State of Guanajuato needs more police but few people want the job

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January 15, 2019

Officers in training at the Irapuato police academy.

More police are needed in Guanajuato but municipal authorities are having little success attracting new recruits to their forces.

Governor Diego Sinhue Rodríguez Vallejo said in December that between 2012 and 2018, the number of officers in Guanajuato’s 46 municipal police forces fell from 8,500 to 5,700.

Dismissals, resignations and the murder of police have all contributed to the depletion of officer numbers.

Faced with the difficult task of making up for the shortfall, many municipal governments have improved the pay and benefits they offer.

In Irapuato, authorities have tried to lure recruits by offering the chance to win land in police raffles, providing financial assistance to buy vehicles, guaranteeing access to private hospitals and granting two life insurance policies.

The city government also offers the highest municipal police salaries in the state – 15,000 pesos (US $790) a month for a low-ranking officer – but yet it still has a shortage of around 250 police. There are currently just 36 cadets undertaking training in the Irapuato police academy.

Rodríguez, who was sworn in as governor in September, announced in the first week of December that the government would invest 600 million pesos (US $31.5 million) to purchase new equipment for police and to improve their training and salaries.

To address the police shortage, National Action Party (PAN) lawmaker José Guadalupe Vera Hernández said the state government wants minimum police salaries to be at least 14,000 pesos a month with the opportunity to earn up to 40,000 pesos (US $2,100) in higher-ranking positions.

In some municipalities, such as Cuerámaro, Huanímaro and Doctor Mora, officers currently earn less than 5,000 pesos (US $260) a month.

The need for more officers is underscored by the fact that last year was the most violent in Guanajuato’s history.

There were 2,367 culpable homicides between January and November 2018, according to statistics from the National Public Security System.

In the same period, 64 police officers were killed. In the two previous years, 2017 and 2016, there were just 10 and 12 murders of police respectively.

Much of the violence is believed to be linked to petroleum pipeline theft, drug trafficking and highway theft.

Despite the deteriorating security situation in Guanajuato and with it, increased risks for police officers, the mayor of Irapuato, Ricardo Ortiz, believes that higher salaries in the municipality he governs has helped to retain police officers and attract new ones, although he conceded more are still needed.

Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) lawmaker Héctor Hugo Varela said that conditions for municipal police also need to be improved to retain and attract officers.

He said they are sometimes forced to work shifts of 48 to 72 hours due to a lack of personnel, adding that municipal police must also be provided with the technology, equipment and training they need to do their jobs properly.

Source: El Universal (sp)

70 Guanajuato gas stations will import gasoline from Texas

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MND Staff

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January 15, 2019

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A Mobil tanker truck with a fuel delivery.

Seventy gas stations in Guanajuato will import gasoline from Texas to meet demand amid severe fuel shortages, the state governor has announced.

Diego Sinhue Rodríguez Vallejo told a press conference that so far only Mobil service stations have brought fuel to Guanajuato from Texas, but other brands that until now have only been supplied by the state oil company are taking steps so that they can do the same.

One private company with 45 gas stations in the state is on the verge of signing a deal with a Texas supplier, Rodríguez said, and another with 19 stations is also at the tail end of negotiations with a United States company.

He declined to name the companies that are in negotiations, explaining that they had requested that information not be made public until they finalize their deals.

The French oil firm Total, which has six gas stations in Guanajuato, will also import gasoline from Texas via rail, the governor said, with the first shipment due to arrive on Wednesday.

Rodríguez also said that authorities are in talks with Mobil aimed at having the company increase its import volumes and operate 24 hours a day to meet the demand for gasoline.

“Today [Monday] a Mobil railroad tank car arrived, on Wednesday Total’s will arrive. We’re waiting for the 45 gas stations to settle [their deal] as well as the other 19 . . . Soon we’ll [have] . . . more fuel but I also call on the federal government to quickly resolve the gasoline shortage,” he said.

Rodríguez added that he was in favor of taking action to combat fuel theft but “we cannot stop demanding that the federal government supply gasoline.”

The solution to the shortage problem, the governor said, is not bringing fuel into the state on trains but to open the Salamanca-Irapuato pipeline, which was closed as part of the government’s anti-fuel theft strategy.

