The more than US $250 million project will be Excellence Group’s sixth property in the state and third under the family-friendly Finest brand. Located near Puerto Morelos — between Cancún and Playa del Carmen — the resort will feature 12 restaurants, four swimming pools, a splash park, water slides and the signature ONE Spa with hydrotherapy circuits for both adults and children.
Lezama met with the Montaner family, Excellence Group’s principal shareholders, alongside state Tourism Minister Bernardo Cueto Riestra and Quintana Roo Tourism Promotion Council Director Andrés Martínez Reynoso.
“Another Finest hotel is coming, and we’re confident it will be a complete success,” Lezama said. “Thank you so much for believing in Quintana Roo, for believing in our destinations, for your confidence in this marvelous land.”
Excellence Collection operates three distinct brands: Excellence Resorts (adults-only), Beloved Hotels (adults-only) and Finest Resorts (all ages). The new Finest Riviera Cancún will include separate “club” sections — The Excellence Club for adults seeking tranquility and The Finest Club for families — each with private pools and exclusive beach areas.
In making the investment announcement, the governor emphasized her commitment to “orderly and sustainable” growth. “We say yes to growth, but in an orderly and sustainable way, so that today’s and future generations can continue enjoying Quintana Roo’s natural beauty,” Lezama said.
Mexico's biggest wine festival is back again for the seventh year running, as Mexico City's Campo Marte transforms into a viticultural paradise once again. (Nación de Vinos)
Seven is a magic number, and Nación de Vinos is celebrating its seventh edition with the country’s largest gathering of wine enthusiasts, industry professionals and culinary artisans this week, as the biggest show in wine rolls into Mexico City on Jan. 28th and 29th.
The Campo Marte event space will once again welcome nearly 4,000 visitors and 80 exhibitors across more than 4,000 square meters of exhibits, making it Mexico’s largest wine event of the year.
Sip and snack as the best of Mexican wine and food are on offer to attendees. (Nación de Vinos)
This year’s festival features nine restaurants providing wine pairings at each stand, while a dedicated bar area showcases classic and signature cocktails from four of the country’s most renowned establishments: Bar Mauro, FOMA, Café de Nadie and Long Story Short.
“Nación de Vinos is undoubtedly one of the most complete experiences in the world of wine,” said Armando Hernández Loyola, an oenology professor at Anáhuac University who has attended every edition. “It not only showcases producers but also allows visitors to enjoy wine in a festive atmosphere, which has contributed to the promotion and consumption of wine at a national level.”
Every year, experts and bon vivants look forward to the festival, eager to discover new offerings from national wineries and emerging players in the industry. Two-day tickets give attendees the opportunity to taste offerings from the country’s best restaurants and meet their chefs, though experiencing everything remains a delightful challenge.
Four pavilions, countless discoveries
The festival is organized into four distinct pavilions, each featuring wineries, restaurants and tasting experiences from major brands.
The Red Wine Pavilion highlights bottles from Tierra de Origen (Jalisco), Espíritus Enológicos (Baja California), Pozo de Luna (San Luis Potosí) and López Rosso (Zacatecas).
The festival’s culinary offerings are also well worth checking out. (Nación de Vinos)
The Arena Pavilion features Bodegas Ícaro, a quality benchmark; Dos Búhos from San Miguel de Allende; Norte 32 and Casa de Piedra from Baja California’s Guadalupe Valley; Cuna de Tierra (Guanajuato); Casa Quesada (Aguascalientes); and prestigious international winery Henry Lurton. One of Jalisco’s most surprising star wineries, Altos Norte, will also pour there, alongside Hacienda Florida from Coahuila.
BMW Mexico sponsors the Cobalt Pavilion, which offers culinary experiences including Siembra, a tortilla mill and restaurant in Mexico City, alongside Viñedo El Refugio (Hidalgo), Bodegas Santo Tomás, Juguette, Australian wines designed for Mexico, Don Perfecto from Parras Coahuila, and Viñedo San Miguel de Comonfort (Guanajuato).
Pabellón Arcilla features Lechuza, Casa Domecq, Catifol de Caborca (Sonora), Casa Madero, Lotería from Dolores Hidalgo (Guanajuato) and Ruber Cardinal, a delicate blend made in Baja California.
Meanwhile, Comal Oculto — whose culinary concept is defined as “corn and love” — will be serving at the Heineken Terrace.
Small producers with a big impact
Gustavo Spíndola, owner of Ruber Cardinal, represents the small-batch winemakers who have found a platform at Nación de Vinos. His carefully crafted wines use Merlot grapes from Baja California, aged in French or American oak barrels to create two different expressions of the same grape.
“Participating in such a major event has had a very positive impact on the image and positioning of my project,” Spíndola said.
Hernández Loyola, who holds a master’s degree in business administration and a bachelor’s degree in chemistry, has developed his expertise through research projects in wine-producing regions including Chianti, Italy, and Jerez, Spain. He completed a specialization in winemaking under oenologist Laura Zamora, considered one of the country’s pioneering winemakers. During more than three years as a university professor, he has trained nearly 450 students in wine culture.
Beyond the glass
Green areas throughout Campo Marte provide space to relax, while the venue’s signature massive Mexican flag waves overhead. Live music fills the air between tastings, and wine is available for purchase. The exhibition area itself is smoke-free.
Since its inception, Nación de Vinos has been a watershed moment in the dissemination of wine culture in Mexico. Today, it stands as the country’s most important wine event — a truly unique experience for anyone passionate about wine, food and Mexican terroir.
Diana Serratos studied at Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) and UNCUYO in Mendoza, Argentina, where she lived for over 15 years. She specializes in wines and beverages, teaching aspiring sommeliers at several universities. She conducts courses, tastings and specialized training.
Barcelonette, France has a unique history of immigration to Mexico and the U.S. (Twice25 & Rinina25/Wikimedia Commons)
If you’ve ever shopped at either of Mexico’s two iconic homegrown department store giants — Liverpool and Palacio de Hierro — you would probably never know that these two are actually the product of hardworking French immigrants to Mexico, a very distinct group of immigrants known in their day — and to historians today — as the Barcelonnettes.
