The sea lion enjoys the company of divers after climbing aboard their boat.
A sea lion surprised some divers in Baja California Sur earlier this year by clambering over the side of their small vessel and stopping for a rest.
Posted by tour guide Alexander Schmidt Márquez, a diving and ocean safari guide in Cabo San Lucas, a video shows the diving party calling over the edge of the boat to the sea lion, which then — to their surprise — jumps into the boat and allows itself to be petted and handled by the people on board.
At one point it appeared to fall asleep with its head in the palm of Schmidt’s hand.
Baja California Sur is well known for its up-close displays of wildlife, including sea lions on the Isla Espíritu Santo where visitors can watch this aquatic creature from September to May. Still, the friendly sea lion’s visit was clearly beyond regular viewing. Schmidt reported that where they were diving nearby there is a rock where groups of sea lions rest in the sun so he was unsure why the creature felt the need to take a break on their boat. However, he said it did appear exhausted.
There have been other instances where sea lions have boarded boats, including one in 2021 in which a sea lion in Canada hopped on board a woman’s boat to escape threats from nearby orca whales.
While the animals can also be aggressive in certain circumstances, it seems these sea lions needed their human companions and so took advantage of the relationship when in trouble.
The several dozen protestors, some who rode through Morelia's streets on horseback, marched against a proposed bullfighting ban introduced to the state Congress in June.
Several hundred people took to the streets of Michoacán’s capital this week to protest a prohibition on bullfighting in the state.
Led by members of the United Federation of Traditions in Mexico (Fetumex), the protesters said that outlawing bullfighting and cockfighting or other forms of entertainment involving animals — such as rodeos and horse racing — will cost millions their jobs and incomes.
“There are always attempts to end the traditions that we are out here defending now … there are millions of people that will be affected throughout the country,” said Fetumex president Efraín Rábago Echegoyen.
The group, which included locals as well as bullfighting aficionados from Baja California, Sinaloa, Coahuila, México state, Guanajuato and Puebla, marched or rode on horseback from the Plaza de Toros bullfighting ring through the city, ending up at Michoacán’s congressional building to meet with legislators and their aides, hoping to encourage public support and increase publicity for their cause.
Protesters targeted Michoacán state Deputy Mayela del Carmen Salas Saenz, who proposed the ban, which makes the case that bullfighting is animal cruelty.
They also directed their message specifically at state Deputy Mayela Salas Sáenz, who in June proposed a ban on the practice to Michoacan’s Congress.
The protesters included locals as well as bullfighting aficionados from Baja California, Sinaloa, Coahuila, México state, Guanajuato, and Puebla — the latter a state which has a bullfighting arena in the capital and where, despite protests, the sport has been added to Zacatlán’s annual apple festival this month.
Many of the protesters in Morelia on Tuesday also protested in the nation’s capital last November as the Mexico City legislature was in the process of outlawing bullfighting on the grounds that the tradition involves cruelty to animals.
Majority support in the Mexico City Congress for such a law ultimately proved elusive, but bullfighting was effectively banned in the city in June, when the famous Plaza México, the world’s largest bullfighting ring, was forced to close its doors to bullfighting after a federal judge validated a lawsuit that argued that the ‘degrading and stigmatizing’ treatment of bulls in the sport is unconstitutional.
Mexico is one of the few places in the world that still carries on the bullfighting tradition, brought to the Americas by the Spanish. However, it has already been prohibited in five states: Sonora, Guerrero, Sinaloa, Coahuila and Quintana Roo.
In contrast, the states of Aguascalientes, Tlaxcala, Hidalgo, Querétaro, Zacatecas, Michoacán, Nayarit and Guanajuato consider bullfighting intangible cultural heritage, although in June, the Supreme Court invalidated a Nayarit decree giving that status to bullfights and cockfights.
Over the past decade, opinions in Mexico have shifted about the tradition, with 59% of the public now saying they favor outlawing the practice and 73% saying they believe it to be cruel to animals.
