CFE chief denies being investigated by US for 1985 murder of DEA agent

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June 18, 2021

CFE director Manuel Bartlett — Bartlett denies allegations by the magazine Proceso that US Department of Justice officials want to question him about the murder of DEA special agent Enrique Camarena in 1985.

Manuel Bartlett Díaz, director of the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE), has denied that he is being investigated by the United States government in connection with the 1985 murder of U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agent Enrique “Kiki” Camarena, a crime that occurred when he was federal interior minister.

His denial on Thursday came almost a month after the news magazine Proceso published a report that cited U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) officials saying that he would be immediately detained in connection with the abduction, torture and murder of Camarena if he were to set foot in the U.S.

Bartlett, also a former governor of Puebla, former federal education minister and ex-secretary general of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, told a press conference that the assertion that he is under investigation in the United States is “a lie” and “false.”

He claimed that the Proceso article — and the cover page on which he appeared under the title “United States insists on questioning Bartlett” — was funded by people who want to abolish the CFE and hand control of Mexico’s electricity market to foreign companies.

“[The report] is a lie, a fallacy. … They brought it out a few days before the [June 6] elections. It’s shamelessness; it’s a paid front cover [story],” Bartlett said.

DEA agent Enrique "Kiki" Camarena and his wife Mika — DEA agent Enrique “Kiki” Camarena, seen here with his wife Mika, was kidnapped and killed by orders of the Guadalajara Cartel.

The 85-year-old also asserted that the report is a “rehash” of a “false” story from three years ago. He claimed that its publication is an attempt to intimidate him and the federal government into not carrying out energy sector changes to favor the CFE over private companies.

But Bartlett said he wouldn’t be intimidated, declaring that “we’re going to continue to defend the national interest.”

President López Obrador said this week his administration had no knowledge of such an investigation and claimed the Proceso report was part of a “smear campaign” against his government.

The Proceso report is based on an interview with unnamed DOJ officials and extracts from a government file on the case.

“His name appears numerous times and on various pages of the investigation files that are open in the Camarena case,” one U.S. official told Proceso. “If he [Bartlett] enters the United States he will be detained for questioning.”

“Mr. Bartlett knows that his name has been mentioned during the decades that this investigation into the Camarena case has been going on, and that is why he would have to testify before a grand jury,” said another Department of Justice official.

President López Obrador says he knows of no US investigation of Bartlett and that the *Proceso* report is a ‘smear campaign’ against his administration.

Camarena, a Mexican-born special agent, was abducted on February 7, 1985 in Guadalajara and killed two days later on the orders of Guadalajara Cartel leaders Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo, Ernesto Fonseca Carrillo and Rafael Caro Quintero. The traffickers allegedly operated in cahoots with both federal and state authorities in Jalisco.

Proceso said the documents it obtained — which it said are currently “sealed in a federal court in California” — state that Bartlett, as interior minister in former president Miguel de la Madrid’s government, participated in meetings between drug traffickers and officials before the abduction of Camarena and after his murder.

Proceso said the Department of Justice officials confirmed the authenticity of the documents it obtained, in which other de la Madrid officials, including national defense minister Juan Arévalo Gardoqui and José Antonio Zorrilla Pérez, director of the now-defunct Federal Directorate of Security, are also mentioned.

Bartlett Díaz “was ultimately responsible for the Federal Directorate of Security (DFS). DFS was so deeply involved with the traffickers that witnesses have testified that it was impossible to tell the difference between them. There are approximately 800 DEA files reflecting reports of DFS corruption from 1980–1990,” one document said.

“Bartlett Díaz was present at several pre-abduction meetings during which the kidnapping of S/A [special agent] Camarena was discussed,” it said, adding that witnesses “have also placed” the then interior minister at 881 Lope de Vega street in Guadalajara on the night of February 7, 1985 — the day Camarena was abducted.

Proceso said the house on Lope de Vega street belonged to Rubén Zuno Arce, brother-in-law of Luis Echeverría Álvarez, president of Mexico between 1970 and 1976.

Guadalajara Cartel leaders Felix Gallardo, Rafael Caro Quintero, Ernesto Fonseca. — From left: Guadalajara Cartel leaders Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo, Rafael Caro Quintero, Ernesto Fonseca Carillo.