Most migration stories flow in a single direction: from one homeland to one destination. But what makes the Barcelonnettes’ story so interesting is not just that these new immigrants to Mexico happened to play an important role in a newly independent nation’s mercantile growth but also that these migrants’ journey from a small Alpine valley in southeastern France traced an unexpected triangle — connecting the French town of Barcelonette, the Cajun parishes of Louisiana and several regions of Mexico.
The journey of immigrants from the Ubaye Valley to Mexico in the 19th century has not been forgotten. (Ubaye Tourisme)
It was a journey shaped by ambition, family ties, cultural adaptation and the search for opportunity across three very different worlds.
Although little known today, this wave of migration — which began as a small stream of adventurous young Frenchmen in the early 1800s — produced lasting influence in Mexico’s commercial development and left behind a trail of families whose ancestry spans continents.
First stop: Louisiana
The Ubaye Valley surrounding Barcelonnette is beautiful but historically isolated. In the early 19th century, it faced economic pressures familiar in many mountain regions: limited farmland, scarce inheritance prospects for younger sons and the slow collapse of the textile and wool trade that had sustained earlier generations. Families encouraged younger members to seek their fortunes abroad, knowing that opportunities in the valley were few.
By the 1820s, the first migrants had already crossed the Atlantic. Over the next several decades, the trickle grew into a steady flow. Most were young men in their teens or early twenties who left with little more than determination and a letter of introduction from relatives or neighbors who had gone before them. Their destinations varied, but two stood out: Mexico and Louisiana.
A sense of familiarity
Louisiana offered a partial cultural familiarity. French was still widely spoken despite the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, Catholic parishes anchored community life and many Cajun and Creole towns preserved traditions that likely felt closer to home to these young men than the bustling ports of the northeastern United States. Some Barcelonnettes settled permanently in Louisiana, opening small businesses, forming partnerships and marrying into local families.
It was in places like Arnaudville, a Louisiana village with longstanding families of French ancestry, that the paths of Barcelonnettes and Cajun Louisianans crossed most clearly. The Arnaud and Arnauld families, deeply rooted in Louisiana’s French-speaking world, became connected to migrants from the Ubaye Valley through marriages and business ventures. These relationships created a small but significant bridge between southern France and the Acadiana region.
Barcelonette’s unique heritage is still celebrated in France. (Ubaye Tourisme)
For others, Louisiana was only a waypoint. As economic opportunities expanded in Mexico — especially during the era of French influence under the Second Mexican Empire, and later during Mexico’s growing commercial expansion — many Barcelonnettes moved south. They followed cousins, siblings or former neighbors who had already established footholds in Mexican cities.
A new beginning in Mexico
Mexico proved to be fertile ground for the entrepreneurial spirit the Barcelonnettes carried with them. Arriving with modest means, they often began as shop assistants or itinerant merchants selling textiles, clothing or imported French goods. With hard work and careful savings, they opened their own shops and, in some cases, grew them into substantial enterprises.
By the late 19th century, Barcelonnettes had become influential in the retail and textile sectors of cities such as Mexico City, Guadalajara, Puebla, Veracruz and Durango. Several founded prominent department stores, such as El Puerto de Liverpool in Mexico City — now just known as Liverpool — the long-gone Las Fabricas de Francia, La Francia Marítima, La Louvre in Puebla, and the still-thriving Palacio del Hierro, founded by two Barcelonette migrants, Joseph Tron and Joseph Léautaud in 1891. These all became fixtures of Mexican urban upper and middle-class life heading into the 20th century, combining French style with Mexican tastes, appealing to customers eager for imported fashion and quality goods.
Despite their economic success, life in Mexico demanded deep adaptation. Many married into Mexican families, embraced Spanish and integrated into the cultural rhythms of the communities around them. Yet the ties to Barcelonnette remained strong.
Letters, remittances and visits created a constant flow of information between Mexico and the Alps. Successful merchants often went home to France and built lavish villas in the Ubaye Valley — summer homes intended for eventual retirement, though not all lived long enough to return permanently.
Louisiana-Mexico-France: A three-way identity
The link between the Barcelonnettes in Mexico and the families of Louisiana produced a distinctive cultural blend. Some families moved back and forth between the two regions, carrying Cajun French expressions, Catholic rituals, and Louisiana culinary influences into Mexican homes.
The Latino Mexican Festival is held in France’s Ubaye Valley each year. (Ubaye Tourisme)
Others returned to Louisiana after periods of uncertainty in Mexico, particularly during the Mexican Revolution and the postwar turbulence of the early 20th century.
Their children and grandchildren grew up in a world where Alpine French heritage, Cajun traditions and Mexican identity coexisted. This combination produced unusual family histories, where a Mexican grandmother might speak of an ancestor from the Ubaye Valley, while a cousin in Louisiana preserved a surname whose origins lay deep in the French Alps.
Although the number of Barcelonnettes was comparatively small, the cultural impact of this triangle was profound. Families were shaped by multiple migrations, multiple languages and a constant negotiation of belonging.
A legacy worth recovering
Today, after being nearly lost to history, the story of the Barcelonnettes is receiving renewed attention. In France, museums in Barcelonnette document the migration and display archival letters, photographs and artifacts sent back from Mexico.
In Mexico, historians and descendants are piecing together forgotten branches of family trees through parish records, business archives and oral histories. Mexico’s Economy Minister Marcelo Ebrard Casaubon, for example, has proudly talked about his Barcelonnette descent on both sides of his family. On his father’s side is Barcelonnette migrant Jean Baptiste Ebrard, who founded the Liverpool department store in 1872.
In Louisiana, the connection is less widely known, but genealogical research is increasingly uncovering ties between Cajun families and Alpine migrants who passed through the state on their way south.
Mexico’s Economy Minister Marcelo Ebrard Casaubon has Barcelonette heritage. (Gobierno de Mexico)
For Mexico, the revival of interest is not merely nostalgic. It highlights a global Mexico that was connected to Europe and the United States in ways often previously overlooked. It also restores dignity to the personal stories of migrants who navigated enormous distances — geographical and cultural — to build new lives.