Rodríguez said that he will ask the federal Secretariat of Finance to provide tax incentives to affected companies and a special economic plan for Guanajuato because losses associated with the fuel shortage in the state will run into the millions of pesos.

A recent survey found that just 80 of 600 gas stations in the state were operating.

President López Obrador today praised Rodríguez’s efforts to get more gasoline to Guanajuato, declaring that “he’s helping” and that “the sooner supply in that state and the entire country is reestablished, the better.”

However, he ruled out making tax incentives available to affected companies.

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

El Chapo paid US $100-million bribe to Peña Nieto: witness

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January 15, 2019

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Cifuentes, left, and Guzmán. — Cifuentes, left, and Guzmán spent time together hiding in the mountains.

A witness at the New York trial of Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán testified today that former president Enrique Peña Nieto accepted a US $100-million bribe from the former head of the Sinaloa Cartel.

Alex Cifuentes Villa, formerly a Colombian drug lord who worked with Guzmán, confirmed the bribe during cross-examination by Jeffrey Lichtman, a lawyer for Guzmán.

“Mr. Guzmán paid a bribe of $100 million to President Peña Nieto?” Lichtman asked.

“Yes,” Cifuentes replied.

The money was delivered in October 2012 by an intermediary, he said. Peña Nieto was president-elect at the time.

The allegation first came up when the trial began in November. Lichtman said in his opening statement that cartel leader Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada paid millions of dollars in bribes to both Peña Nieto and his predecessor, Felipe Calderón.

Both men denied taking bribes from the cartel.

Cifuentes has described himself as Guzmán’s one-time right-hand man.

They spent time together hiding at remote ranches in the Sierra Madre mountains between 2007 and 2013 while Guzmán was on the run.

Source: Milenio (sp), New York Times (en), Reuters (en)

General touts ‘enormous’ decline in fuel theft since November

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MND Staff

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January 15, 2019

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President López Obrador listens as Velázquez relates the progress made in reducing fuel theft.

The average quantity of fuel stolen on a daily basis has fallen from 80,000 barrels in November to 2,500 barrels this month, according to the army general in charge of the deployment to protect Mexico’s petroleum pipelines.

After measures were implemented to combat fuel theft in December, Arturo Velázquez Bravo said, the amount of fuel stolen declined from 80,000 barrels per day in November to an initial 40,000 barrels, after which it decreased further to 30,000 and then reached historical figures of 2,500 barrels.

“From 80,000 [barrels] to 2,500 is an enormous difference,” Velázquez added.

The general said the government’s decision to deploy the military to protect fuel infrastructure has been effective in combatting fuel theft although he conceded that the strategy “hasn’t been all hunky-dory.”

A clash between soldiers and suspected fuel thieves in Hidalgo Sunday resulted in the death of a civilian while four Federal Police officers were wounded in another confrontation with presumed huachicoleros, as the thieves are known, in Puebla last night.

One of the officers later died in a Mexico City hospital, the federal Security Secretariat said today.

Velázquez said that just over 5,000 members of the army, navy and Federal Police have been deployed to protect five petroleum pipelines across Mexico.

“The country has approximately 56,000 kilometers of [petroleum] pipelines, of which we consider 13,000 kilometers problematic and 6,000 [kilometers] critical . . .” he said.

As part of the strategy to combat fuel theft, the state oil company has been making greater use of tanker trucks to transport fuel rather than pipelines, a move that has caused gasoline shortages in more than 10 states.

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

More surveillance cameras among new security measures in Mexico City

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César Hernández

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January 15, 2019

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video surveillance cameras — More of these are to be installed in Mexico City.

The budget for Mexico City’s C5 security command control center will allow it to purchase 11,200 new surveillance cameras this year, 200 of which will record at 4K ultra-high definition resolution.

Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum said the center’s 1.2-billion-peso allocation (US $63.2 million) will also allow it to install more storage for video footage.

It will be able to store footage recorded by the cameras for 30 days instead of the current seven, preserving criminal evidence for a longer period.

Also in the center’s plans:

• The 889 seismic alert speakers that are malfunctioning will be repaired by the end of February.

