New-car sales down 6% so far this year, the lowest level in four years

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July 5, 2019

toyota dealership — Mexico's leading automotive brands saw sales decline in June, but Toyota sales went the other way.

Light-vehicle sales hit a four-year low in the first half of 2019, which industry representatives say is partly due to uncertainty over the political and economic situation in the country.

In the first six months, 638,597 new cars were sold in Mexico, a decline of 6% compared with the same period in 2018 and the lowest number for the period in four years.

According to Guillermo Rosales, director of the Mexican Automotive Dealers Association (AMDA), the numbers show that the decline in new car sales that began in mid-2017 is continuing.

“The decline that started in June 2017 was accentuated in the first half of 2019, and we predict that it will continue into the second half,” he said.

New car purchases fell 8.4% in the first half of 2018 compared to the same period in 2017.

Rosales said the decline in sales can be attributed to rising debt and falling purchasing power, as well as uncertainty about Mexico’s economic and political future.

“[Those elements] are joining a panorama of risks which could lead to even bigger declines in vehicle sales than the 6.3% decline forecast for the year,” he said.

In June, Nissan, General Motors and Volkswagen were able to maintain their positions as the top three in Mexico despite significant declines in sales volumes compared with June 2018, of 16.9%, 23.8% and 10% respectively. Toyota and KIA, which rank fourth and fifth in market share, increased their sales volume in June by 9% and 4.8%, but still trail behind their competitors in market share.

Gerardo Gómez, Mexico country manager for J.D. Power, said he expects sales numbers to improve in 2020.

“We see that the market could be in a better situation next year, because some of the economic changes in the country will have stabilized, and there will be a process of renewing vehicles,” he said. “But for this year, vehicle sales will continue falling compared with 2018.”

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

Uncle sought for beating Oaxaca child who lost sight in one eye

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Madison Koen

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July 5, 2019

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Oaxaca Children's Hospital treated the child after three others turned him away.

Authorities in Oaxaca are looking for a man accused of aggravated assault after he allegedly beat his 2-year-old nephew, leaving the child blind in one eye.

According to Deputy Attorney General Jorge Flores Sánchez, the incident in which Luis Hernández Santiago beat his nephew Mario occurred 21 days ago in Santa Lucía Monteverde, in the municipality of Putla de Guerrero. He added that the man had also beaten the boy’s mother.

Mario’s mother told doctors at a rural hospital that Hernández had struck the boy’s head with a closed fist, causing severe swelling, bruising and trauma to the eye and surrounding area.

However, the hospital declined to treat the child, citing a shortage of staff and a lack of specialists. So Mario was transferred to two more hospitals where he was also declined treatment. But he was finally admitted at the Oaxaca Children’s Hospital on special orders from Governor Alejandro Murat, who said the boy’s treatment will be covered by government health insurance.

Attorney General Rubén Vasconcelos said that domestic violence is one of the highest reported crimes in Oaxaca and it is on the rise: the state has seen an 18% increase in reports in the last six months.

Jesús Rodríguez, deputy prosecutor for victims’ support, said the Central Valleys region accounts for most reports of domestic violence. In the last six months, he said, they have received 129 cases of girls and 99 cases of boys who have been victims of violence committed against them by a parent or guardian.

“We have determined that the use and abuse of illegal substances and problems with alcoholism are the cause of the most serious incidences . . . .”

Source: Milenio (sp), Quadratín Oaxaca (sp)

Federal Police probed for irregularities in 2.5bn-peso purchase

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Simon Schatzberg

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July 5, 2019

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Security Secretary Durazo: police overpaid for equipment.

Security Secretary Alfonso Durazo announced that the Federal Police are being investigated for an “irregular” purchase of a piece of intelligence equipment that is codenamed “Rafael.”

In a press conference on Thursday called to respond to demands of Federal Police officers who are protesting their incorporation into the National Guard, Durazo said the piece of “highly powerful” equipment can be used for the analysis, design and implementation of an intelligence exploitation system.

