotepec.

Source: Milenio (sp)

In the new era of austerity, iPads for all in Mexico City Congress

By

-

October 3, 2018

Mexico may be in the early stages of a new age of government austerity but that hasn’t stopped every lawmaker in the Mexico City Congress from getting their very own iPad.

The tablet computers were installed at every desk in the Mexico City Legislative Assembly yesterday and will be used for a range of congressional duties including voting.

The Apple iPad that each of the 66 deputies will have at his or her disposal costs about 7,000 pesos (US $367) or more, meaning they have a combined value of at least 462,000 pesos (US $24,200).

But according to the newspaper El Universal, it is not publicly known when or where the tablets were purchased.

The newly-elected lawmakers also received gold-plated tie pins, leather document folders and card holders last month with a combined value of almost 227,000 pesos (US $11,900), El Universal said.

Mexico City’s new mayor, Claudia Sheinbaum, will take office later this year after winning almost 50% of the vote in the July 1 elections.

She, like president-elect López Obrador, represented the leftist Morena party, which campaigned on a platform of ending corruption and impunity and implementing wide-reaching austerity measures.

Both houses of federal Congress, in which the coalition led by Morena now has majorities, have already moved to implement a range of cost-cutting measures.

Morena Senator Martí Batres also launched a so-called Tupper Challenge last month to encourage lawmakers to bring their own lunch to work in order to cut down on Senate expenses.

Once in the nation’s top job, López Obrador has said he will earn 60% less than current President Peña Nieto and has also pledged to sell the presidential plane, largely forgo personal security and convert the presidential residence into an arts and culture center.

Source: El Universal (sp)

Movement to rid monuments and tributes to a former president is growing

By

-

October 3, 2018

There has been a call for this statue of Díaz Ordaz, situated in Nuevo León, to be demolished.

The movement to remove the name and image of former president Gustavo Díaz Ordaz from the public view is gaining traction.

The Mexico City government was the first to act by removing plaques bearing Díaz Ordaz’s name from the subway system this week, the 50th anniversary of the Tlatelolco massacre.

At least 300 people died after Diaz Ordaz ordered the use of force against protesters in Mexico City on October 2, 1968.

Now, more proposals have sprung up in at least 10 other states.

Citizens in Nuevo León, picks and hammers in hand, volunteered to demolish a soaring eight-meter-high statue of the former president that has stood in the municipality of Linares since 1969.

Their proposal was formally delivered to the mayor with two picks attached.

In Hidalgo, a state congressman presented a proposal to declare former presidents Díaz Ordaz and Luis Echeverría Álvarez (who was interior secretary in 1968), along with former governor Alfonso Corona del Rosal, as persona non grata and remove their names from public spaces.

In Jalisco, university students requested that the municipal governments of Guadalajara and Tlaquepaque remove the name of Díaz Ordaz’s defense secretary, Marcelino García Barragán, from a boulevard.

Similar petitions to remove the ex-president’s name from thoroughfares have been filed in Baja California, Chihuahua, Guanajuato and Coahuila. In Puebla, there is a petition for the removal of a statue in Ciudad Serdán, while in San Luis Potosí people want plaques removed at the state university.

In Tamaulipas the anti-Díaz Ordaz groundswell could mean renaming an entire municipality, Gustavo Díaz Ordaz, located in the northern reaches of the state.

If the movement continues to spread as many as 200 public schools across Mexico, from kindergartens to preparatory schools, could be getting new names.

Source: El Universal (sp), Animal Político (sp)

Big-box retailer Soriana will offer free wifi in all its stores

By

-

October 3, 2018