Cause of manatees’ deaths still unclear but private study finds heavy metals

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August 9, 2018

Environmental authorities have been unable to determine what has caused the death of at least 30 manatees in Tabasco, but an independent study found elevated heavy metal content in the animals’ habitat.

The manatees have died over the last two months, and all three levels of government have struggled to find the cause.

The federal environmental protection agency Profepa has worked with the National Autonomous University (UNAM), the agriculture sanitation authority Senasica, the National Water Commission (Conagua) and Mexican Institute of Water Technology (IMTA) to test the water in their habitat and samples of the dead manatees’ tissue.

The results have found no evidence that acute toxicity is behind the death of the animals. Specialists are now planning to collect tissue samples from live specimens, as well as from the lagoon beds and surrounding plant species.

Profepa theorized that a number of factors could be involved, including water temperature, the dry season, the accumulation of pollutants and stress on the animal’s food sources, making it difficult to identify a single cause.

Late last month, a manatee rescue and relocation plan was put in motion.

Meanwhile, an independent study by the Institute of Technology of Boca del Río has come up with different results: it detected heavy metal levels well above safe limits.

Ernesto Zazueta, president of the Association of Zoological Parks, Breeding Centers and Aquariums (Azcarm) said that traces of cadmium and lead were found not only in the water but in the carcasses of the dead mammals.

Cadmium levels were seven times greater than the allowed two milligrams per unit, while lead levels were 64 times greater than the acceptable 0.15 milligrams per unit.

Zazueta said the dead animals also showed indications of cerebral edema, which appears after exposure to a toxic agent.

Environment Secretary Rafael Pacchiano Alemán wrote on Twitter that he had not been notified of those test results but his department would get in touch with the researcher in charge in order to collect samples from the same sources.

Source: Univision (sp)

2 federal departments acted illegally to gather evidence against Gordillo

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MND Staff

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August 9, 2018

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A classic shot of the former teachers' union boss, La Maestra.

Corruption charges against former teachers’ union boss Elba Esther Gordillo were dismissed because two federal departments acted illegally to collect evidence against her, according to a federal court ruling.

The stay of proceedings also ordered the immediate release of the ex-SNTE union chief from house arrest, five and a half years after she was arrested and placed in custody on charges of embezzlement and organized crime.

Judge Miguel Ángel Aguilar López established that both the federal Attorney General’s office (PGR) and the financial intelligence unit of the Secretariat of Finance and Public Credit (SHCP) gathered evidence against Gordillo without first obtaining court orders to do so.

The latter department accessed the ex-union boss’s bank accounts to build a case against her, violating bank secrecy.

In addition, the National Educational Workers Syndicate (SNTE) didn’t file a complaint against Gordillo for the diversion of billions of pesos of funds from the union, according to federal officials who supplied details of the ruling to the newspaper Milenio.

The judge’s verdict is not open to appeal, Milenio said, and immediately restores the rights of the 72-year-old widely known as “La Maestra” (The Teacher), who led the SNTE for almost 25 years and gained notoriety for living a lavish lifestyle that critics said was the result of corruption.

To unfreeze her bank accounts, federal officials said, Gordillo simply needs to provide a letter from the court that informs financial institutions of its ruling.

The PGR has now lost three legal battles against the former union boss after courts dismissed cases against her in November 2016 and May last year that together related to the alleged embezzlement of just under 6.6 billion pesos (US $354 million at today’s exchange rate).

The latest ruling absolved Gordillo of charges of the use of funds derived from illegal sources to the tune of 1.98 billion pesos (US $106.1 million), and also declared that there is no evidence that she has links to any organized crime group.

The PGR said in a brief statement issued yesterday that while “it respects the decision . . . it does not agree with it.”

It also said that “the PGR has acted, at all times, with strict compliance to the constitution . . . as well as laws that direct its conduct and above all, with absolute respect for human rights.”

Earlier this year Gordillo’s lawyer, Marco Antonio del Toro, presented evidence to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in Washington D.C. to support her claim that she was a political prisoner and to argue that she had been the victim of serious human rights violations perpetrated by the state because of her opposition to the 2013 educational reforms.