The Federal Police paid 2.5 billion pesos (US $131 million) for the tool in December 2015 , which Durazo said was four times its market value.

“[The purchase] did not guarantee the best conditions for the state, violated legally defined procedures, caused payments to be delayed and left behind a debt of approximately 1.3 billion pesos,” he said.

Durazo filed an administrative complaint before the Public Function Secretariat against the Federal Police for the transaction on February 7. He also said that those found responsible for having authorized the purchase will face criminal charges.

“The contract for the acquisition of this product set up a multi-year payment scheme, but we could not find an authorization from the Secretariat of Finance, or the report that should have been sent to the Public Function Secretariat when such a contract is made,” said Durazo.

In his morning press conference on Thursday, President López Obrador said, “I have ordered a thorough investigation into the reports of corruption, and that the management of the Federal Police be investigated further.”

On Wednesday, officers who are unhappy with how they are being incorporated into the National Guard demanded the resignations of the Federal Police leadership, whom they accuse of corruption and involvement in organized crime.

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

Posting ex-military at customs offices is a strategy to fight Jalisco cartel

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MND Staff

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July 5, 2019

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The Nuevo Laredo customs office is the busiest in Mexico.

The plan to appoint former military personnel to leadership positions at customs offices is a strategy to fight the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), according to sources in the federal government.

The newspaper Milenio revealed yesterday that the Federal Tax Administration agreed to a proposal from the National Defense Secretariat (Sedena) for ex-military chiefs and officials to be appointed as customs administrators and deputy administrators at 22 of Mexico’s 44 customs offices.

Sedena said the plan would “guarantee a reduction in the levels of corruption” at the offices.

The first offices at which the retired military personnel will assume control are those in Manzanillo, Colima; Reynosa and Nuevo Laredo in Tamaulipas; Tijuana, Baja California; and Veracruz, Veracruz.

New administrators for the five offices have already been identified but authorities have not yet decided who will go where.

The customs offices prioritized by Sedena are considered among the most corrupt in the country, and authorities say that large quantities of drugs and/or arms pass through them.

Unnamed federal officials told Milenio that the objective of the plan to appoint ex-military personnel is clear: to cut off the flow of monetary resources to the CJNG, considered Mexico’s most power criminal organization.

The cartel controls the drug markets of Tijuana and Nuevo Laredo, although the Sinaloa Cartel poses a threat to its supremacy in both cities.

Border crossings in the two cities are the main ports of entry to the United States for shipments of heroin, fentanyl, cocaine and methamphetamine, according to a 2018 report by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.

Nuevo Laredo is the main export center for consignments of drugs destined for cities in Texas as well as Chicago and New York, while narcotics that enter the United States via Tijuana supply California and other locations on the west coast.

Reynosa has been identified as an important port of entry for the trafficking of arms while large quantities of methamphetamine, fentanyl and precursor chemicals used in the manufacture of illicit drugs enter the country through the port city of Manzanillo.

Four of the five customs offices where the military takeover will initially take place rank among the 10 busiest in the country.

Almost 4.4 million foreign trade transactions have taken place this year in Nuevo Laredo, making the customs office in that city the busiest in Mexico.

Tijuana, Reynosa and Manzanillo rank as the third, fifth and ninth busiest offices respectively.

Despite the prevalence of corruption in Mexico’s customs system, the country’s 44 offices continue to inject significant revenue into public coffers.

Approximately 845 billion pesos (US $44.4 billion) per year is collected via foreign trade-related taxes and duties.

How many millions or billions of pesos end up in the pockets of corrupt customs officials is unknown.

Source: Milenio (sp)

Retired military personnel to be named administrators at customs offices

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MND Staff

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July 4, 2019

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Ex-military personnel will help rid customs offices of corruption. — Ex-military will help clean up customs.

The Federal Tax Administration (SAT) has agreed to a proposal for retired military personnel to take up leadership positions at 22 of Mexico’s 44 customs offices in order to help reduce corruption.

The proposal was made by the Secretariat of National Defense (Sedena), which said it would “guarantee a reduction in the levels of corruption” at the offices.

