Tax agency uncovers ‘aggressive’ new fraud scheme

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November 8, 2018

The Federal Tax Administration (SAT) has uncovered a new and “aggressive” tax fraud scheme involving more than 13,000 partners and shareholders of 600,000 companies, many of which are bogus.

Unidentified media organizations and professional soccer teams are among the entities that have avoided paying tax of between 1 million and 120 million pesos (US $50,000 to $5.9 million) each.

Samuel Magaña, a high-ranking auditor at the SAT, told a press conference yesterday that the fraudulent scheme is being used to avoid paying income tax (ISR).

The scheme basically consists of companies contracting supposed suppliers that are in fact bogus companies, which in turn subcontract other ghost companies, creating a chain of simulated suppliers that operate without employees, don’t pay taxes and report minimal profits or losses.

“They disguise not paying this withholding [ISR] to the federal treasury through certain tax applications such as clearances and credits: that is, they generate or simulate tax credits, income tax losses or workers’ wage credits that don’t exist in order to kill the entire [tax] retention . . .” Magaña said.

“We have detected these companies’ chains, their partners and shareholders, their legal representatives, their tax residence, telephone numbers, emails . . . and that allows us to conclude that this is a simulated scheme,” he added.

He said that criminal investigations into some of the fraud cases detected are already very advanced and that prison sentences of five to 15 years could be imposed on those found guilty.

As it detects new fraud cases, the tax administration contacts companies to ask them to voluntarily correct their tax situation and thus avoid being investigated for possible criminal activity.

To date, around 400 million pesos (US $19.8 million) in lost tax revenue has been recovered by the SAT including 161 million pesos from a single tax evader, Magaña said.

Among the irregularities the SAT detected in the fraud scheme were the inclusion of dead people on companies’ payrolls along with employees who supposedly worked for up to 27 companies at the same time.

Source: Milenio (sp)

Cancún to adopt single-command policing; officers end strike

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MND Staff

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November 8, 2018

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Disgruntled police in Cancún boot out the chief on Monday.

Cancún has agreed to cede control of its police force to the Quintana Roo government and join its single-command policing system.

Announcement of the decision today comes just three days after police officers in the resort city went on strike to demand the removal of Cancún’s top cop, whom they accused of mistreating them and having links to organized crime.

The mayor of Benito Juárez, the municipality where Cancún is located, said the police returned to work yesterday after talks were held between authorities and the striking officers.

Mara Lezama explained that the agreement with the Quintana Roo government meant that not only would state authorities be responsible for the security strategy in the Caribbean coast city but also for the training and management of the local force.

In addition, they will be charged with identifying and removing corrupt police from within the force’s ranks.

“We have taken a decision together: from today it will be the state government and in particular the Secretariat of Public Security that is responsible for executing the [policing] strategy so that peace and tranquility is restored to every part and every block [of Cancún],” Lezama said.

“It will also be the responsibility of the state secretariat to inform the municipal government and citizens about the progress, actions and results in these matters,” she added.

Lezama also said that not only will the new mando único, or single command, agreement ensure that municipal and state authorities are on the same page with regard to the security strategy for Cancún but would also allow them to combine human resources and finances.

“My main commitment is to return security and peace to the municipality and today I am committed to doing what is necessary to achieve it. Let it be clear, we are not relinquishing the tasks that correspond to us,” she said.

Lezama, who took office for the leftist Morena party on September 30, said the municipal government will also focus on implementing programs and policies that prevent violence.

Cancún police chief Jesús Pérez Abarca was forced off the job Monday by angry officers who physically pushed him out of the city’s police headquarters.

Lezama said today that the incident was “unacceptable and under no circumstance can it be repeated.”

State Public Security Secretary Alberto Capella attributed the work stoppage to opposition against a move to carry out a “cleansing” of the municipal force to remove corrupt police.

The mayor said the municipal force was made up of a lot of brave officers but that there are also some who are resistant to change and acted illegally to demonstrate it.

“We deeply regret that . . . this group of police brought their daily activities to a halt to argue against a range of dissatisfactions . . .” Lezama said.

Source: Reforma (sp)

AMLO’s fourth transformation is just a new phase of the PRI: Calderón

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César Hernández

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November 8, 2018

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A former president describes Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s fourth transformation of Mexico as little more than a new face of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI.

Felipe Calderón Hinojosa said the phrase “fourth transformation” was “pretentious.”

” . . . It looks more like the fourth transformation of PRI . . . it’s the fourth transformation of a regime that has done a lot of damage to Mexico,” said the ex-president, who escalated the war on drugs, one of the bloodiest chapters in the nation’s history, during his term between 2006 and 2012.