• By March, the city government will conclude its distribution of 1,000 geolocalization devices to women living in high-risk conditions. The devices can be used to request police presence remotely and instantly in case of emergency, and are part of the government’s Violet Code program.

• A C5 facility is to be operational at the Central de Abasto – Mexico City’s huge wholesale market — by the end of the year, and will be equipped with 20 cameras that will scan license plates.

• One hundred panic buttons will be installed throughout the market, allowing shoppers and shopkeepers to report crimes and request rapid police presence.

• Tighter collaboration protocols will be implemented with neighboring states, allowing security forces to arrest criminals who flee across state lines.

• Higher salaries for 911 operators, who are poorly paid, according to C5 chief Manuel García Ortegón, leading to high staff turnover. He said savings in other areas will allow the emergency response service to pay its operators higher salaries and promote their professionalization.

He also reported that the number of operators will increase from the current 118 to 250, allowing the emergency service to reduce response time.

Source: El Economista (sp)

Government is monitoring new migrant caravan from Honduras

By

MND Staff

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January 15, 2019

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Migrants begin their long northward trek from Honduras last night.

The federal government is determined to avoid any repeat of violence on the southern border, a high-ranking official said yesterday as a new migrant caravan set out from Honduras bound for the United States.

Alejandro Encinas, undersecretary for human rights, migration and population in the Secretariat of the Interior, said the government has a clear strategy with which to receive the next migrant caravan and warned that its members will not be permitted to “bang down the door.”

A clash between Central American migrants and Mexican police on the Mexico-Guatemala border near Tapachula, Chiapas, in October resulted in the death of one Honduran man.

Thousands of migrants reached Mexico’s southern border in the final months of last year as part of several migrant caravans.

Many of them entered Mexico illegally, some by wading or floating across the Suchiate River, which separates Chiapas from Guatemala.

Large numbers of migrants are now stranded on Mexico’s northern border, especially in Tijuana, where they face a long wait for the opportunity to request asylum in the United States.

Interior Secretary Olga Sánchez Cordero said earlier this month that the government is reinforcing the southern border to guarantee that migrants’ entry into Mexico is safe, orderly and regulated, a strategy reiterated by Encinas yesterday.

“Everybody has the right to human mobility, to orderly, safe and regulated migration, and he who enters in a regular manner . . . will have no impediment . . .” he said.

“We have to guarantee [migrants’] rights but at the same time comply with the regulations that our laws establish,” Encinas added.

The undersecretary also said that the government has been in contact with its counterparts in Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador to discuss their “responsibilities [which] we expect them to meet.”

Around 300 migrants left San Pedro Sula, Honduras, on 30 small buses under the cover of darkness last night to travel to that country’s border with Guatemala, the news agency Associated Press reported.

Another 300 migrants set out on foot in the rain toward the border town of Agua Caliente. One man asked a journalist for his umbrella, saying that he was afraid his daughter would get sick.

A woman who refused to give her name due to safety concerns said that she had decided to leave Honduras with her nine-year-old daughter and 13-year-old son after the girl was raped.

“It’s not possible to live in Honduras anymore,” she said.

A report by Associated Press today said that hundreds more migrants had started trekking out of San Pedro Sula, a notoriously violent city, this morning.

Honduran media reported that that authorities had secured the border with Guatemala to ensure that everyone had proper documentation to leave the country.

If the members of the new migrant caravan succeed in leaving Honduras, crossing Guatemala, entering Mexico and traveling to the border with the United States – a journey that is likely to take weeks or even months – they will then, like the thousands of migrants who preceded them late last year, be faced with a long wait to plead their case for asylum with U.S. authorities.

Meanwhile, United States President Donald Trump continues to try to convince the American public and the Democratic party that there is a “crisis” at the southern border that can only be solved by his long-promised border wall.

“A big new Caravan is heading up to our Southern Border from Honduras. Tell Nancy and Chuck that a drone flying around will not stop them. Only a Wall will work,” Trump wrote on Twitter today, referring to Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority leader Chuck Schumer.

Source: El Sol de México (sp), Associated Press (sp)

Only 34% of video surveillance cameras are operational; fraud accused

By

Madison Koen

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January 15, 2019

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A video surveillance camera in Veracruz.