Obtained by the newspaper Milenio, the Sedena proposal states that “the corruption problem at customs offices fosters organized crime activities such as the smuggling of arms, drugs, chemical precursors, cash and goods in general.”

Customs officials have also allegedly committed other acts of corruption such as asking for bribes in order not to review luggage, providing informal receipts for tax payments and charging excessive fines for offenses such as not declaring merchandise.

As part of a crackdown on customs corruption, SAT dismissed the administrators of the Manzanillo, Colima, and Mexico City offices in May. A lot of the fentanyl that is shipped to Mexico from Asia enters the country in Manzanillo, according to the federal government.

Under the Sedena scheme, 66 former military chiefs and officials will be employed as customs administrators and the same number will take on deputy administrator roles.

The ex-army members will be deployed to customs offices in Mexicali, Tecate and Tijuana in Baja California; Ciudad Acuña and Piedras Negras in Coahuila; Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua city, Ojinaga and Puerto Palomas in Chihuahua; Nogales and San Luis Rio Colorado in Sonora; Altamira, Ciudad Camargo, Ciudad Miguel Alemán, Ciudad Reynosa, Matamoros and Nuevo Laredo in Tamaulipas; Manzanillo, Colima; Lázaro Cárdenas, Michoacán; Colombia, Nuevo León; and Veracruz, Veracruz.

Sedena said that former military personnel should be appointed to customs roles based on a range of factors including “adequate performance” in their military careers and the completion of studies in areas such as customs, international business, foreign trade, management, accounting, finance or law.

It’s not the first time that SAT has entered into a customs agreement with Sedena.

The two federal departments struck a deal last year for 1,139 members of the armed forces to provide security at all 44 customs offices.

Source: Milenio (sp)

Restoration finished on church where Benito Juárez married in 1843

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Madison Koen

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July 4, 2019

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Templo San Felipe Neri in Oaxaca city has been restored after it was damaged in 2017.

The Oaxaca city church in which former president Benito Juárez was married in 1843 has been fully restored, the Secretariat of Culture has announced.

Restoration work at Templo San Felipe Neri was led by experts at the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) after it was damaged by earthquakes in September of 2017.

The San Felipe church is considered a jewel of baroque architecture for its characteristic ceilings and façade, its elaborately carved and gold-laminated altar and its use of green cantera — a volcanic stone unique to the region. It is also the church that bore witness to the marriage of Benito Juárez and then-Oaxaca city socialite Margarita Maza on July 31, 1843.

Restoration first focused on a crack in the wall behind the main altar, filling in the damaged area with liquid injections of lime.

Next, experts filled in cavities left on an elaborately painted section of a niche using a mixture of lime and sand in equal proportions to those used in the original construction, while carefully scraping away the remains of an earlier restoration effort.

The newly-restored church in Oaxaca's historic center. — The newly-restored church in Oaxaca’s historic center.

Finally, workers carefully restored the paint over damaged sections and cleaned dust from the church’s main altar to conclude the project.

Construction of the church began in 1733 and was completed in 1770.

Source: Milenio (sp), La Razón (sp)

Mexico deported 22,000 migrants in June, up 33% over May and a 13-year high

By

MND Staff

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July 4, 2019

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Immigration agents detain migrants in Acayucan, Veracruz.

Deportations hit a 13-year high in June, according to preliminary government statistics showing that 33% more migrants were sent home last month compared to May.

Preliminary data from the National Immigration Institute shows that 21,912 migrants were deported last month compared to 16,507 the month before.

The figure is the highest since March 2006 when the government of Vicente Fox returned 23,529 people to their country of origin.

Arrests of migrants were also up last month to more than 29,000, a 23% increase on May numbers.

The increases came after United States President Donald Trump threatened in May to impose tariffs on all Mexican imports if the country didn’t do more to stop illegal immigration into the U.S.

As part of an agreement reached by the two countries on June 7 that ended the tariff threat, Mexico agreed to send 6,000 National Guard troops to the southern border, and subsequently sent almost 15,000 federal troops to the northern border.