Remembering the migrants who bridged worlds
The Barcelonnettes were never a large community, but their journey carved a unique path across continents. Their lives wove together the traditions of a remote French valley, the cultural richness of Louisiana and the dynamic, often challenging, landscapes of Mexico. Their descendants continue to embody this blend, whether in the Ubaye Valley’s grand villas, the quiet cemeteries of Cajun country or the bustling streets of Mexico’s historic cities.
But nowhere is this transatlantic legacy more visible than in Barcelonnette itself: The town has embraced its Mexican ties forged by generations of migrants.
Each summer, mariachi groups parade through Barcelonnette’s Alpine streets in black suits with silver trim, an arresting contrast against the surrounding peaks. The main plaza bears the name Place Valle de Bravo, honoring its Mexican sister city, and Avenue Porfirio Díaz has existed since 1907. For more than thirty years, the annual Latino-Mexican Festival has brought music, dance and visitors to the valley, celebrating a cultural fusion few would expect in this corner of the French Alps.
In remembering these migrants, we recover a chapter of history that illustrates how the movement of just a few thousand determined individuals can leave lasting marks on nations and families. Their story — stretching from the Alps to the bayous to the heart of Mexico — is a testament to resilience, ambition and the enduring human impulse to create new worlds while carrying pieces of the old.
Peter Jeschofnig is an Austrian-American retired scientist who has lived and traveled internationally for decades and now resides in Ajijic, Mexico. He writes on Substack about personal travel narratives, regional Mexican history and stories that connect people, places and cultures across borders.
Japan's National Tourism Organization (JNTO) wants to encourage tourists to visit regions less explored than the traditional hotspots. (X)
Mexican tourism to Japan is increasing, with a record 200,400 Mexicans visiting the Asian destination in 2025, marking a 32% rise over 2024 and a higher rate than pre-pandemic levels.
Growth has been driven by improved air connectivity, a favorable exchange rate, investment in marketing initiatives and a growing interest in Japanese culture.
The 200,400 Mexican visitors to Japan last year was a higher number than even before the pandemic. (X)
The Japan National Tourism Organization (JNTO) office in Mexico emphasized the sustained effort it has taken to drive up tourism between Mexico and Japan, working with airlines, travel agencies, specialized media and strategic partners.
JNTO director Masumi Yamada said that the growth in tourist numbers reflects a greater interest in Japan among Mexicans.
Cultural experiences, from traditional festivals to regional cuisine, topped the list of features drawing Mexicans to Japan. Meanwhile, sustained growth in family and multigenerational travel also came high on the list.
Yamada said that the JNTO intends to expand destination awareness as well as encourage tourists to visit Japanese regions less explored than the traditional hotspots.
The expansion of direct air routes between Mexico and Japan, operated by airlines such as Aeroméxico and Japan’s All Nippon Airways (ANA), have supported the increase in travel between the two countries by enhancing access.
In June, ANA’s general manager in Mexico, Koichi Tochinai, expressed interest in expanding operations between Mexico and Japan.
ANA has run a daily nonstop flight between Mexico City International Airport (AICM) and Narita Airport in Tokyo since 2017, and, in recent months, increased visitor numbers have led the airline to consider adding more flights to the route.
“Although there are no specific plans (to increase frequencies) at this time, we are very interested in doing so,” stated Tochinai. “Mexico is a promising and important market for ANA, and we want to contribute to the growth of both passenger and cargo traffic to and from Japan, as well as to Asia.”
Tochinai emphasized the growing interest of Japanese businesses in the Mexican market, particularly in the manufacturing industry.
The airline views AICM as the likely hub for ANA, due to its large flight network. While other Mexican airports, such as Cancún and Tulum, are growing in popularity for Japanese visitors, seasonal fluctuations make them less reliable a choice for establishing a Mexican ANA hub, according to Tochinai.
President Sheinbaum showed a post on Instagram at her morning presser that CBC News says was artificially generated. (Moisés Pablo/Cuartoscuro)
At her Monday morning press conference, President Claudia Sheinbaum spoke about the arrest last week of Ryan Wedding, an alleged drug boss accused of overseeing a vast cocaine pipeline and numerous murders.
She doubled down on her government’s assertion that Wedding, a Canadian citizen, was not captured in a planned operation with the United States, but rather turned himself in at the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City.
However, the main evidence she presented to support that version of events was fabricated, according to CBC News, a division of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
Later on Monday, Wedding — who is now in U.S. custody — pleaded not guilty to two criminal indictments, from separate federal grand juries in California in 2024 and 2025, CBC News reported.
Contradicting Sheinbaum, the suspect’s lawyer, Anthony Colombo, told reporters on Monday that his client “didn’t surrender.”
“He was apprehended. He was arrested. And so any spin that the government of Mexico is putting on this that he surrendered is inaccurate. And I think that if there’s anyone in a position to know how his apprehension and arrest went down it’s his counsel,” he said.
“So those reports of what happened, that he surrendered, are completely inaccurate,” Colombo said.
“… Look, the Trump administration with the apprehension of [Nicolás] Maduro has made clear that we’re in a bold new era with regard to international relations. So one can understand why that statement might have been put out, because if the U.S. government is unilaterally going into a sovereign country and apprehending someone, you can understand the concern that that sovereign entity might have. But he was apprehended,” the lawyer said.
Wedding’s next court appearance will be on Mar. 24, CBC News reported.
Sheinbaum: Ryan Wedding turned himself in at the US Embassy
Mexican authorities said on Friday that Wedding, a 44-year-old former Olympic snowboarder, turned himself in at the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City last Thursday, but U.S. authorities and some media reports contradicted that information.
In an article headlined “Inside the Dramatic Arrest of an Olympic Snowboarder Turned America’s Most Wanted,” Vanity Fair wrote that “the FBI worked with Mexican law enforcement officials who, on Thursday, in the middle of the night, apprehended Wedding.”