“It was at that property where Camarena was interrogated with atrocious torture methods before he was murdered,” Proceso said.

The same document said the CFE chief “was reported to have attended a meeting in Mexico City on February 25, 1985, regarding information leaks to DEA” adding that “an eyewitness said that a copy of the Camarena interrogation tapes were delivered to Bartlett Díaz.”

Another government file extract obtained by Proceso cited a witness as saying that he or she on February 7, 1985 “looked into one of the main living rooms of the residence” owned by Zuno Arce and saw numerous officials including Bartlett, Arévalo, Zorrilla, then Jalisco governor Enrique Álvarez del Castillo, then Interpol Mexico director Miguel Aldana Ibarra and then Federal Judicial Police director Manuel Ibarra Herrera as well as traffickers, including Félix Gallardo.

The witness stated that “during this time period he/she noted that Fonseca Carillo was not present at the residence but that he returned a short time later,” the document said.

Another document obtained by Proceso cited a witness as saying that Bartlett and other officials attended a meeting a few days before the abduction of Camarena at a house in Zapopan, Jalisco, owned by Caro Quintero. Félix Gallardo and Fonseca Carillo were also allegedly present.

A Department of Justice official told Proceso that if Bartlett was questioned in the United States, “he would have to make a lot of clarifications about why different witnesses, who don’t even know each other, insist on involving him in the case of the abduction, torture and murder of Camarena.”

Ruben Zuno Arce — Rubén Zuno Arce, whose Guadalajara home Bartlett and others allegedly met in to discuss Camarena, died in a US prison in 2012.

A DOJ official told the magazine that Bartlett hired a group of private investigators and lawyers in 1997 — he was governor of Puebla at the time — to find out everything they could about the protected witnesses that have linked him to the Camarena case.

“His intention was to discredit the witnesses. His investigators compiled their sins, reports that they were corrupt police officers, that they had committed murders on the orders of drug traffickers, that they raped women, that they were unfaithful, that they had children with various wives. … His idea was to strip them off their credibility,” the official said.

The official said that lawyers for Bartlett delivered the information the investigators dug up about the witnesses to a court in California.

“But the grand jury and the judge rejected [the information] because there wasn’t anything that wasn’t known and it was considered a ploy by Bartlett Díaz to avoid being questioned,” the DOJ official said.

Asked by Proceso whether Bartlett has been to the United States “since he has been mentioned in the Camarena case,” the official responded: “That’s personal and confidential information, so I’m prevented from speaking about the point.”

Proceso noted in its report that “it’s public knowledge that Bartlett Díaz denies any reference that links him to the case of the abduction, torture and murder of the DEA agent.”

Rafael Caro Quintero is on the DEA’s most wanted fugitives list after being released on a technicality from a Mexican prison in 2013. DEA

However, there are two “indisputable things,” the report added, asserting that the first is that while the investigation into the Camarena case continues, Bartlett will be detained for questioning if he enters the United States.

“The second is that his name is mentioned on many occasions and in different circumstances in declassified investigation documents, which are in a federal court in Los Angeles, California.”

United States journalist Charles Bowden has also compiled eyewitness accounts describing Bartlett’s alleged involvement in the decision to kidnap, torture and murder Camarena in order to put an end to his operation against the Guadalajara Cartel.

Ignacio Morales Lechuga, attorney general during the latter half of the 1988–1994 government of former president Carlos Salinas, said late last year that when he was the country’s top legal officer he met with United States attorney general William Barr, FBI director William Sessions and DEA administrator Robert Bonner and “they asked me to extradite Manuel Bartlett, Enrique Álvarez del Castillo and Juan Arévalo, who they accused of being the intellectual authors of the murder of Camarena.”

However, the extraditions never occurred, and Álvarez, the former Jalisco governor, and Arévalo, the defense minister when Bartlett was interior minister, are now deceased.

With reports from EFE, El Financiero and Proceso

Oaxaca journalist murdered despite protective measures

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Rose Egelhoff

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June 18, 2021

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Sánchez was one of two journalists killed this week.

Oaxaca journalist Gustavo Sánchez was murdered Thursday morning despite having protective measures that had been provided by the state’s Office for the Defense of Human Rights.