Mexico’s first three transformations were independence from Spain, the 19th-century liberal reform known as La Reforma and the Mexican Revolution.

Calderón made the comments during an interview with broadcaster Grupo Fórmula, at which he confirmed he might seek to create a new political party next year that would act as a counterweight to the new government.

A longtime member of the conservative National Action Party (PAN), his loyalty — and that of many other party members — was shaken by the party’s election campaign alliance with the leftist Democratic Revolution Party. The coalition was engineered by former PAN president Ricardo Anaya, who went on to become its presidential candidate, placing a distant second behind López Obrador.

Calderón said the PAN has been “completely destroyed” and incapable of confronting the new government.

“There are citizens asking the question, ‘What are we going to do now?’ and they have no place to go.” A new political party with a commitment to ethical standards and not just politics is required, he said.

However, he said the party could remedy the situation by choosing veteran politician Manuel Gómez Morín as its new president because it is currently controlled “by the group that destroyed it.” Whether he goes ahead with the launch of a new party will be decided in large measure by the choice the PAN makes, Calderón said.

Calderón also brought up the highly-criticized invitation to Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro to attend López Obrador’s inauguration on December 1. Calderón observed that Maduro’s predecessor, Hugo Chávez, was a guest at his own swearing-in ceremony but pointed out that “the current human rights crisis did not exist” in that country at the time.

“At present Maduro is a symbol for authoritarianism. For the sake of democratic consistency he should not be at the inauguration.”

Source: El Financiero (sp)

Lower house adjourned after assassination of deputy’s daughter

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November 8, 2018

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Valeria Medel was shot and killed in a gym in Veracruz.

Lawmakers in the lower house of Congress adjourned early today after the assassination in Veracruz of the daughter of a Morena party deputy.

Proceedings were brought to a halt early this afternoon when Carmen Medel Palma suffered a nervous breakdown after receiving a telephone call notifying her that her 22-year-old daughter had been killed while working out at a gym in Ciudad Mendoza.

According to preliminary police reports, Valeria Medel, a medical student, was shot nine times by a lone gunman. Another woman was also killed in the gunfire.

The Morena party’s Veracruz director did not rule out the possibility that the crime was politically motivated.

A session in the Chamber of Deputies came to a stop when the victim’s mother began crying out, “My daughter! My daughter! Valeria! Valeria!”

The session was declared postponed until next Tuesday after several deputies and medical personnel helped Medel Palma leave the chamber.

Morena Deputy Pablo Gómez observed that his colleague’s daughter was a victim of the state of violence in which Mexicans live.

“Today we face the tragedy in a much more direct way, through a member of this assembly. We are all subject to this crisis of violence and all of us, together as a legislature, must respond. We must bring peace to Mexico, and eradicate violence and violent crime.”

Source: El Universal (sp), e-veracruz (sp), El Sol de México (sp)

Ford closes Guerrero dealership due to insecurity, extortion

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MND Staff

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November 8, 2018

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The empty Ford dealership in Chilpancingo.

The Ford dealership in Chilpancingo, Guerrero, has closed due to insecurity and extortion, a local business leader said.

Pioquinto Damián Huato, president of the Chilpancingo chapter of the National Chamber of Commerce (Canaco), said that organized crime had been demanding 20,000 pesos (US $1,000) per month in cobro de piso or extortion payments from the dealership’s owners but recently increased the amount.

“. . . They preferred to close and leave Chilpancingo [than keep paying],” Damián explained, although earlier reports said the closure followed a significant decline in sales. But that was blamed on crime levels by employees of the dealership last week.

Damán said violence and insecurity in the Guerrero capital continues to be of great concern and that many other businesses have also been forced to shut.

“At the most, there are [only] 10 big business owners that remain in the capital,” Damián said.

Volvo and Volkswagen dealerships also recently closed in Chilpancingo although the latter apparently didn’t do so due to security concerns.

Damián said the state Congress needs to change the penal code so that those found guilty of extortion face prison sentences of up to 40 years, contending that the proposal of a Guerrero lawmaker from president-elect López Obrador’s Morena party for 16-year jail terms isn’t harsh enough.

The business leader, who since 2013 has been afforded government protection due to death threats against him, said he has lost count of the number of businesses that have closed this year due to insecurity.

“. . . A lot of business people left because they couldn’t endure the cobro de piso [demands] anymore,” Damián said, adding that some businesses were threatened by two or more criminal groups.

“In other words, they paid double and, well, they chose to leave, close for good,” he said.