“After an intense negotiation, Wedding was later taken into U.S. custody by the FBI Hostage Rescue Team [HRT], the same team that captured Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela just weeks before,” the report stated.
Vanity Fair quoted FBI Director Kash Patel as saying that, “This was a complex, high-stakes operation with zero margin for error. I was on the ground with our team in Mexico and witnessed extraordinary teamwork, precision and trust between our agents and partners in Mexico.”
On Monday morning, Sheinbaum gave a very different account of Wedding’s arrest.
🚨La presidenta Claudia Sheinbaum aclaró que Ryan Wedding se presentó voluntariamente ante la Embajada de EEUU el jueves pasado.
Señaló que la prueba es la publicación hecha por el propio Wedding y subrayó que no hubo operativos conjuntos en México. pic.twitter.com/snvlnKc2jE
“This person of Canadian origin presented himself to the Embassy, turned himself in at the Embassy,” she said, adding that Wedding reasoned that doing so was a better option than remaining a fugitive.
The suspect, who Patel described as a “modern-day Pablo Escobar” and a “modern-day El Chapo,” was on the FBI’s “Ten Most Wanted Fugitives” list before he was taken into custody. Patel shared Vanity Fair’s article on social media and wrote above it that “our FBI HRT teams executed with precision, discipline, and total professionalism alongside our Mexican partners to bring Ryan James Wedding back to face justice.”
For her part, U.S. Attorney General Pamela Bondi wrote on social media on Friday morning that at her “direction, Department of Justice agents @FBI have apprehended yet another member of the FBI’s Top Ten Most Wanted List: Ryan Wedding, the onetime Olympian snowboarder-turned alleged violent cocaine kingpin.”
“Wedding was flown to the United States where he will face justice. This is a direct result of President Trump’s law-and-order leadership. Under @POTUS, criminals have no safe harbor. Director Patel has worked tirelessly to bring fugitives to justice. We are grateful to our incredible Ambassador Ron Johnson and the Mexican authorities for assisting us in this case,” she wrote.
Sheinbaum acknowledged that Patel was in Mexico when the arrest occurred, but told reporters that he was here for security meetings rather than the execution of an operation to capture Wedding.
She noted that Patel spoke about the arrest of the suspect in a “bilateral operation,” before stressing that Security Minister Omar García Harfuch “immediately denied” that it was the case.
“And then the United States ambassador himself denies it,” added Sheinbaum, referring to a statement issued by Ron Johnson that refers to “the surrender of Ryan Wedding.”
“This person turned himself in at the Embassy,” she stressed.
Sheinbaum subsequently said that the “best evidence” in support of Wedding having turned himself in at the U.S. Embassy came from the suspect himself.
She was referring to a post on Instagram by the account “bossryanw” that includes a photo that purports to show Wedding standing outside the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City prior to turning himself in.
However, CBC News reported on Monday that it had determined that “the image was generated using artificial intelligence.”
The Canadian news organization also reported that the fake image “was posted to an Instagram account that falsely purported to belong to Wedding’s ‘representative.'”
CBC News reported last week that a review of the account found “multiple red flags suggesting an imposter has been posting images created using AI.”
The latest (and now sole) post to the account — most of which Sheinbaum interpreted into Spanish at her mañanera — reads: “To the media and my followers: After seeking guarantees for a fair process, I have decided to voluntarily turn myself in to the authorities. I thank my wife, @myriamcastt, for being my driving force, and @johnbilonog, who will be in charge of my legacy. Thank you for your messages this week; they gave me great comfort in taking this step. I am fully confident that the truth will come to light and set me free.”
Beneath that message in bold font was the following: “This message is being posted by a representative – the context of the photo is that Mr. Wedding walked to the United States Embassy in Mexico City on his own two feet.”
Sheinbaum said that the circumstances of Wedding’s arrest must be made “very clear” because “some” media commentators “love to go around saying the opposite.”
But “there are no joint operations in Mexico,” emphasized the president, a staunch defender of Mexican sovereignty.
“In other words, the U.S. agents [in Mexico], from the FBI or any other agency, know very clearly their limitations, which are established by the [Mexican] Constitution and by the National Security Law,” she said.
“What exists is coordination regarding information from both sides, but there are no joint operations in Mexico. We wouldn’t allow that, we do not agree with it. I have stated this personally to President Trump on several occasions,” Sheinbaum said.
Wedding’s arrest came a week after The New York Times reported that the United States was “intensifying pressure” on Mexico “to allow U.S. military forces to conduct joint operations to dismantle fentanyl labs inside the country.”
Since the return of Donald Trump to the White House just over a year ago, Mexico has been under increased pressure from the United States to do more to combat drug cartels and the narcotics they traffic to the U.S.
That pressure has only intensified in recent weeks, following the United States’ military operation in Venezuela and Trump’s assertion that the U.S. would imminently start “hitting” cartels on land.
By Mexico News Daily chief staff writer Peter Davies (peter.davies@mexiconewsdaily.com)
The most recent National Survey of Urban Public Security (ENSU) shows that 63.8% of respondents across 91 Mexican cities (including the 16 boroughs of Mexico City) consider their place of residence unsafe. (Margarito Pérez Retana/Cuartoscuro)
Almost 90% of people who live in Uruapan — the city in Michoacán where the mayor was assassinated last November — believe that the city is an unsafe place to live.
That was among the findings of the latest National Survey of Urban Public Security (ENSU), carried out by the national statistics agency INEGI in the final quarter of 2025.
Published on Friday, the survey results show that 63.8% of respondents across 91 Mexican cities (including the 16 boroughs of Mexico City) consider their place of residence unsafe.
The percentage rose 0.8 points compared to the third quarter ENSU and 2.1 points compared to a year earlier, reflecting an increase in people’s perceptions of insecurity during Claudia Sheinbaum’s presidency, even though official statistics show declines in the incidence of many crimes, including homicide.
Almost seven in 10 women who responded to the survey (69.4%) said that their city is unsafe, while nearly six in ten men (57.1%) said the same.
INEGI conducted the ENSU at 27,130 homes between late November and mid-December.