CORRECTION: This story was updated after publication to edit the estimated number of people participating in the protest.
A roaring dinosaur statue welcomes visitors to the new museum. Photos: government of yucatán
Sixty-six million years ago, a meteorite hit the earth where today the northwest edge of the Yucatán peninsula sits. Now a new museum has opened to pay homage to this and other meteorite events throughout history.
El Museo del Meteorito, or The Meteorite Museum, opened Tuesday in the port town of Progreso, Yucatán.
The museum, a project coordinated between the local and federal government, saw more than 1,000 local, national and foreign visitors streaming through its doors on Tuesday.
Adults and children followed interactive displays throughout the facility that tell the story of Yucatán’s Chicxulub meteorite — whose effects scientists believe wiped out 75% of all plants and animals on Earth, including the dinosaurs. The museum also explains the history of the planet as scientists understand it.
The museum’s opening attracted crowds.
Replicas of some of the world’s greatest dinosaurs are on display throughout the building and its outdoor garden areas, as are real pieces of meteorites that guests can handle.
There are also video-mapping displays, tablets for visitors who want to design their own dinosaur and other interactive technologies to teach the public about Earth’s four major extinctions, life during the Cretaceous period, and the impact of the Chicxulub meteor on the Yucatán and elsewhere.
The museum is an attempt to foment more cultural tourism in a city that is better well-known for its port access for cruise ships, its beaches, and the Chichén Itzá ruins.
Joining the meteor party is the Chicxulub Crater Museum (Museo del Cráter de Chicxulub), an exhibit housed on two floors of Progreso’s Biblioteca del Parque Científico y Tecnológico de Yucatán, or The Library of the Science and Technology Park of Yucatán.
The Chicxulub Crater Museum exhibit is coordinated by the National Autonomous University (UNAM), which spent various years putting together an extensive display on this important extinction event with rooms dedicated to teaching about the history of life, biodiversity, evolution, massive extinctions and more.
Passenger numbers were up a whopping 40% in Puerto Vallarta last month. shutterstock
Passenger numbers at airports in three of Mexico’s most popular beach destinations exceeded 2019 levels in July, providing more evidence that the tourism sector has recovered from the pandemic-induced downturn.
Data from airport operators shows that passengers numbers in Cancún, Los Cabos and Puerto Vallarta were significantly higher last month than in July 2019.
Over 2.87 million passengers passed through Cancún airport, a 20% increase compared to three years ago, while the number of people who used Los Cabos airport rose 25% to over 667,000. Passenger traffic at Puerto Vallarta rose by an even higher 40% to almost 559,000.
The news website Expansión reported that Cancún airport – which also receives tourists headed for other Quintana Roo destinations such as Playa del Carmen and Tulum – had its best July ever for domestic passengers, with numbers exceeding 1 million for the first time.
The publication of the data comes a week after the federal Tourism Ministry reported that over 10.2 million international tourists flew into Mexico in the first six months of the year, an 83% increase compared to the first half of last year and a 1.5% uptick compared to the same period of 2019.
The airports in Guadalajara, Tijuana, Mérida and Oaxaca city also had more passengers last month than in July 2019, according to data published by Expansión. However, passenger numbers at the Monterrey and Acapulco airports declined.
An analyst for the Monex financial group predicted that airports operated by the Southeast Airport Group – among which are those in Cancún, Cozumel, Huatulco, Mérida, Oaxaca city and Veracruz – will continue to see high numbers of passengers in the remainder of 2022.
“We believe that a favorable growth trend will be maintained, the result of a greater appetite for pleasure trips as well as a greater offering of airline routes,” Brian Rodríguez said.
16 beaches were identified as having excessive amounts of sargassum Tuesday morning.
Another beach destination where tourists have flocked this summer is Mazatlán, which is expected to welcome well over half a million visitors in July and August.
In Cancún, thousands of tourists are thronging Caribbean coast beaches on a daily basis, despite the presence of sargassum. “We’re reaching between 5,000 and 6,000 people on all our beaches,” said Francisco Díaz Lara, the federal maritime land zones (Zofemat) director in Benito Juárez, the municipality where Cancún is located.