Sánchez was killed in the community of Morros de Mazatán, located in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec municipality of Santo Domingo Tehuantepec. He had protective measures in place after he said he had been threatened by the Mayor Vilma Martínez.

According to state police, the victim was riding a motorcycle with another person when they were attacked by a group of armed men. The aggressors fled on foot, leaving Sánchez dead of a gunshot to the head, and his companion wounded.

It was not the first attack on the journalist. A year ago, Sánchez was the target of an armed attack on his home. In testimony to human rights officials, Sánchez blamed the attack on Martínez.

Attorney General Arturo Peimbert said investigators are working with a witness and have evidence of who was responsible for the attack.

The head of the Office for the Defense of Human Rights said the authorities’ efforts to protect Sánchez would be evaluated.

Just before Sánchez’s death came the news of another journalist killed in the city of Metepec in México state. Enrique García was killed around midnight on Wednesday in what appears to be a robbery. He was shot while driving home.

In 2020, Mexico ranked as the deadliest country for journalists according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

“Mexico is suffering a multi-faceted crisis with regard to press freedom. The situation has been getting steadily worse over the past few years, culminating in the country’s abysmal status as the world’s deadliest for reporters in 2020. The crisis principally stems from impunity,” said Jan-Albert Hootsen, CPJ’s Mexico representative in 2020.

With reports from Milenio, La Jornada and The Guardian

Father and son killed by lightning in Oaxaca after sheltering beneath tree

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Rose Egelhoff

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June 18, 2021

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Garbage is swept away by floodwaters in Juchitán.

A father and son were killed by lightning this week after seeking shelter beneath a tree in the Central Valleys region of Oaxaca.

Emergency personnel responded to the incident only to find that the two victims had already died.

They were identified as Cirilo, 58, and Sergio, 23 years old of San Nicolás Yaxe. Their families said they went out to take care of livestock, then sought shelter from the rain under a tree.

The two men are the third and fourth casualties of this year’s rainy season in Oaxaca. The other two deaths were river drownings.

Heavy rains have hit the state in the past few days, leading to widespread flooding in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. At least 15 neighborhoods in Ciudad Ixtepec were flooded and 33 communities were inaccessible as of Thursday.

In Juchitán, the Perros River overflowed its banks, causing flooding in low-lying areas of the city

The rains have also damaged highways that connect Oaxaca city to Puerto Ángel and Puerto Escondido.

With reports from Milenio

Hay Festival in Querétaro goes hybrid; 30% of events in-person

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Rose Egelhoff

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June 18, 2021

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Economist Joseph Stiglitz will be one of the guests at this year's Hay Festival.

The 2021 Hay Festival in Querétaro will be presented this year under a new hybrid model: 30% of events will be in person, while the rest will be online.

The festival, a celebration of culture and ideas that will be held from September 1 to 5, will present all its concerts in person, as well as 33 discussions and workshops. All events are free.

Festival director Cristina Fuentes explained that the hybrid model will allow conversations that can only take place in person.

“Now more than ever we are lacking conversation, which the Hay Festival has always created: a space to discuss, to imagine the world and to give space to the experts,” Fuentes said. “In this culture of social media, where everything is black and white, we lack time to converse and imagine a new world.”

The program will include 170 participants, including four Nobel Prize winners: Svetlana Alexievich and J.M.G. Le Clézio, who won the Nobel Prize in literature, as well as Joseph Stiglitz and Esther Duflo, who won the Nobel in economics.

Other participants include Mexican writers Sabina Berman, Élmer Mendoza, Fernanda Melchor and Juan Villoro and international authors including Pilar Quintana, Santiago Roncagliolo, Amin Maalouf, David Grossman and Patrick Deville.

But the festival does not stop with literature. Scientist Avi Loeb, pianist James Rhodes, feminist collective LASTESIS and Café Tacvba guitarist and composer Joselo Rangel will also be participating in the program.

With reports from Milenio and El Universal

Yucatán acquires German shepherds trained to sniff out Covid

By

Rose Egelhoff

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June 18, 2021

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One of the Covid-sniffing dogs gives a demonstration in Yucatán.

Yucátan has two new weapons in the fight against Covid-19: Hocky and Kadet are German shepherds specially trained to detect cases of the disease based on smell.