Which cities have the highest percentages of residents with personal security concerns?
INEGI reported that 88.7% of ENSU respondents in Uruapan said that the city is an unsafe place to live. The percentage rose 6.1 points compared to the previous survey, but declined 3.8% points compared to a year earlier.
The latest ENSU was conducted just weeks after Mayor Carlos Manzo was gunned down in Uruapan’s central square during a Day of the Dead festival on Nov. 1.
After Uruapan, the cities with the next highest percentages of residents with personal security concerns in the final quarter of 2025 were:
Culiacán, the capital of Sinaloa. Almost nine in ten surveyed residents (88.1%) consider the city unsafe. In recent times, Culiacán has been plagued by violence related to Sinaloa Cartel infighting.
Ciudad Obregón, the second largest city in Sonora, is considered unsafe by 88% of surveyed residents.
Ecatepec, a densely-populated México state municipality that adjoins Mexico City, is also considered unsafe by 88% of surveyed residents.
Irapuato, the second largest city in Guanajuato, is considered unsafe by 87.3% of surveyed residents.
Rounding out the top 10 cities where the highest percentage of residents feel unsafe were Chilpancingo, Guerrero (86.4%); Chimalhuacán, México state (85.7%); Puebla city (84.5%); Tlalnepantla, México state (83.8%); and Villahermosa, Tabasco (83.8%).
Which cities have the lowest percentages of residents with personal security concerns?
The cities with the lowest percentages of residents with personal security concerns in the final quarter of 2024 were:
San Pedro Garza García, a municipality in the metropolitan area of Nuevo León capital Monterrey. Just 8.7% of surveyed residents said that San Pedro is an unsafe place to live.
Benito Juárez, a Mexico City borough that includes neighborhoods such as Del Valle, Narvarte and Nápoles. Only 14.8% of surveyed respondents consider Benito Juárez an unsafe place to live.
Piedras Negras, a border city in Coahuila opposite Eagle Pass, Texas. Around one in six surveyed respondents (17.3%) consider the city unsafe.
Los Mochis, a city in Sinaloa, is considered unsafe by 25.6% of surveyed residents.
San Nicolás de los Garza, a Nuevo León municipality in the Monterrey metro area, is considered unsafe by 27.5% of surveyed residents.
Perception of insecurity down significantly in 7 cities, up significantly in 7
Compared to the third quarter of 2025, there were statistically significant changes in perceptions of insecurity in 14 Mexican cities, INEGI said.
In seven of those cities, the percentage of residents with security concerns declined significantly, while the percentage increased significantly in seven.
The cities where there were significant decreases were:
Miguel Hidalgo, Mexico City: 51.1% in Q3 to 35.7% in Q4 (↓15.4 points)
Torreón, Coahuila: 43.4% in Q3 to 29.5% in Q4 (↓13.9 points)
La Laguna, Coahuila: 48.4% in Q3 to 36.9% in Q4 (↓11.9 points)
Nayarit, Jalisco: 49.7% in Q3 to 37.9% in Q4 (↓11.8 points)
Tonalá, Jalisco: 65.4% in Q3 to 56.5% in Q4 (↓8.9 points)
Tlalpan, Mexico City: 64.4% in Q3 to 55.7% in Q4 (↓8.7 points)
Gustavo A. Madero, Mexico City: 73.2% in Q3 to 65.3% in Q4 (↓7.9 points)
The cities where there were significant increases were:
Mazatlán, Sinaloa: 52.8% in Q3 to 80.4% in Q4 (↑27.6 points)
Hermosillo, Sonora: 47.5% in Q3 to 61% in Q4 (↑13.5 points)
Milpa Alta, Mexico City: 52.3% in Q3 to 65.4% in Q4 (↑13.1 points)
Pachuca, Hidalgo: 46.9% in Q3 to 59.9% in Q4 (↑13 points)
Tampico, Tamaulipas: 22.8% in Q3 to 34.8% in Q4 (↑12 points)
La Magdalena Contreras, Mexico City: 55.9% in Q3 to 65.2% in Q4 (↑9.3 points)
Azcapotzalco, Mexico City: 59.6% in Q3 to 68.5% in Q4 (↑8.9 points)
The places where Mexicans most commonly feel unsafe
Just over 72% of ENSU respondents reported feeling unsafe while using ATMs on the street, while almost 65% expressed security concerns about walking on the streets they regularly use and traveling on public transport.
More than 50% of respondents said they felt unsafe on highways and at the bank.
The percentages were higher among women than among men in all those places — and several others, including the home and the workplace.
Crime and anti-social behavior
Among the respondents who reported having seen or heard criminal activity or anti-social behavior near their homes in the fourth quarter of 2025, almost six in 10 said they had observed people drinking in the street.
Of those surveyed, 36.7% reported having heard frequent gunshots. (Cuartoscuro)
More than 48% of respondents reported having witnessed a robbery or mugging, and around four in 10 told INEGI they had seen people buying or using drugs.
Just under 39% of those surveyed said they had witnessed homes or businesses being vandalized, and 36.7% reported having heard frequent gunshots.
Just under one-quarter of respondents said they had witnessed some kind of gang activity near their home.
Opinions on Mexico’s security forces
The Mexican Navy is the country’s most effective security force, according to the results of the latest ENSU. Exactly 83% of respondents said they believe the Navy is very or somewhat effective in preventing and combating crime.
Just under 81% of those polled said the same about the Air Force, while the figures for the Army and the National Guard were 79.7% and 70%, respectively.
Almost 52% of respondents said that state police forces are very or somewhat effective in preventing and combating crime, while 46% said the same about municipal police.
Citizens’ security expectations
Around one-third of survey respondents (33.7%) said they expected the security situation in their city to remain “just as bad” during the next 12 months, while 25.6% predicted a deterioration.
Almost a quarter of respondents (23.2%) said they expected security to improve in their place of residence during the next 12 months, while 16.4% anticipated that the situation would remain “just as good” as it currently is.