“They’re figures that we were expecting for this season, obviously … [there is] favorable weather, that’s why a large number of swimmers are gathering [on the beaches],” he said. “… The beaches are the main attraction in this municipality.”
Díaz said that the presence of sargassum – a brown seaweed that emits a foul odor when it rots – isn’t dissuading tourists from going to the beach. Sargaceros, or sargassum shovelers, remove the seaweed from beaches on a daily basis, although they sometimes struggle to keep up.
One beach where sargassum has overwhelmed the sargaceros is Playa Delfines, which was the only beach in Cancún with excessive quantities of the seaweed on Tuesday, according to a map published by the Quintana Roo Sargassum Monitoring Network.
“The sargassum is removed but it keeps arriving from the sea,” Díaz said. “It caused us a lot of problems last weekend, … we removed 165 tonnes in two days.”
Published Tuesday, the network’s latest map shows that 16 Quintana Roo beaches have excessive quantities of sargassum, 10 of which are on the east coast of Cozumel. Five are in Tulum, where authorities began installing anti-sargassum barriers last week.
The installation of the barriers, which have a combined length of 2.4 kilometers, began in the Tulum National Park a few months later than originally planned, according to the newspaper La Jornada Maya.
Tulum Zofemat director Melitón González Perez said the navy is working with state and municipal authorities to put the barriers in place. “We intend to place 2,400 meters of barrier in front of the National Park beaches to try to contain the arrival of sargassum,” he said.
Defending sovereignty, whether it's threatened or not, always goes over well. shutterstock
I understand the need to create a national identity in order to recover from a decade of bloody internal war. In the wake of the Mexican Revolution, promoting a nascent nationalism was no doubt a useful response to the recent and blatant violations of Mexico’s sovereignty. I get it.
But when a guy starts talking about the superiority of his race, that’s when I reach for my laptop.
The guy in question was José Vasconcelos, Mexico’s top public intellectual of the first half of the 20th century. In his work, Vasconcelos assigns Mexicans to a “cosmic race” which represents no less than “the fruit of all the previous ones and amelioration of everything past.”
Just what the membership requirements are for this dream team of a race are lost in a contradictory discourse that cites native values as its core principle even while calling for the dilution of indigenous traditions in the service of a Pan-American mestizaje.
Still, injecting race into the nationalist project effectively recruited the entire population to the cause of protecting Mexico’s sovereignty, whether it was actually threatened or not. From then on, any potentially invasive act or comment by a foreign member of an insufficiently cosmic race was not just a violation of your nation’s political sovereignty, but an affront to you personally, an attack on your very identity.
We can roll our eyes today, but Vasconcelos was by no means the only advocate of a racialized approach to sovereignty in his time. He was, however, the only one whose day jobs included minister of education, rector of the National Autonomous University of Mexico, and director of the National Library of Mexico. It was from these perches that he inserted his ideas into the national curriculum, bequeathing words like raza and soberanía a special prominence in the political vocabulary to this day, and guaranteeing future presidents plenty of public support whenever they might play the sovereignty card.
“I think it has a lot to do with the way that Mexicans have been educated, myself included,” Denise Dresser, the bilingual Mexican columnist and commentator, said recently during an AmericasQuarterly podcast. “Decades of an official narrative . . . all of the history books that were read by children, all of the speeches, even the iconography, are all based on the idea of the protection of sovereignty.”
Fast forward to 2022, when Mexico and its two northern neighbors are carrying on a spat that could get ugly. The United States and Canada are challenging the current administration’s moves to semi-renationalize (to coin a term) the energy industry as a clear violation of the USMCA, the successor to the North American Free Trade Agreement, which guarantees a level playing field in electricity investment. That challenge, in turn, is seen by the López Obrador administration as a clear violation of Mexico’s sovereignty. Guess which position went over best with the public.