Gordillo was arrested at Toluca International Airport in February 2013, just three months into the six-year presidential term of Enrique Peña Nieto and one day after he signed the educational reform into law.

Gordillo and the SNTE union she headed were formerly staunch supporters of the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) but after switching allegiances to the National Action Party (PAN), La Maestra was expelled from the PRI in 2006.

After receiving news of her absolution and release late Tuesday night, Gordillo issued a statement via a lawyer to say that she needed time to process the court’s decision but committed to holding a press conference on August 20.

Source: Milenio (sp)

Suspected gang boss underwent surgery, lost 30 kilos to avoid capture

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César Hernández

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August 9, 2018

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El Betito, alleged Mexico City gang boss.

The suspected leader of the violent Mexico City criminal organization Tepito Union was arrested yesterday as he was leaving the city for Cuernavaca, Morelos.

Investigations have linked Roberto Moyado Esparza or Roberto Fabián Miranda, also known as “El Betito,” with a number of executions and beheadings in Mexico City and neighboring México state.

Moyado’s gang is also dedicated to drug smuggling and extortion of businesses in the country’s capital, activities that have sparked turf wars with opposing gangs.

Interior Secretary Alfonso Navarrete Prida wrote yesterday on Twitter that Moyado “is one of the main generators of violence and drug trafficking in Mexico City and México state.”

The 37-year-old went to great pains to avoid capture, according to details provided today by National Security Commissioner Renato Sales Heredia.

He told a press conference that Moyado underwent surgery to alter his appearance, including plastic and gastric bypass surgeries and the application of a hair prosthesis. The alleged gang leader “lost more than 30 kilograms and modified his appearance with the intention of avoiding arrest,” Sales said.

Moyado hid from his rivals and the authorities in the upscale Mexico City districts of Polanco, Jardines del Pedregal and San Ángel.

At the time of his arrest, he was traveling with his brother and bodyguard, José. The men were carrying US $10,000 and 4,470 pesos in cash, 140 doses of methamphetamine and a loaded weapon.

Moyado was born in Mexico City and has a criminal record dating back to 2008, when he was arrested for petty theft.

He is believed to have risen to the leadership of the Tepito Union late last year after a series of internal quarrels and the assassination of former leader Francisco Javier Hernández Gómez.

The Tepito Union has been associated with the sale of illegal drugs in nightclubs of the Zona Rosa, Condesa and Polanco districts, as well as with extortion, mainly in the Cuauhtémoc borough, Sales said.

The security chief added that the gang has also been implicated in the murder of two people whose dismembered remains were found on June 17 in San Juan Ixhuatepec.

Source: Milenio (sp)

Sargassum removal equipment purchased but it won’t arrive till fall

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Tony Richards

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August 9, 2018

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A worker rakes up sargassum in Quintana Roo.

The federal Environment Secretariat (Semarnat) has acquired special machinery to remove sargassum seaweed in the Caribbean Sea, but it won’t be delivered until November.

Environment Secretary Rafael Pacchiano said his department had researched what was available in other countries, but the reality was that the technology is limited.

The few vessels that can be used to clean up the seaweed before it hits the beaches are very expensive and their capacity is limited, he said, making the process a slow one.

But collecting it before it lands on the shore is preferable to gathering it with heavy machinery on the beach due to the environmental damage that would result, Pacchiano said.

Other options that have been explored by Semarnat are methods of diverting the weed while it is still in the water and analyzing its possible use for food, pharmaceutical or energy purposes.

The federal government has allocated 70 million pesos (US $3.7 million) to address the sargassum problem.

A 200-million-peso project to divert the sargassum on the open sea is already under way with the installation of containment booms set to begin this week, a project being undertaken by the state of Quintana Roo with federal authorization.

The booms consist of 50-centimeter-deep plastic barriers hanging from buoys. With the help of wind and ocean currents, the plastic fence will divert the seaweed away from the beaches and then gathered for disposal on dry land.

The first barrier is being installed as a pilot project at Punta Nizuc, near Cancún.

“It won’t solve the problem because it depends on the currents and the wind,” said state Environment Secretary Alfredo Arellano Guillermo, “but it can reduce the quantity that arrives on the beaches.”