President Sheinbaum said on Monday that she wrote a letter to the prime minister of Korea asking him to bring the K-pop group to Mexico more often. (Ticketmaster/Cuartoscuro)
Ticket sales for three BTS concerts scheduled for Mexico City in May devolved into chaos late last week, triggering government sanctions and even a presidential plea for more shows by the globally loved K-pop group.
A 24-year-old BTS fan tried last week to earn money for a concert ticket by selling candy in front of the Palacio de Bellas Artes. She may have found, as so many others did, that having the money for a ticket did not necessarily mean being able to buy one. (Andrea Murcia/Cuartoscuro)
Virtual queues swelled to more than 1.1 million users from over 1,300 cities worldwide, according to data shared by Ticketmaster and promoter OCESA.
Fans reported system crashes, orders getting stuck on the payment page and various error messages during the ARMY presale, along with complaints that tickets marked as available could not be selected.
Others denounced alleged dynamic pricing and said seats jumped from about 8,500 pesos (about US $490) with fees to more than 12,000 pesos (about US $692) during purchase attempts.
ARMY, the group’s fan club, is an acronym for “Adorable Representative MC for Youth,” with MC meaning emcee.
Outrage grew as images circulated of regular people (or perhaps apparent resellers) lining up at physical box offices despite rules that sales were supposed to be restricted to registered fan club members.
A presale for ARMY members was held Thursday and Friday of last week, with the general sale on Saturday.
Mexico’s Federal Consumer Protection Agency (Profeco) said it had received roughly 5,000 emails and multiple hotline complaints about irregularities and price changes in the BTS sale.
Profeco’s head, Iván Escalante, announced proceedings against Ticketmaster “due to a lack of clarity in the information provided to consumers” and promised sanctions for resale platforms such as StubHub and Viagogo “for engaging in abusive and unfair practices.”
At her Monday morning press conference, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said around 1 million young Mexicans wanted to attend the shows, but “there are only 150,000 tickets.”
After OCESA warned that the global schedule left little room for extra dates, Sheinbaum said, “I wrote a letter to the prime minister [Kim Min-seok] of Korea, asking him to bring the group to Mexico more often. I haven’t received a reply yet, but hopefully it will be positive, or at least that he’ll allow screens,” so those who can’t attend the concerts can watch them.
BTS, a seven-member K-pop boy band formed in 2013, is the best-selling act in South Korean history and one of the few non-English-language artists to sell out London’s Wembley Stadium.
Their 79-date Arirang world tour, starting in South Korea this spring, marks their full-group return after completing their nation’s mandatory military service.
With the participation of 1,500 exhibitors from all 32 states, Mexico's tourism minister said FITUR 2026 marked a turning point in the international projection of Mexican tourism. (@SECTUR_mx/X)
On Sunday, Mexico concluded its participation as partner country at the 46th edition of the International Tourism Fair (FITUR) 2026, held in Madrid, Spain, marking an unprecedented program that highlighted the diversity and competitiveness of Mexico’s tourism industry in one of the most influential platforms in the global tourism sector.
According to Tourism Minister Josefina Rodríguez Zamora, the Mexican delegation broke attendance and visibility records with more than 155,000 professional visitors in the first three days of FITUR. Its stand space, which spread across 1,800 square meters, was also the most visited in the Americas region.
With the participation of 1,500 exhibitors from all 32 states in Mexico, Rodríguez said FITUR 2026 marked a turning point in the international projection of Mexican tourism, positioning the country as a global power and a benchmark in the industry.
“Mexico shone at FITUR Madrid,” Rodríguez wrote on her official X account. “We demonstrated the strength of a united nation, proud of its roots and its people. Today, Spain and the whole world know why Mexico Está de Moda [Why Mexico Is Trending].”
This edition also served as a platform for Mexico to showcase its culture throughout the city, with strategic advertisements on FlixBus buses and Madrid Metro stations, art installations and exhibitions of Mexican handicrafts.
Rodríguez also held meetings with officials from other countries to strengthen community-led tourism and international cooperation. She also met with representatives from companies and leaders of international initiatives across multiple industries to explore opportunities for collaboration, investment and promotion in Mexico.
Desde FITUR 2026, compartimos una historia que nace desde lo humano 🎬✨
📍En el Recinto Ferial IFEMA, Madrid, presentamos el estreno oficial del cortometraje “El Buen Morir”, una producción de CONCANACO SERVYTUR en colaboración con Studio, que invita a reflexionar sobre… pic.twitter.com/MEqGCnhGgc
As part of these efforts to strengthen Mexico’s reputation before an international audience, the Mexico pavilion presented the short film “El Buen Morir” (A Good Way to Die), which explores death, identity and culture through the Mexican worldview: a view of death not as a taboo or absolute end, but as transformation and permanence in memory and legacy.
Other notable activations included the “Travel Safe To the 2026 World Cup” program organized by the Confederation of National Chambers of Commerce, Services and Tourism (CONCANACO SERVYTUR) with the purpose of protecting girls, boys and adolescents from human trafficking during the sporting event.
According to CONCANACO SERVYTUR, more than 300 meetings were held during FITUR with business leaders, international organizations and strategic partners, strengthening ties that will enable the coordination of international investment and cooperation in Mexico’s 32 states.
Divers from the Selvame MX collective found among the some 15,000 columns supporting the Maya Train examples of rusty structures that crumble to the touch, releasing contaminants into the underground aquifer. (Pepe Urbina/Selvame MX/Cuartoscuro.com)
Environmental activists are warning that structural damage to columns that support the tracks of the Maya Train endangers the operation of the railway and presents a risk of environmental damage that was foreseen but not addressed.
The environmental collective Selvame MX, comprising activists, divers and specialists dedicated to protecting the Yucatán Peninsula’s biodiversity, with particular focus on the Maya Forest and its aquifer, had elicited assurances from a construction company that it would repair the damaged columns.
Lo que especialistas advirtieron en 2024 hoy es una realidad alarmante
Imágenes exclusivas obtenidas por @SelvameMX el pasado 15 de enero de 2026, revelan que las camisas de acero de los pilotes que sostienen el Tramo 5 del #TrenMaya se están desintegrando.