The dogs are now part of the K-9 unit of the state’s Ministry of Public Security (SSP).

The dogs were born in Poland and Slovenia but trained in a special program in San Antonio, Texas, said Yucátan Governor Mauricio Vila Dosal. There, they learned a new technique designed by French doctor Dominique Grandjean in which the dogs detect Covid-positive patients by smelling their underarm sweat. Studies show that the technique is 95% effective.

The new K-9 unit members were acquired as part of a transfer of gear and resources from the U.S. Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL), arranged through the U.S. consulate in Mérida.

The INL also provided the Yucátan SSP with canine instructor training, five Ford Explorers modified for canine transportation, and eight dogs trained to detect drugs, weapons and cash.

With reports from Infobae

Engineers say 68% of Metro’s elevated section requires attention

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MND Staff

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June 17, 2021

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A worker removes debris from the Metro Line 12 accident site.

Almost one-third of the elevated section of the Mexico City Metro’s Line 12, where an accident last month killed 26 people, shows signs of damage, the Mexican College of Civil Engineers said Thursday.

Bernardo Gómez Gonzáles, head of the college’s structural safety technical committee, told a press conference that 101 experts inspected most of the elevated section of the subway line, which runs between Atlalilco and Tláhuac stations, both in the Iztapalapa borough.

The only part they didn’t inspect was the section where the May 3 tragedy occurred. The collapse of that section was caused by a series of faults during construction, according to the preliminary results of an independent inquiry.

Gómez said the inspection determined that 32% of the elevated section of Line 12, the Metro system’s newest, has “grade B” damage that requires repair.

Among the problems engineers detected were cracks in concrete support columns, insufficient separation between steel beams and concrete slabs on the overpass and welding deficiencies.

The sections on the line where damage was found are not necessarily “high-risk” but “must be analyzed with greater detail,” Gómez said, adding that 68% of the elevated section has “grade C” damage, or common wear and tear, that requires routine maintenance.

The committee Gómez heads advised against resuming services on any section of the line until further inspections and the required repair work are carried out.

It offered that advice even though inspections haven’t identified any structural problems with the underground section of the line, which continued to operate in 2014 while the elevated section was closed for repairs.

“The tunnel section of Line 12 of the Metro doesn’t have structural damage nor deformations that place its stability at risk,” said Francisco Suárez Fino, president of the Mexican College of Civil Engineers’ tunnels and underground projects association.

“The main problems it has are due to [water] leaks … that, with adequate maintenance and an efficient water capture and management system, can be resolved,” he said.

With reports from Milenio and Televisa

US President Biden helps Mexico enjoy break from economic gloom

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Michael Stott and Jude Webber

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June 17, 2021

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Business gloom has been so pervasive in Mexico since Andrés Manuel López Obrador won the presidency in 2018 on a strident anti-establishment platform that a recent burst of optimism about the country’s growth prospects feels like a ray of sunshine breaking through the clouds.

Last October, the International Monetary Fund was forecasting that Mexico would grow just 3.5% in 2021 after shrinking by a seasonally adjusted 8.5% last year during the pandemic. Yet as the economy rapidly opens up, coronavirus infections remain low and the effects of the giant U.S. stimulus ripple across the border, many economists and bankers here now see Mexico expanding almost twice as fast.

“The combination of continued reopening with strong remittances and a U.S.-led global recovery has allowed Mexico to close the gap with other Latin American economies, outperforming all of them in the first half of 2021,” said Marcos Casarín, chief economist for the region at Oxford Economics. The consultancy’s recovery tracker shows Mexico is returning to pre-pandemic levels of activity more quickly than any Latin American country.

“Mexico will grow 6% this year and it could be higher,” said former finance minister and academic Carlos Urzúa, citing the spillover effects of U.S. fiscal stimulus and increased remittances from Mexicans working across the border. These could reach US $55 billion this year and are “much more important than oil,” he added.

But few believe this year’s U.S.-inspired growth spurt heralds a bright new dawn for Mexico. The expansion, bankers and economists say, is almost entirely thanks to President Joe Biden’s policies, rather than López Obrador’s. The biggest beneficiaries are Mexico’s export-oriented manufacturing companies in the north of the country and the tourism industry, while firms servicing the domestic market struggle with depressed demand.