Mexico’s progress in stemming migration will be evaluated 45 days after the deal was signed, and if the United States decides that the desired results are not being achieved, the government will “take all necessary steps” to implement a safe third country agreement, according to a supplementary agreement to the June 7 pact.

In December, the new government’s first month in office, just 6,373 foreigners were deported while in January more than 10,000 humanitarian visas were issued to migrants.

However, amid increasing pressure from the United States to stop the flow of migrants from Central America, the government started implementing stricter immigration policies that have hardened further in recent weeks.

All told, 82,132 people were deported in the first half of this year, 22,000 more than in the same period last year even though President López Obrador pledged to adopt a kinder approach in dealing with migrants.

Most of those deported are from the Northern Triangle Central American countries of Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala.

However, increasing numbers of migrants from Africa and Caribbean countries such as Cuba and Haiti have entered Mexico in recent months, and 81 Haitians were deported on Saturday.

Mexico’s stricter enforcement against undocumented migrants will force migrants to “take more risks to avoid authorities,” according to Claudia Masferrer, a migration expert at the College of Mexico.

Migrants could be tempted to use human traffickers or seek to take more dangerous, more remote routes to the border with the United States.

Despite the increase in the number of deportations and detentions last month, Masferrer said it is “difficult to know if the statistics are going to keep the United States happy.”

However, for the Mexican government, the signs are promising.

Trump said Monday that Mexico is doing a “great job” after which López Obrador remarked that he was glad that the U.S. president “recognizes that we’re making an effort to live up to our commitment to apply our laws and, without violating human rights, reduce the flow of migrants.”

Kevin McAleenan, acting head of the United States Department of Homeland Security, said Friday that the arrests of migrants at the southern U.S. border was expected to drop by 25% in June after more than 144,000 illegal border-crossers – a 13-year high – were detained in May.

Source: El País (sp)

Flash flood kills eight tourists on excursion in Coahuila; 2 missing

By

Madison Koen

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July 4, 2019

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The area where the flash flood occurred, killing eight.

Search and rescue teams have recovered the bodies of eight tourists who were killed by a flash flood as they explored the Lima canyon in Parras, Coahuila, on Tuesday.

State Civil Protection chief Francisco Martínez Ávalos said that strong rains Tuesday afternoon provoked a sudden flood in an area that seconds previously would have been dry. It swept away and drowned the tourists who were traveling in a van and an ATV.

The state Attorney General’s Office said searchers had recovered the bodies of a 65-year-old man, a woman and four young boys and girls aged 14 to 19 after they were discovered yesterday by a teenager riding his horse through the canyon and another man.

Later that evening, search and rescue crews discovered two more bodies, a 14-year-old girl and an 18-year-old boy.

The bodies of all of the victims are awaiting autopsies to determine the official cause of death. It is unknown what relationship might have existed between the victims, though information provided by local residents suggested that they might have been part of an excursion led by the older man.

The ATV that was being used by the visitors to the Lima canyon.

Searchers continue to look for another potential victim, a 16-year-old girl, with the help of a helicopter provided by the state government.

Source: Reforma (sp), El Imparcial (sp), Vanguardia (sp)

Over 250 Mayan communities could be relocated around train stations

By

Simon Schatzberg

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July 4, 2019

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Wildlife bridges will protect fauna on the Maya Train route.

Federal tourism officials are looking into relocating more than 250 Mayan communities that are located near the 15 stations on the Maya Train line, according to a document obtained by the newspaper Milenio.

The 28-page document outlines a plan by the National Tourism Promotion Fund (Fonatur) to move the communities into 15 “prefabricated villages” around the stations, which would be home to as many as 50,000 people each.

The project would include the construction of housing, businesses and parks for the new communities, which would generate income by providing services to visitors, who could number as many as three million per year.

The document includes a graphic of a prototype for a planned community around the Maya Train station in Palenque, Chiapas, which would be the first station to be built. The plan includes an inner ring centered around the train station and the municipal palace, which includes businesses and a bus terminal. Farther away are parks, houses, duplexes and apartments.