The activists published a video of the damage on social media and included a message that said: “We did a dive to check if they had repaired the damage as promised, but we found that [a previously discovered damaged] column …from which tons of concrete spilled, is still there.”
Other fractured pilings with visible signs of deterioration were documented underwater. Selvame MX says the metal cladding of the columns has detached, exposing the structures and allowing the dispersal of contaminants.
The columns in question pierce the aquifer system of the Maya jungle in the state of Quintana Roo and have been the source of considerable criticism from the outset of the Maya Train project.
Last year, the Environment Ministry confirmed that construction of the Maya Train had indeed caused environmental damage, particularly to Section 5, where at least eight caverns and cenotes were significantly compromised to accommodate the train.
Selvame MX claims that surrounding the damaged column are others that reflect the poor construction and low-quality materials used. The organization maintains that the documented situation represents only a fraction of the problem, since they are only able to supervise the areas to which they have access.
They allege that the contamination of the aquifer by the corrosion of these metal cylinders meant to contain the concrete was foreseen and accepted by the promoters of the Maya Train project.
“These cylinders are corroding away,” they explained. “They serve no support function; they were destined to disappear.”
As a result, Selvame MX insists, the concrete poured inside the cylinders will eventually be exposed to water and will degrade, without any possibility of repair, due to the inaccessibility of the columns.
The reliability of the statistics the state-based Attorney General's Offices provide to the Executive Secretariat of the National Public Security System is considered by many to be questionable. (Moisés Pablo/Cuartoscuro)
At face value, it certainly appears to be good news, even though homicide numbers in Mexico remain high, with more than 23,000 victims reported last year.
Sheinbaum has attributed the decline in homicides during her presidency to the federal government’s security strategy. (Victoria Valtierra/Cuartoscuro)
Standing next to a bar graph, Sheinbaum frequently lauds the sustained reduction in murders as a testament to the effectiveness of her government’s security strategy; on Jan. 8, she highlighted that the murder rate in 2025 was the lowest since 2016.
However, there is a growing skepticism about the accuracy of the government’s numbers.
On one hand, there are concerns that authorities in Mexico’s 32 federal entities are not accurately reporting homicides because they are incorrectly classifying some murders as less serious crimes.
On the other hand, there are claims that the decline in homicides during Claudia Sheinbaum’s presidency is related to an increase in disappearances.
The federal government’s homicide statistics come from the states. Are they reliable?
The homicide data the federal government presents on a monthly basis is derived from reports it receives from the Attorney General’s Offices in Mexico’s 31 states and Mexico City.
The reliability of the statistics the state-based Attorney General’s Offices provide to the Executive Secretariat of the National Public Security System is considered by many to be questionable.
“They operate under budgetary, political and media pressures. When a homicide is difficult to prove or requires lengthy investigation, there is an incentive to reclassify it as injury, accidental death or a lesser crime,” he wrote.
“… An unresolved homicide looks bad in the statistics. A [fatal] injury unrelated to homicide looks better,” Guerrero wrote.
He said that “in states such as Jalisco, where multiple cartels operate, and Chihuahua, where violence is structural, these practices of reclassification are systematically documented by independent organizations.”
“The official statistics show declines [in homicides] while defense lawyers, forensic doctors and journalists document that violent deaths continue,” Guerrero wrote.
In a report published last November under the title “La Transformación de los Asesinatos en Propaganda” (The Transformation of Murders into Propaganda), the non-governmental organization Causa en Común also wrote about the “possible/probable reclassification” of homicides as other crimes.
“Adjacent to the category of intentional homicide, there are two other categories whose behavior has been peculiar in recent years: culpable homicide (accidents) and ‘other crimes against life and integrity,'” states the report.
“… In the past six years, the number of victims recorded in the category of intentional homicide has supposedly declined 11%. In contrast, the number of victims of culpable homicide and ‘other crimes against life and integrity’ has increased 11% and 103%, respectively,” the NGO said.
A June 2025 report by Ibero University similarly flags the “reclassification of crimes” as a possible “common strategy to reduce the visibility of high-impact crimes.”
The report also states that “the apparent reduction in homicide numbers doesn’t necessarily imply a real decrease in violence, but [could indicate] a sophisticated concealment of [intentional homicide] victims through [their classification in] other categories such as disappearances, atypical culpable homicides, unidentified deceased persons or bodies hidden in clandestine graves.”
In an interview with the EFE news agency last November, Armando Vargas, the coordinator of the security program at the think tank México Evaluá, said that to speak of a significant decline in homicides “is politically very profitable.”
However, he too noted that other “forms of violence” have increased, “amplifying suspicions” that criminal data is being manipulated.
“The expert,” EFE reported, highlighted that “some entities record more deaths from accidents (homicidio culposo) than from homicidio doloso [intentional homicide], without there being public reports of mass accidents that justify this anomaly.”
The manipulation of crime statistics by authorities in Mexico’s states is not a new phenomenon. The practice, aimed at making it appear that there are fewer homicides than there really are, allegedly dates back decades.
However, data showing a significant reduction in murders during the Sheinbaum administration — something that didn’t occur during the terms of recent past governments — has brought the issue into sharp focus.
Do disappearances conceal the seriousness of Mexico’s security situation?
In Sheinbaum’s first 12 months in office — Oct. 1, 2024 to Sept. 30, 2025 — 14,765 of the people reported as missing in the period remained unaccounted for when the president completed the first year of her term. That figure represents an increase of 16% compared to the final year of Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s presidency, and an increase of 54% compared to the annual average during AMLO’s six-year term.
Is this increase in disappearances related to the decrease in homicides? According to many observers, the answer is yes.
Reuters reported on Jan. 8 that government critics claim that the increase in “forced disappearances” is “masking the violence in the country.”
In an opinion article published by The New York Times in December, Ioan Grillo, a Mexico-based journalist with extensive experience reporting on organized crime, wrote that “opposition figures” assert that the reduction in homicides is “just because cartels are now disappearing more people, rather than leaving corpses to be counted.”