Federal and state officials are scheduled to meet today with academics from the National Autonomous University to look for alternatives for dealing with the seaweed.

Record amounts of sargassum have been piling up on Caribbean beaches this year, and more is forecast to come. Academics have warned of a potential environmental disaster while the tourist industry is worried about a disaster in economic terms.

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

Gunmen kill six in Oaxaca ambush

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Tony Richards

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August 9, 2018

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The vehicle that was ambushed yesterday in Oaxaca.

A five-year-old child was among the six fatalities in an ambush yesterday in the Mixteca region of Oaxaca.

A family from Peña Colorada was traveling to Huajuapan de León to sell their wares when armed civilians attacked on the road between Santa Catarina Yutandú and Tezoatlán de Segura y Luna.

Five people died at the scene and two were wounded. One of those died later in hospital.

The motive for the attack was not apparent but the Oaxaca Attorney General said it might have been due to a personal vendetta or a territorial dispute.

The latter is not uncommon in the region.

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

Chedraui to challenge convenience stores with Súper Che, Supercito

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MND Staff

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August 8, 2018

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Supermarket chain plans to open more of these. — Chedraui’s investment will create more than 6,400 jobs in Tamaulipas over five years. (Chedraui)

Supermarket chain Chedraui is looking to grab a slice of the convenience store market dominated by chains such as Oxxo and 7-Eleven by opening 30 new mini-supermarkets this year.

Branded under the names Súper Che and Supercito, the stores range in size from 240 to 930 square meters whereas Chedraui’s largest supermarkets are on average 7,000 square meters.

The publicly listed company will invest a total of 3.95 billion pesos (US $213.8 million) in 2018, which will mainly be focused on increasing sales.

The chain is also aiming to open 12 regular and súper Chedraui supermarkets by the end of the year, while some of the resources will be directed towards its interests in the United States.

In the first six months of the year, six Supercito stores and one regular supermarket opened, meaning that the bulk of the investment will be spent in the second half of 2018.

Based on comments made by company CEO José Antonio Chedraui Eguía, much larger investment will follow in the coming years.

“We could probably open 5,000 stores in Mexico in this format [Súper Che and Supercito],” he said in a telephone call with analysts.

“Just in Mexico City there is space for more than 1,000 stores . . . Consequently, we see a great growth opportunity in these two new formats we are testing.”

The mini-format stores that have already opened are located in Mexico City, Villahermosa, Veracruz and Toluca and further growth in the sector will focus on the south of the country, where Chedraui Eguía believes the company could benefit from the incoming government’s development and decentralization plans.

Chedraui first launched Súper Che in 2005 but the name soon disappeared and didn’t reappear again until 2016. The first Supercito stores opened last year.

Together they currently account for 12% of all Chedraui stores and last year contributed to 1% of the chain’s total sales.

Source: El Financiero (sp)

Fed up with living in ‘a war zone,’ citizens march for peace in Cajeme, Sonora

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MND Staff

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August 8, 2018

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Public takes to the streets in Cajeme. — Public takes to the streets in Ciudad Obregón.

There was an average of one murder a day last month at the hands of organized crime in Cajeme, Sonora, which has the distinction of being the only municipality in the state that is among the 50 most violent in the country.

As always, the violence is fueled by a turf war, in this case cells of the Sinaloa Cartel, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) and the criminal gang known as Los Salazar are believed to be behind the murders.

The escalating violence along with the death of a young man shot by state police served as triggers for a large protest at the end of last month in Ciudad Obregón.

Hundreds of citizens, including family members of victims of crime, took to the streets to demand peace and justice amid violence that bumped the municipality’s July homicides to the highest level in the past five years.

There were 32 homicide victims last month, including a man who had lined up to buy tortillas but was mistaken as a rival by a criminal gang and a well-known local lawyer who was gunned down at a shopping center in front of dozens of onlookers.

There have been 104 homicides to date this year in the southern Sonoran municipality; last year there were 198 and in 2016 there were 142.

The most prominent recent case, which sparked an even greater than usual outpouring of emotion and anger, is that of Alexis Rivera, an Uber driver who was killed by state police in Ciudad Obregón on July 22 while working to pay for his studies.