“Mexico will grow 6% this year whether it likes it or not, dragged along by the U.S.,” said one dealmaker who runs an investment fund in the country. “It will grow quite well in 2022 also. That’s not the point. What matters is what happens after 2023.”

Here the picture is much less sunny. A near-universal complaint in the business community is that López Obrador’s hostile rhetoric, constant attacks on regulators and the judiciary, his unpredictable policy announcements and preference for state-owned companies have scared away the foreign money that should be coming to Mexico to take advantage of preferential access under the U.S.-Mexico-Canada free trade agreement.

“The ritual of bringing the global CEO to Mexico to announce a new investment is over,” said one leading member of the international business community. “There is a pause. Nobody is leaving the country but nobody is proposing incremental investment either.”

The example cited most often as deterring investors is the energy sector, where López Obrador is attempting to reverse an opening to private money begun under his predecessor and revert to a state-run fossil-fueled model, throttling a once-promising renewable energy boom in the process.

“The problem is investment and the issue is medium-term and long-term,” said Gerardo Esquivel, deputy governor of the central bank. “It’s been stagnant since 2015-2016.”

Urzúa said that public investment would be only 2.7% of gross domestic product this year, barely more than half the level it should run at. Much of the spending is directed towards López Obrador’s pet projects, which include an oil refinery in his home state of Tabasco and a tourist railway around the Yucatán peninsula.

Despite his government’s focus on social programs to help the poor, López Obrador stands out from other populists for his stubborn refusal to increase borrowing to allow more spending. Most economists here do not believe that his decision last week to switch finance minister and appoint longtime ally Rogelio Ramírez de la O, 72, will change this.

Those close to the president say his aversion to debt stems from a conviction that the Mexican governments he admires most in the 1960s and 1970s were crippled by excessive borrowing. “AMLO turns into a panther when you suggest that he should take on more debt,” said one former minister. “It’s simply not something you can discuss. He will not spend.”

Even amid the pandemic, López Obrador was one of the very few presidents in the world to reject extra borrowing to alleviate suffering, despite the fact that Mexico had the fiscal space to do so. Critics dubbed his policies “austericide.” And while public investment remains weak, the president does little to encourage the private sector to take up the slack.

“López Obrador must promote private sector investment,” said the CEO of one Mexican bank, adding that the private sector accounted for 86% of Mexico’s total investment. “There is no way to grow without private investment. This rejection of private investment has to stop.”

And as for Mexico’s recovery: “To grow 6% this year and 3.5 next year is not magic, it is inertia.”

Literary Sala to interview author Hallie Ephron in live online format

By

Michelle Aguilar

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June 17, 2021

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Hallie Ephron interview with San Miguel Literary Sala — Hallie Ephron, author of 11 suspense novels, will be interviewed by the San Miguel Literary Sala in a live web conferencing format on June 20.

The San Miguel Literary Sala continues its June online series with an interview with New York Times bestselling author Hallie Ephron on June 20 in a live streaming format during which viewers will get a chance to “come up on stage” and talk briefly with the author.

Ephron, who has written 11 suspense novels, has literary genes: her parents, Henry and Phoebe Ephron, were screenwriters who moved to Beverly Hills from the east coast, and her three sisters, Nora, Delia and Amy, have all had prolific careers as screenwriters, novelists, journalists and film producers.

Ephron started writing novels later in life. Her last five books have all been finalists for the Mary Higgins Clark Award. Her book Never Tell a Lie was made into a movie for the Lifetime network in 2011. Her latest work, Careful What You Wish For, was described by the New York Journal of Books as “expertly crafted …”

It tells the story of a professional organizer married to a hoarder. Emily, the protagonist, discovers some surprising secrets in a storage unit that belonged to the deceased husband of one of her clients, which starts her on a hunt to discover the perpetrator of a crime.

Ephron will be interviewed for the Literary Sala by literary agent April Eberhardt. They will discuss Ephron’s writing career, her novels and her experiences growing up in a family of writers.

Replicating a Literary Sala in-person tradition, viewers will be encouraged at the interview’s end to interact individually with Ephron via the online conferencing format.

Eberhardt, a reader for The Best American Short Stories series published annually by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, founded her own literary agency in 2011 after spending 25 years as a corporate strategist and management consultant. She is a frequent presenter at writers’ conferences and serves on the advisory council of The American Library in Paris.