For its part, the news website Animal Político reported a few weeks ago that from the point of view of search collectives, “disappearance has become a criminal strategy: erase the body, dilute the crime [disappearance rather than homicide] and indefinitely extend punishment for the families.”
In its report, Causa en Común wrote that “another factor of uncertainty about the accuracy of the intentional homicide records is the increase in the number of disappeared persons” during the Sheinbaum administration.
“… Of course, an indeterminate number of people recorded as missing were murdered. Maybe for that reason, the missing person numbers don’t usually appear in the morning press conferences,” the NGO wrote.
It added: “The increase in disappearances has been of such magnitude that in some entities there has been a crossover in the records, with more reports of disappeared persons than victims of intentional homicide.”
Vargas, the México Evalúa security expert, asserted that “the federal government isn’t interested in the issue of disappearances,” even though Sheinbaum has said that attending to the missing persons problem is a “priority” for her administration.
“The disappeared are once again missing from official discourse,” he said.
Vargas said that disappearing people allows organized crime groups to “create terror” and “hide lethal violence” because “without a body there’s no crime.”
Do authorities, including the federal government, need to do a better job at locating missing persons — dead or alive — and solving such cases? According to victims’ relatives, and many others, the answer is definitely yes.
But the status quo — a significant decrease in homicides (per the government’s data) and an increase in disappearances — is a situation “in which everyone wins,” Vargas told EFE.
“With the bodies disappeared,” he said, “it is possible to maintain [that there is] a reduction in violence” — at least as measured in homicide statistics.
Vargas also said that Sheinbaum uses the data showing a reduction in homicides during her administration to “show off” to “the opposition,” her “political rivals within Morena,” Mexico’s ruling party, and Donald Trump.
“It’s a very perverse scenario, but politically profitable,” Vargas said.
Less flattering data
If the number of homicide victims in the first year of Sheinbaum’s presidency is added to the number of disappearances in that period, the total is 40,265.
That figure represents a decline of just 5% compared to the average annual combined total of homicides and disappearances during López Obrador’s six-year term. It represents a significant increase compared to the average number of homicides and disappearances annually in the sexenios (six-year terms) of Enrique Peña Nieto (2012-18) and Felipe Calderón (2006-12).
Of course, a 5% reduction in the incidence of these two serious crimes doesn’t sound anywhere near as good as a 30% annual decrease in homicides, as the government has recently been touting. And clearly it is not in the interests of the current federal government to dwell on — or even raise — data that shows that the combined incidence of homicides and disappearances under Sheinbaum is higher than during the sexenios of Calderón and Peña Nieto.
However, it should be remembered that whether a person is murdered or missing, the reality for the victim’s family is essentially the same — their loved one is gone.
In a perhaps flawed defense of her government, Sheinbaum said late last year that “disappearances in Mexico are linked to organized crime in the vast majority of cases,” rather than “the state, as was the case in the ’70s and even part of the ’80s.”
Still, the Sheinbaum administration — like any government — has a responsibility to provide security conditions that make it less likely that abductions will occur, no matter who is attempting to commit them.
A proposed remedy
In an article published by Animal Político on the final day of 2025, journalist Manu Ureste described a disconnect between the government’s data on homicides and the reality of the security situation Mexico faces.
“While the institutional discourse focuses on the drop in homicides, the country ended the year with nearly 14,000 people still missing [among those who disappeared in 2025], cartels operating with wartime tactics, cities trapped in internal conflicts, and local economies subdued by large-scale extortion from organized crime,” he wrote.
In a report published late last year, Causa en Común wrote that “the underestimation and distortion of crime with political purposes are of such magnitude that official reports cease to be a useful tool to design security strategies.”
The NGO also said that “the manipulation of the most sensitive information for Mexico indicates an irresponsibility that must be corrected, out of political honesty, and to acknowledge and face up to the most serious of our problems.”
So, what can be done?
In his recent column for Expansión, Guerrero Baena, the security consultant, wrote that the Executive Secretariat of the National Public Security System (SESNSP) “acts as an intermediary between state data and public opinion.”
“Theoretically, it should filter out inconsistencies. In practice, it validates what it receives. It has no investigative powers, does not break down methodologies, and does not question classifications. It is a passive receiver that becomes an active certifier,” he wrote.
In that context, Guerrero Baena proposed “four structural reforms” that he asserted could “restore credibility” to “the statistical measurement of violence.”
The carrying out of independent audits of State Attorney General’s Offices’ crime data. Such audits would review “100% of cases” in which violent deaths are not classified as intentional homicides. When “patterns of systematic reclassification” of violent deaths are detected, the information should be referred to federal authorities. Audit results must be published on a quarterly basis.
Reform the SESNSP to give it “independent verification” powers. Create a “statistical validation unit” with direct access to information from the Civil Registry and the Mexican Social Security Institute as well as forensic records, and investigations in prosecutors’ offices. “This unit should publish reports on methodological discrepancies found, requiring public corrections when the figures do not correspond to demographic realities.”
Create a “national observatory of anomalous mortality” that cross-checks Civil Registry data on deaths with information from prosecutors, medical examiners and forensic medicine institutes. “This observatory would report monthly on deaths recorded as violent,” but which don’t have “corresponding investigation files, allowing for the identification of true blind spots in the system.”
Conduct “methodologically rigorous” victimization surveys every three months in order to gauge the “lived experience” of Mexicans with regard to violence. The results of the surveys “would be published alongside” data on reported crimes, “allowing for comparison and mutual validation.” (Statistics agency INEGI already conducts a National Survey of Urban Public Security on a quarterly basis, which measures people’s perceptions of insecurity in the cities in which they live.)
In his column, Guerrero wrote that his proposals “are just the beginning of a necessary transformation.”
“The urgent task is to restore credibility. Without reliable statistics, without figures that society recognizes as reflecting reality, it is impossible to have a genuine public security policy,” he wrote.
“Mexicans deserve to know what is really happening in their cities. They do not deserve figures that reassure them with lies.”
By Mexico News Daily chief staff writer Peter Davies (peter.davies@mexiconewsdaily.com)