Source: Reforma (sp)

2 narcos down, one in Chihuahua, another in Querétaro

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César Hernández

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November 8, 2018

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Chihuahua gang leader El 300, left, and drug smuggler Don Ángel.

Two high-ranking narcos are now behind bars after being arrested in Chihuahua and Querétaro.

René Gerardo Santana Garza, presumed leader of the Aztecas gang and believed to be one of the main instigators of violence in Ciudad Juárez, was arrested in Aldama, Chihuahua.

Federal Interior Secretary Alfonso Navarrete Prida wrote on Twitter that Santana, also known as El 300, is one of 11 drug lords warring over the control of drug trafficking operations in Juárez.

Santana is also believed to be responsible for attacks on the state police, making him a priority target for the Chihuahua Attorney General’s office.

He now faces at least three counts of homicide.

It is not the first time Santana has been captured by authorities. In September las year he was arrested but released after paying bail of 5,000 pesos (US $280) after the charges against him were reduced to carrying an unauthorized firearm and possession of drugs.

In Querétaro, a suspected Colombian drug smuggler who is wanted in the United States was arrested in fulfillment of an extradition order.

Ángel Humberto Chávez Gastélum is wanted for trafficking cocaine and methamphetamine from Colombia to the U.S. via Central America and Mexico.

Investigations have shown that the drug is being moved into the U.S. via express border crossings and in planes, ships and through tunnels.

Chávez, also known as Don Ángel, has been tied to a seizure of 3.5 tonnes of cocaine and for ordering a series of assassinations.

He now faces charges of crimes against health, organized crime, criminal association, operating with resources of illicit origin and homicide.

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

6,200 migrants are now in Mexico City; another 4,500 are in Chiapas, Oaxaca

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MND Staff

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November 8, 2018

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An estimated 6,200 Central Americans traveling with the first migrant caravan have arrived this week at a sports stadium-cum-shelter in Mexico City and another 4,500 are en route.

Nashieli Ramírez, president of the Mexico City Human Rights Commission, said that at least 700 minors are among those staying in the stadium located in the borough of Iztacalco.

The migrants, of whom an estimated 86% are Hondurans, began arriving in the Mexican capital last Saturday and by Tuesday night their numbers had increased to the current level.

“We’re basically receiving the exodus that left Honduras on October 13 and started to arrive in dribs and drabs on Saturday . . .” Ramírez told a press conference yesterday.

She also said the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and the National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) are investigating the reported disappearance of as many as 100 migrants.

Oaxaca human rights ombudsman Arturo Peimbert said earlier this week that he had received reports that two busloads of Central Americans had been kidnapped last Saturday and handed over to a criminal organization.

Ramírez stressed that the “recruitment” of migrants by criminal groups as they travel through Mexico towards the United States border is “one of the risks” the Central Americans face and urged them to stick together.

Caravan leaders held a meeting last night at which they agreed to go to United Nations’ offices in Mexico City today to request buses to transport the migrants to the United States’ southern border, where they intend to seek asylum.

However, some of the migrants – who are fleeing poverty and violence in Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala – are anxious to continue the journey towards the border and hoped to leave the shelter today.

“I’ve been here for three days already and I’m already rested. I want to move on,” 40-year-old Honduran Francisco Redondo, who has previously worked in construction in California, told the Associated Press.

Mexico City authorities have not only provided food and shelter to the migrants but also medical attention.

Personnel from the health department including doctors, nurses and psychologists had treated close to 1,000 people as of late yesterday for a range of problems including severe blisters and contagious illnesses.

Journalists, photographers, human rights officials and local residents donating clothing and other items have also converged on the Jesús Martínez Palillo Stadium, part of the Ciudad Deportiva (Sports City) complex located to the east of the capital’s downtown.

According to some members of the caravan, people offering the migrants jobs have also infiltrated the shelter.

They requested that caravan leaders and authorities pay close attention to the entry of unidentified persons due to the possibility that those offering employment are in fact human traffickers.

Another visitor at the migrant shelter yesterday was former Honduran lawmaker Bartolo Fuentes, who helped organize the caravan’s departure from Honduras. He told a group of migrants that they should wait until president-elect López Obrador is sworn in before resuming their journey.

“Bartolo asked us to wait until December,” one migrant told the newspaper Reforma.

López Obrador pledged last month that once he takes office visas will be offered to Central Americans who want to work in Mexico.

“From December 1, we’re going to give employment to Central Americans. It’s a plan we have, he who wants to work in Mexico will have a work visa,” he said.

Bartolo encouraged the migrants to heed those words.