The new government of Veracruz has accused the previous administration of fraud in the installation of video surveillance cameras.

The public security secretary said only 34% of the 6,316 surveillance cameras are operational.

Hugo Gutiérrez Maldonado told reporters that the irregularities in the new surveillance system were detected during the final part of the transition process. He intends to denounce whoever is found responsible for the alleged fraud.

The previous administration, under Miguel Ángel Yunes Linares, signed a 1.1-billion-peso contract (US $58 million) with Comtelsat, a telecommunications equipment company, to install cameras in six different regions of the state: 380 in Pánuco, 1,112 in Poza Rica, 1,228 in Xalapa, 1,868 in the port of Veracruz, 676 in Fortín de las Flores and 1,052 in Cosoleacaque.

Of the 676 cameras installed in Fortín de las Flores, only 49 work, Gutiérrez said. In the state capital, Xalapa, only 263 of the 1,218 cameras that were installed are operational.

Gutiérrez stated that his department will not be an accessory to the previous administration’s bad management, asserting that he takes the security situation in Veracruz seriously.

Source: Milenio (sp)

Gang invades Guerrero town, terrorizes residents for not paying extortion

By

Madison Koen

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January 15, 2019

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Coahuayutla, Guerrero, target of armed attack.

An armed gang known as Los Cuernudos stormed the community of Barrio Lozano in Guerrero’s Costa Grande region Sunday, terrorizing residents until Monday morning.

The mayor of Coahuayutla, in which the town is located, told reporters that the violence was punishment for not having met a monthly extortion demand of 2 million pesos (US $105,000) and control of the police station, the public works office and the municipal treasury.

Rafael Martínez Ramírez said more than 40 armed civilians descended on Barrio Lozano on Sunday evening, where they stole vehicles and looted stores and private homes.

On Monday morning, they proceeded to the town of Coahuayutla, where they opened fire for two hours, injuring an 11-year-old girl, who was transferred to a hospital in Zihuatanejo.

The Morena party mayor said Los Cuernudos have been active in the region for more than 10 years and have regularly extorted money from many previous mayors.

Martínez added that because of death threats he has received from the gang, he does not live in the community, and has been able to enter city hall on only three occasions since he took office.

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“Listen, I’m not governing [here]. I haven’t been able to govern,” he said in an interview.

The mayor blamed the situation in part on the fact that Coahuayutla does not have a police force: Felipe Heredia Hernández, the previous mayor, dismissed the municipality’s 30 police officers and turned their firearms over to the state government last July. He added that the gang even put up its own candidate in the last election.

Guerrero was Mexico’s most violent state in 2017, and 1,707 homicides were reported in 2018. The Global Index of Impunity Mexico, conducted by the University of the Americas Puebla, gave the state one of the worst scores for impunity for homicide in the country.

Source: El Universal (sp), La Silla Rota (sp)

Sonora mayor arrested at US border with phony passport

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César Hernández

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January 15, 2019

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Mayor Aboyte has been in a US jail since December 27.

The mayor of Bácum, Sonora, was arrested by U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents when he attempted to enter the United States with a phony passport.

Rogelio Aboyte Limón was arrested on December 27 but it was not until yesterday that sources in Mexican public security and the Morena party made the information public.

Party officials said they would not participate in the defense of its members or affiliated public servants accused of illegal activity in or outside the country.

Morena will request Aboyte’s formal removal from office.

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Mayor Aboyte was last seen a few days before his arrest and has been absent from municipal council meetings since. His wife, Mariana Bernal, has attended in his place.

Aboyte has had run-ins with the law before. He was charged with trafficking drugs and people into the United States and sentenced to 84 months behind bars in 2012.

There is at least one other instance on record of Aboyte attempting to enter the U.S. using false documents.

The municipality of Bácum is one of eight that make up the historical territory of the Yoeme, or Yaqui, people. The region has seen a high incidence of activity by organized crime.

Source: Excélsior (sp)

CDMX gasoline supply back to normal in 2 days, in Bajío 4: energy secretary

By

MND Staff

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January 15, 2019

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A tanker delivers fuel to a gas station, a rare sight in some regions during the last three weeks.