Police said Rivera was a “sicario,” or hit man, and that he had shot at them but members of his family reject the claim.

“. . . We know perfectly what he was like and the values that he had . . . he could never have been the sicario that they mention so many times in the police reports,” the deceased man’s sister, Joana Rivera, told the newspaper Milenio.

Rivera bled to death inside his car just blocks from the family home after calling his mother to ask for help.

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Joana Rivera said that early reports from the Sonora Attorney General’s office indicated that Alexis had not fired at police as claimed, adding that there is video evidence that two state police officers had planted a gun with the victim to substantiate their version of events.

In an interview with Milenio, Cajeme Mayor Faustino Chávez didn’t comment on Rivera’s case but said the fight to control the local methamphetamine trade is largely responsible for the situation.

“Its origin is related to the high consumption of drugs, mainly cristal, a drug that has penetrated a lot in the community and as a result there is a criminal chain reaction that obviously culminates in these disputes . . . over the sale of this drug,” he said.

Chávez also said there has been a lack of coordination between municipal, state and federal authorities and security forces, explaining that “there has been coordination for very short periods but it hasn’t been permanent.”

Restaurant owner Raúl Ayala, who organized the peace march, described Cajeme as a “war zone” and said that the demands of the citizens who participated in the protest had been sent to Alfonso Durazo, a fellow Sonoran whom president-elect Andrés Manuel López Obrador has tapped to be public security secretary in the new government.

The demands weren’t submitted to any current authorities, Ayala explained, because none has taken any notice of their previous pleas.

Source: Milenio (sp)

As the homicides mount in Ciudad Juárez, there is fear that history will repeat itself

By

MND Staff

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August 8, 2018

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José Luis Castillo at yesterday's forum wearing his canvas sign that bears a photo of his missing daughter. It reads, 'Don’t forget me. I am missing.'

The murder of 11 people in a home in Ciudad Juárez last week amid a wave of violence has triggered fear among residents that the northern border city could see a repeat of the soaring homicide rates recorded late in the last decade.

The bodies of eight men and three women were found tied up in a house in the Praderas de los Oasis neighborhood last Friday. All of the victims had been tortured and two of the women had been sexually assaulted, police said.

Three women and five men were arrested Monday in connection with the crime, and municipal police said that the suspects are members of the Aztecs, a criminal gang with ties to the Juárez cartel.

As news of the homicides and grisly photos of the crime scene started to filter out, the anxiety levels of some residents began to rise.

“It was like traveling in time and being back in 2010,” said Imelda Marrufo, director of Red Mesa de Mujeres, a women’s support group for victims of crime.

“In recent months, we’ve had [homicide] figures similar to those in 2010, days with 15 deaths on average. In May, June and July, we’ve again had mass crimes that are very similar to those of that painful past. The death of the 11 people in that house is not the first [crime of this kind] and it’s even more concerning that they were young people who authorities tend to criminalize,” she said.

There were 541 violent homicides in Ciudad Juárez in the first six months of 2018, according to a count conducted by the newspaper Milenio, an increase of 35.2% compared to the second half of last year.

While the figure is still well short of the 3,103 homicides recorded in the metropolitan area of Juárez in 2010 and the 2,643 reported in 2009, the return of mass murders has set off alarm bells in the city.

Other recent multiple homicides have included the slaying of six people in a home in the Los Alcades neighborhood in late June and the execution of five men in a barber shop later the same day.

More than half of all homicides in Chihuahua in the first half of the year occurred in the northern border city, statistics show.

Kidnappings and extortion also continue to plague Juárez, where president-elect Andrés Manuel López Obrador and members of his security cabinet yesterday held the first of a series of planned security forums, which the incoming government has said will inform its crime-fighting strategy.

While yesterday’s town hall-style meeting was being held, a group of residents staged a parallel protest against crime.

Among the participants was the father of a 14-year-old girl who disappeared more than nine years ago in Juárez, a city that is also notorious for its high femicide rate.

José Luis Castillo told Milenio that since his daughter went missing 3,450 days ago, authorities have told him that she was probably “hanging out with the wrong crowd” at the time of her disappearance.