“I don’t think the man [López Obrador] is a liar, he’s going to come in as president, he’s going to lead this great nation and he has promised them something, so we have to see. I say that it’s worth it for them to wait but they’re the ones who decide,” he said in an interview.

Bartolo warned the migrants that they wouldn’t be able to cross the United States border as one large caravan as they did at Mexico’s southern border with Guatemala, reminding them of U.S. President Trump’s hardline immigration rhetoric and plan to send up to 15,000 troops to the border area.

“. . . [The migrants] should seek asylum in Mexico and then, as refugees, think calmly about another country,” he said.

Another migrant who spoke to Reforma said that he was uncertain about his plans.

“I don’t know, I have a family to support . . . and I don’t have work, what do I do?”

President Peña Nieto announced a program last month called “Estás en tu Casa” (You are at Home), offering shelter, medical attention, schooling and jobs to the Central American migrants on the condition that they formally apply for refugee status with the National Immigration Institute (INM) and remain in either Chiapas or Oaxaca.

However, most migrants rejected the offer.

Meanwhile, around 4,500 migrants are continuing their journey through southern Mexico as part of two other caravans.

The second caravan, made up of 1,500 people who clashed with Federal Police at the southern border last month, is currently in Oaxaca while the fourth, with 3,000 people, yesterday reached Mapastepec, Chiapas.

Around 450 Salvadoran migrants who entered Mexico legally as part of a third caravan are still in Tapachula, Chiapas, waiting for their asylum requests to be processed.

Those currently on the move through the two southern states could arrive in the capital within a week if they manage to secure rides between towns.

Many members of the fourth caravan yesterday walked from Huixtla to Mapastepec although women and children traveled on buses provided by local Civil Protection services.

Municipal governments, community groups and residents of the small towns in Chiapas and Oaxaca where the migrants have stayed have provided food, water and other aid to caravan members.

But there are signs that the willingness to support the exodus of migrants — and means to do so — are dwindling.

The parish priest in Huixtla said support for the caravan that left the town yesterday was much less than that afforded to the two that preceded it.

“As a parish we don’t have any money,” Heyman Vázquez Medina said.

At least seven Central Americans decided to turn around yesterday and return to their countries of origin because the journey is “very difficult,” the priest said.

The second caravan reached Juchitán in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec yesterday.

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

10 dead after semi loses brakes on Mexico City-Toluca highway; excessive speed blamed

By

MND Staff

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November 8, 2018

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The semi amid crumpled cars after yesterday's accident.

Ten people are dead after a semi-trailer lost its brakes and slammed into at least 15 cars on the Mexico City-Toluca highway last night.

Mexico City police chief Raymundo Collins said that the 10th victim died in hospital this morning. Eight men and one woman were killed yesterday, all but one instantly.

A further 16 people were injured and are being treated in two hospitals in the capital.

The accident occurred just after 7:00pm in the Mexico City borough of Álvaro Obregón near the Santa Fe business district.

The driver of the trailer, a 41-year-old woman identified as Ana G., was uninjured.

Collins said the driver told authorities that her brakes failed and she completely lost control of the trailer, which was transporting a 24-tonne load from Toluca to Cuautitlán Izcalli, México state.

She said she had four to five years’ experience driving semi-trailers.

Security camera footage shows the truck traveling at high speed on the busy highway that links Mexico City with Toluca, the capital of neighboring México state. Accidents on the highway are common.

The mayor of Cuajimalpa, a borough next to Álvaro Obregón, said that excessive speed was to blame for yesterday’s horrific crash.

“This was caused precisely by speeding, the trailer traveled more than 400 meters without being able to brake due to the speed it was traveling at,” Adrián Ruvalcaba said.

Paramedics treated between 25 and 30 people for minor injuries at the scene of the accident. Some victims had to be cut out of their crumpled vehicles by rescue crews.

In a Twitter post at 12:20am, the Mexico City Secretariat of Public Security said the Mexico City-Toluca highway had been reopened to traffic.

Source: Milenio (sp), Excelsior (sp)

Wyndham plans eight new hotels next year including a luxury Grand in CDMX

By

MND Staff

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November 7, 2018

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The Wyndham hotel chain is planning to open eight new properties in Mexico next year including one under its most luxurious brand.

Alejandro Moreno, the company’s general manager for Latin America and the Caribbean, said Wyndham is expanding in Mexico because the country is a rising power in tourism and the sector is expected to continue to grow in the coming years.

With the eight new properties, the number of Wyndham hotels in Mexico will increase from 52 to 60.

The most-hyped upcoming opening is that of a Wyndham Grand Hotel in Mexico City.