Gasoline supply will return to normal in two days in Mexico City and in three to four days in México state and the Bajío region, according to the federal energy secretary.

“For Mexico City, it’s anticipated that service will be reestablished in these days . . . While for the most affected states like México state, Guanajuato and Jalisco it’s anticipated that supply will return to normal in a space of three to four days,” Rocío Nahle said in a radio interview.

But in the case of the capital, Nahle’s forecast appears overly optimistic due to another act of sabotage on the pipeline between the Veracruz port city of Tuxpan and the northern Mexico City borough of Azcapotzalco.

“They’re continuing to break into the pipelines, yesterday they did precisely that. Breaking pipelines, acts of sabotage, they took some pipelines out of operation, the Tuxpan-Azcapotzalco pipeline is out of service,” President López Obrador told reporters this morning.

“They’re working quickly to repair the pipelines so that the lives of workers and residents are not placed at risk,” he added.

It was the fifth time in less than a week that the pipeline was tapped, an act that the president called “deliberate” as criminal elements seek to prevent the restoration of fuel supplies. The pipeline delivers up to 170,000 barrels a day to the Valley of México.

In a television interview this morning, the vice-president of the gas station trade organization Onexpo said that damage to the Tuxpan-Azcapotzalco pipeline would likely prevent gasoline supply from normalizing as quickly as hoped.

“Unfortunately, we’ve just heard about that news and that means once again a delay in the flow of product towards Mexico City,” Fernando González Piña said.

While repairs to the pipeline are taking place, González said, fuel will continue to be transported by tanker trucks, “a means of transport much less efficient than pipelines.”

López Obrador said that he would “take a tour of the entire route of the Tuxpan-Azcapotzalco pipeline” next Tuesday to have meetings and “speak with the people.”

The president added that “the pipeline transports 170,000 barrels a day,” and when fuel thieves or saboteurs target it “we have supply problems.”

However, López Obrador reiterated that there are sufficient gasoline reserves to ensure that Mexico won’t be left without fuel and that the federal government’s anti-fuel theft strategy is working.

He has repeatedly said that fuel shortages in some states are due to logistics rather than supply.

Yesterday, the energy secretary refuted a report published by The Wall Street Journal Friday that said Mexico had significantly reduced gasoline imports from the United States’ Gulf Coast since López Obrador was sworn in as president on December 1.

Referring to all gasoline imports, Nahle said the state oil company bought an average of just under 765,000 barrels a day in the first nine days of January, 36.8% more than December when imports averaged 559,000 barrels a day.

The Secretariat of Energy (Sener) said that once purchases made by private companies, including ExxonMobil, Novum Energy and Windstar, were added to those made by Pemex, daily gasoline imports averaged just under 610,000 barrels a day in December and 814,500 barrels a day in the first nine days of January.

One of two journalists who wrote The Wall Street Journal story, which cited figures from United States research firm ClipperData, expressed doubt that the Sener numbers were correct.

“Given that vast majority of Mexican fuel imports come from U.S. Gulf Coast refineries, it’s hard to reconcile ClipperData’s decline of 30.2% in the daily average for January and SENER’s increase of 32%. Situation is still clear as mud,” Robbie Whelan wrote on Twitter.

More than 10 states have been affected by the gasolines shortages, which in some cases have now entered their third week.

A survey of 2,809 gas stations conducted in several states between January 11 and 13 by the Federal Consumer Protection Agency (Profeco) found that 70% had no fuel.

Motorists in states such as Michoacán, Guanajuato and Jalisco have faced long lines to fill up at service stations with fuel and the shortages have taken a heavy toll on the economy in some parts of the country.

But the government has remained adamant that it will continue to wage its war against fuel theft despite the negative consequences.

The military has been deployed to protect refineries, fuel storage facilities and petroleum pipelines and López Obrador has said that combating fuel theft, a crime that costs the government billions of pesos a year, will take as long as it takes and “will depend on who tires first [between] those who steal fuel and us.”

Nahle said yesterday that “with the security measures being implemented [including] flyovers of the pipelines, [fuel thieves] are not being allowed to arrive and puncture the pipelines whenever they want.”

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

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