Tickets for the online interview, which takes place at 6 p.m. CDT, cost US $5–$50, with viewers encouraged to pay what they wish. To purchase tickets, visit the San Miguel Literary Sala website.

How a Mexico City scientist turned into a clean water activist for Xochimilco

By

Lydia Carey

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June 17, 2021

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Center for Chinampa Education, Xochimilco, Mexico City — A Center for Chinampa Education employee checks the center's compost aerating equipment.

It’s an overcast day in the heart of San Gregorio, one of 14 towns that make up the Xochimilco borough in southern Mexico City, and a small canal that ends in a cement landing is surrounded by piles of manure waiting to be used in the cultivation of the area’s vegetable farms.

San Gregorio is the area’s largest producer, cultivating tons of yearly vegetables that go on to be sold in the city’s massive central de abastos (produce market) and other local markets. The water in the canal is an electric green, choked by tiny algae called lenteja de agua (water lentils, also known as Lemna minor L.).

“It’s caused by an overwhelming amount of phosphorus and nitrogen in the water,” explains Refugio Rodríguez, a biotechnology scientist at Mexico’s National Polytechnic Institute. “It’s from the runoff when it rains that filters through fields laden with pesticides and untreated manure.”

Because of the plant cover, the water below doesn’t get sufficient oxygen, and little sun filters through it. This causes what little flora and fauna that exist to be stunted and creates a toxic environment for those that live near here.

Rodríguez is working to change this. After spending years working for monster polluters like Pemex and the Mexican National Railroad, Rodríguez’s life was changed five years ago on a single trip out to the canals in Xochimilco. It was a place that she, like many city residents, only thought of as a place for tourist boat cruises.

Mexico City scientist Refugio Rodríguez with filter equipment — In just 60 minutes, Refugio Rodríguez’s filtering equipment can make 240 liters of water safe for washing, cooking and even drinking.

“I saw the problems that they had, how they were farming, and started thinking about the quality of food we were eating, and it affected me deeply. To see them water their crops with greywater, to see them unprotected like that, I just thought I could do something,” she says.

Rodríguez purchased a small plot of land two years ago and started to build the Center for Chinampa Education (CEDUCHI), a place that would offer workshops to farmers from the area and beyond, teaching methods to clean the immediate environment where they cultivate and improve the overall quality of the canals’ water and soil.

A simply built pump and filtration system sits enthroned in the center’s main workshop area. Made from high-impact PVC pipe and ultraviolet lamps, this machine can be built for around 40,000 pesos, or US $2,000, and will last about 20 years.

Its purpose is to gather both rainwater and canal water and send that collected water through a series of tubes where high-pressure nanobubbles and UV light rays destroy the water’s harmful microbes. The microbes have built up from years of runoff and illegal dumping in canals. In the case of rainwater, pollution has been drawn from the air as rain falls to the city’s surface.

In just 60 minutes, this pump can clean 240 liters of water, making it safe for washing, cooking and even drinking in certain circumstances.

Five pumps are already functioning in various places throughout the canals with several on individual chinampa island farms to help producers create clean sources of water for their crops and their families.

The pumps connect to simple rainwater catchment systems that can be mounted on the roofs of homes to capture some of the average 700 millimeters of water that fall during the city’s annual rainy season.

In the canals, the pumps work in conjunction with biofilters built right into them, which allow the water to first pass through various gravel layers and aquatic plants that reduce solids in the water and absorb some of the harmful microorganisms.

On the CEDUCHI patio, a mound of vegetable debris is being rotated by Refugio’s assistant to turn it into compost. Large PVC pipes stick out of the pile’s bottom to allow oxygen to enter and gases to release while it transforms.

This mound will be covered with plastic and left to sit for the next two months until it decomposes down to look like the finished product Rodríguez holds in her hand — a rich earthy compost, free of harmful microbes and rich in nutrients.

This compost model is already being used on Señor Pompilio Guerra’s farm a few miles away. One of the crops, radishes, is extremely sensitive to the high salinity in the area’s soil, and so they are incorporating Rodríguez’s compost into beds and using it to revitalize the soil and reduce salt levels.