Every day, Castillo takes to the streets wearing a canvas sign emblazoned with the image of his daughter and the words: “Don’t forget me. I am missing.”

“For them [the authorities] it’s very easy to criminalize her or to say, ‘leave her,’ she must have been with a guy and if she hasn’t been found it’s because she doesn’t want to be found,” he said, adding “not all those murdered are involved in selling drugs, not all of the disappeared young women are prostitutes.”

Statistics compiled by a local activist group show that 23 young people have disappeared and 73 young people have been murdered in Ciudad Juárez this year. Castillo charged that “there is not a single person who has been arrested for these crimes.”

Many protesters yesterday said the increase in violence last decade, especially that of 2010, coincided with the arrival of military forces in Juárez as part of former president Felipe Calderón’s war on drugs.

Gero Fong, a member of an anti-militarization group, said that he and others were opposed to the Internal Security Law, that seeks to formalize the role of the military in law enforcement.

Future public security secretary Alfonso Durazo has said that the new government will gradually withdraw the military from public security duties as part of its security strategy that could also include an amnesty law and the legalization of some drugs.

In the meantime, citizens in Juárez can only hope that history will not repeat itself.

Source: Milenio (sp)

Mazatlán a candidate for UNESCO Creative Cities designation

By

César Hernández

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August 8, 2018

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Zarandeo, one of the typical Sinaloa dishes cited by the governor.

Mazatlán is seeking international recognition as a center for gastronomy through UNESCO’s Creative Cities network.

The popular tourist destination in Sinaloa is a candidate for the network in the field of gastronomy which, the governor said, is one of the state’s attractive features.

“If there’s something that sets Sinaloa apart, and we’ve said this many times, it’s gastronomy,” said Quirino Ordaz Coppel, citing shellfish called callos, a grilled fish called zarandeo, a hot and spicy shrimp dish known as aguachile, gobernador tacos and fish called cauques as examples.

“When someone talks about those dishes they’re talking about Sinaloa.”

Mayor José Joel Bouciéguez Lizárraga said the year has been a historic one for Mazatlán, with international events such as the annual travel trade fair, Tianguis Turísticos. Now, he said, the UNESCO candidacy is something else of which citizens can be proud.

The decision whether to approve Mazatlán’s admission will be made in October 2019.

The network is composed of 180 cities in 72 countries, which are designated Creative Cities in gastronomy and six other categories: crafts and folk art, design, film, literature, music and media arts.

Mexico has six cities in the network: Mexico City and Puebla in the design category, San Cristóbal de las Casas in crafts and folk art, Guadalajara for media arts, Morelia for music and Ensenada for gastronomy.

The network was created in 2004 to promote cooperation with and among cities that have identified creativity as a strategic factor for sustainable urban development. The cities work together to place creativity and cultural industries at the heart of their development plans at the local level and cooperate actively at the international level.

Source: Milenio (sp), El Sol de Mazatlán (sp)

Puebla mayor’s wife arrested for petroleum theft

By

César Hernández

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August 8, 2018

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Federal Police have arrested the wife of a mayor in the state of Puebla on suspicion of petroleum theft in a crackdown on huachicoleros, as the thieves are known.

Police searched homes in Villa Lázaro Cárdenas in the municipality of Venustiano Carranza, turning up six firearms, 10 vehicles and more than 50,000 liters of stolen fuel.

One of the houses searched is owned by Mayor Rafael Valencia Ávila. Inside, police seized several firearms, ammunition and two vehicles and arrested the mayor’s wife, Ilse Bernabé Gutiérrez, 27.

Whereabouts of the mayor, who was a target of the search, are unknown.

Police also found a room containing surveillance equipment used to monitor the area.

In another home, police arrested Omar Daniel “El Kakas” Romero Morales, 33, believed to be one of the principal petroleum thieves in the area, and his wife, Griselda Cabrera Valencia, 33.

Here they found more firearms and the stolen fuel.

A search of a third house yielded more firearms, vehicles, bulletproof vests, wrapped packages of marijuana and methamphetamine and drums containing about 300 liters of fuel.

Source: Milenio (sp), Eje Central (sp)