Fonatur director Rogelio Jiménez Pons had previously estimated that the Maya Train will trigger investment of 150 billion pesos (US $7.9 billion) in commercial and residential real estate investment around the 15 stations.

Those stations are located in the states of Quintana Roo, Yucatán, Campeche, Chiapas and Tabasco.

Other details revealed by Fonatur include the construction of wildlife bridges to protect fauna on the 1,400-kilometer route and that the train will travel at a maximum speed of 145 km/h when carrying passengers, and 125 km/h when carrying freight.

Jiménez said today that indigenous communities will be consulted about the train in three months’ time at the latest. He told a press conference that consultation will begin once basic engineering and environmental impact studies have been completed.

The total cost of the project, which will be split between government and private investment, could be as high as 150 billion pesos.

Source: Milenio (sp), Obras (sp)

AMLO claims ulterior motive behind Federal Police protest against National Guard

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MND Staff

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July 4, 2019

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President López Obrador claimed yesterday there was a “dark hand” behind the protests by Federal Police officers against their incorporation into the National Guard, insinuating that they are being orchestrated by opponents of the government with the sole purpose of damaging his administration.

In a video posted to social media, the president said “there is no reason” for the protests, adding “it’s not a just cause, no Federal Police officer is being dismissed.”

“. . . It’s important for everyone to know the information, especially all those who act in good faith: there is a dark hand in this issue,” López Obrador said.

However, the president pledged that his government won’t “repress” the protesting police, asserting “we’re not the same” as previous administrations and that “the matter will be resolved because no injustice is being committed.”

Hundreds of Federal Police officers protested yesterday against plans to absorb them into the newly formed National Guard, arguing that their salaries will be cut and they will lose benefits.

They also claimed that if they refuse to join the new force, they will lose their jobs. Police are continuing to protest in Mexico City today and have maintained road blockades that were set up in different parts of the capital yesterday.

Despite the officers’ claims, the president has stressed that the process of transferring from one security force to the other is “voluntary” and that those who join the National Guard will have “the same salaries” and “the same benefits.”

In his video message, López Obrador said that 10,000 Federal Police officers have passed an entrance test and are being incorporated into the Guard.

Other agents won’t join the new security force because they didn’t pass the test, they don’t want to be evaluated by military personnel, they’re not in good physical condition or they have poor behavior records, he said.

“But they’re going to continue working in the Federal Police,” López Obrador added. “No one will be dismissed, no one will be forced to go into another [security] force.”

At his morning press conference today, the president said that cases of corruption have been detected in the Federal Police and reiterated his claim that there is no reason for the officers’ protests.

López Obrador explained that he made his “dark hand” claim “because those who are leading the protests don’t work at the Federal Police – they belong to organizations of another kind.”

Later this morning, officers rejected the president’s corruption and “dark hand” claims, asserting that no one outside the security force is involved in their protests.

However, at an 11:00am press conference, Security Secretary Alfonso Durazo elaborated on López Obrador’s assertion, claiming that there are people “linked to interest groups” behind the protests.

He said that Ignacio Benavente Torres, president of a human rights group who spent time in prison for kidnapping, is one of the protest leaders, and that the police officers asked former president Felipe Calderón to represent them.

“It’s not a coincidence that one of the representatives of the Federal Police asked ex-president Felipe Calderón to be their union representative,” Durazo said, adding that “critics of the government” are taking advantage of the officers’ protests to try to damage the López Obrador administration.

“We can’t fall into the little game of those who are trying to provoke us and say that we are the ones who abandoned the Federal Police,” he said.

However, the security secretary also said the Federal Police will be disbanded within 18 months and that its officers will enter the National Guard or, if they prefer, a range of other organizations such as the National Immigration Institute, Civil Protection services, customs or the National Anti-Kidnapping Commission.

Source: El Universal (sp), Notimex (sp), El Financiero (sp), Milenio (sp), Radio Fórmula (sp), Publimetro (sp)

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