Guerra has a large bunch of magenta radishes that he is picking under today’s cloudy sky. Just a month into production, they are already in shape to be sold.

Pompilio Guerra with a crop of radishes grown using scientist Refugio Rodriguez's compost — Xochimilco farmer Pompilio Guerra holds a bunch of radishes grown using Refugio Rodríguez’s compost, filtered of pollutants.

The compost is made up of elements that are easily found in this watery landscape — lirio (a type of local water lily), orange rinds, dried leaves and grass and, in Rodríguez’s most recent version, used toilet paper.

The fungi produced on the skin of the oranges are sufficient enough to kill any harmful microorganisms in the mix, and they also help to reduce the area’s naturally high salinity.

Once the elements have time to decompose, the compost is safe enough to use on vegetables for human consumption.

Rodríguez has one more homespun invention up her sleeve. Similar to her stationery filtration pump, she has attached a nanobubble pump to several local trajineras (flat bottom boats used for pleasure cruises around the canals). The pumps run on solar power from panels strapped to the boats’ rooftops, and they push high-pressure nanobubbles deep into the canals’ water.

The size and force of the nanobubbles cause them to remain underwater and provide oxygen to areas that are in desperate need of it, as well as destroy harmful microbes and bust open the particles of greenhouse gases, eliminating them from the water’s chemical makeup.

This is what she is planning for the San Gregorio canal.

“[The nanobubbles] could reduce the growth of the lenteja de agua by getting rid of the pollution in the water. We have a plan,” she says.

CEDUCHI will allow Rodríguez that opportunity to share all the technologies she has painstakingly developed with all the farmers in the area, with the idea that these small models can be replicated and used throughout the country on similar problems. She hopes they will have a long-reaching effect on the larger conversation about water scarcity and water conservation in Mexico.

Lydia Carey is a regular contributor to Mexico News Daily.

Suspected Romanian gang leader to be tried for stealing 70mn pesos from ATMs

By

MND Staff

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June 17, 2021

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BBVA Tulum — Tudor's organization allegedly used skimming devices to withdraw US $7.3 million from BBVA ATMs in 24 hours in 2017.

A Romanian man accused of running a massive bank card skimming operation in Mexico has been ordered to stand trial on charges he stole 70 million pesos (US $3.4 million) from ATMs.

Florian Tudor, who was arrested in Mexico City late last month after an extradition request from Romania for organized crime, extortion and attempted murder, and two other alleged members of the Romanian criminal group were ordered to stand trial for crimes under the Credit Institutions Law as well as criminal association, the federal Attorney General’s Office (FGR) said Tuesday.

The FGR said it presented evidence against the suspects during a marathon 18-hour hearing in a Quintana Roo court. The judge remanded them in preventative custody and granted authorities a period of four months to complete their investigation.

“These people are likely responsible for illegally carrying out … operations at automated teller machines in the states of Quintana Roo, Yucatán, Hidalgo, México state and Mexico City,” the FGR said.

Tudor, known as “The Shark,” is currently being held at the Altiplano federal prison in México state, having been transferred there from a Mexico City prison on June 5.

Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard said May 28 that he would be extradited to Romania “very quickly” but the alleged mafia leader has a court order that prevents his extradition, the newspaper Milenio reported.

According to authorities, Tudor and criminals he worked with – among whom were allegedly other Romanians, Mexican hackers, Venezuelan cyber crime experts and the Quintana Roo cartel boss Leticia Rodríguez Lara — scammed hundreds if not thousands of people who used Cancún, Puerto Vallarta and Los Cabos ATMs in which bluetooth devices, or “skimmers,” had been placed to steal card details.

The criminals then used cloned cards to withdraw cash from their victims’ accounts. In one 24-hour period in March 2017, the group withdrew 150 million pesos (US $7.3 million) from BBVA ATMs in Quintana Roo, Mexico City and México state, according to a report by Milenio based on Mexican and United States intelligence.

However, authorities only have evidence showing that 70 million pesos was stolen from BBVA machines, the newspaper reported today.

A federal security cabinet document obtained by Milenio indicates that the Romanian mafia also stole similarly large amounts from ATMs at Citibanamex, Wells Fargo, Chase, Bank of America and TD Bank. It is unclear where those heists occurred.

With reports from Milenio