Moreno said that Wyndham currently has only 41 of its premium-brand Grand hotels in the world.

The new addition to the Grand family will be located on Insurgentes avenue in a historical building in the trendy inner-city neighborhood of Condesa.

The Mexico City Wyndham Grand will become the company’s 11th brand with a presence in the country. Among the 10 others are La Quinta, Ramada, Wyndham Garden and Howard Johnson.

New Wyndham brand hotels are also slated to open in Piedras Negras, Irapuato, Aguascalientes, Puebla, Saltillo and Chihuahua.

Moreno said that Wyndham’s hotels in Mexico currently make up 25% of all hotels the company owns across the region.

The decision to cancel the new Mexico City International Airport project has not discouraged Wyndham from investing in Mexico, Moreno said, because the company is confident that lower prices compared to other destinations and a strong economy in the United States, the largest source country for visitors, will ensure that Mexico’s tourism sector remains strong.

Almost 40 million foreign visitors came to Mexico last year, making it the sixth most visited country in the world.

“That Mexico has reached that level of tourism is amazing,” Moreno said.

He hinted that Wyndham could seek to open more hotels and resorts in Mexico in the future in order to take advantage of opportunities in popular beach destinations.

“We’re in Cancún, Playa del Carmen and Mazatlán but there are great opportunities in destinations like Los Cabos and Puerto Vallarta.”

Source: El Economista (sp)

First monarch butterflies reach sanctuaries in Michoacán, México state

By

MND Staff

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November 7, 2018

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Monarch butterflies en route from the US and Canada.

The first monarch butterflies of the annual winter migration from the United States and Canada have arrived in the forest sanctuaries of central Mexico.

The Natural Protected Areas Commission (Conanp) said in a statement that the butterflies were “crossing the sky above the . . . Chincua and El Rosario sanctuaries in Michoacán and the Cerro Pelón and Piedra Herada sanctuaries in México state” yesterday.

“. . . They are exploring the territory to determine the best places to establish their colonies during the winter,” the commission explained, adding that it will announce soon when sanctuaries will be opened to visitors.

If weather conditions are favorable, Conanp said, most butterflies should reach the sanctuaries during the next two weeks but it won’t be until the end of November that the entire migratory cohort has arrived.

It added that the arrival of the first monarch butterflies was delayed due to the weather conditions on their route through the United States and Mexico that limited the distance they could fly each day.

Those conditions forced the butterflies to take shelter in different parts of the Sierra Madre Occidental to wait for better weather, Conanp said.

The monarchs started their approximately 4,500-kilometer journey in the south of Canada in August.

Scientists have discovered that the black and gold insects use a kind of internal solar compass to guide them on their journey, during which four or five generations of butterflies are born and die.

During late October and the first week of this month thousands of the species have been observed in Mexico by volunteer butterfly spotters participating in the Correo Real (Royal Mail) program.

The spotters record and report the location of the butterflies to Conanp.

A new digital app called MonarcaMX enables citizens to record a variety of data about the butterflies they see including location, date, time and what they were doing when they were spotted — flying, feeding or resting.

Thanks to citizen reports, it was established that the first group of monarchs crossed the United States-Mexico border on October 20.

However, due to rain and cold, it was another 10 days before they were observed flying over the Sierra de Arteaga in Coahuila and the municipality of Linares in Nuevo León.

During the first days of November, thousands of monarchs were seen flying over Ciudad Victoria, Tamaulipas, according to state authorities, while yet more reached states farther south including San Luis Potosí and Guanajuato.

More than 1,000 volunteer spotters in Guanajuato are hoping to observe at least 3,000 monarch butterflies flying across the state this year.

In Tamaulipas, the state’s Parks and Biodiversity Commission has implemented a conservation program for the monarch butterfly to ensure that its food sources are protected.

By providing incentives to farmers, the program seeks to ensure that tithonia plants, a sunflower native to Mexico, are not removed from cornfields.

“[The flower] is a very important food source during the monarch butterfly migration . . . its nectar is very rich in nutrients for the butterfly,” said commission director Carlos Garza.

Other initiatives aimed at helping the butterflies reach their final destination, such as the planting of 67 gardens in México state where the insects can rest and feed, have also been implemented in recent years.

Yet the number of monarchs that traveled to Mexico last year for the winter declined for the second consecutive season, according to a report released earlier this year.

Extreme weather and the increased use of herbicides in the United States, which reduces the amount of milkweed — a food source for the monarch butterflies, were cited as possible reasons for the decrease in arrivals.

Source: Milenio (sp)

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