‘We’re not a colony anymore,’ said AMLO in defense of his energy policy. But the consequences for trade could be serious.
If you’ll forgive a stretched metaphor, President López Obrador played the sovereignty card in spades. Instead of quoting language in the USMCA that may support his argument, he launched into a greatest hits of time-honored grievances, including “we’re not a colony anymore” and that he’s “nobody’s puppet.”
U.S. and Canadian negotiators have surely learned to ignore nationalist noise, and even the Mexican press, once reliably on board with any accusation of violated sovereignty, isn’t buying it. In researching this article I had a hard time finding many media dissenters from the consensus opinion that the administration’s rhetoric is not only manipulative and irrelevant, but actually weakens the cause of sovereignty by jeopardizing Mexico’s credibility as a trading partner.
None of that matters. The president’s message wasn’t meant for President Biden, or Prime Minister Trudeau, or the USMCA interpreters, or the media. The target audience was the Mexican people. The motive was to galvanize his supporters and warn his adversaries that their refusal to defend Mexico’s sovereignty will be seen as traitorous behavior.
And – surprise, surprise – it worked. His support is strong. The sovereignty card has plenty of legs left in it. And President López Obrador, despite the impression left by the chattering classes, remains popular.
It should be made clear that the United States is no green angel here. Support from progressives for keeping private investment alive in the energy sector may seem out of character, but it’s seen as the shortest path to renewable energy — wind, solar, geothermal. However, that’s not the motive for the complaint. U.S. and Canadian corporations see the USMCA as guaranteeing them a piece of the Mexican energy action and they damn well want their share.
And, of course, U.S. politicians, mostly conservative, are themselves not above citing sovereignty when it suits them. It has suited them, for example, when justifying jailing children, tossing innocent asylum seekers back across the border to fend for themselves, implementing blatantly bigoted immigration rules and blocking international courts from sniffing around too close to home.
Strictly speaking, the USMCA does in fact chisel slightly at Mexican sovereignty in terms of energy policy. Any trade pact asks the signatories to cede some power for their mutual benefit. The parties go into the deal with their eyes wide open and agree to its provisions. That’s why they’re called agreements.
Mexico signed on to the USMCA as a co-equal partner (as opposed to a puppet or a colony) on López Obrador’s watch. Predictably, he’s taken a lot of razzing for labeling a document that he endorsed as being in violation of his country’s sovereignty – an own-goal if you will. But rolling back his predecessor’s energy privatization is a high priority for this president. He’s not going to give that up easily.
It’s sad that Mexico’s legitimate concern for protecting its sovereignty is so often hijacked for stirring up the masses. Mexico’s nationalist stance does not necessarily rule out resorting to a negotiated solution that the treaty provides for settling these disputes. It could just mean that Mexico gets a multimillion-member cheering section during the amelioration process. It’s possible that everyone can come out of this happy, however grudgingly.
But if Mexico decides to go to the mat and loses, observers say the consequences could be serious. Punitive tariffs would hurt the Mexican economy in ways that average residents will feel. The USMCA itself could be scarred, or worse. So might Mexico’s relations with the United States.
The visitor center near the Palenque archaeological site in Chiapas is 55% complete, said the Culture Ministry. INAH
Visitor centers are now under construction at some of the archaeological sites located near the route of the Maya Train railroad.
Chichén Itzá, Uxmal and Ek’ Balam in Yucatán and Palenque in Chiapas are among the sites that will get Visitor Attention Centers (known collectively as “CATVIs”), according to a statement published Monday by the Ministry of Culture.
The National Institute of Anthropology and History is supervising the construction of the centers, which are slated to enhance the experiences of archaeological site visitors, including Maya Train passengers who disembark to visit ancient Mayan cities in the five states — Tabasco, Campeche, Yucatán, Quintana Roo and Chiapas — through which the 1,500-kilometer railroad will run.
The US $10 billion railroad is expected to begin operations in 2023.
The ancient Maya site of Palenque, known for its extensive hieroglyphics, is one of the more popular pre-Hispanic sites in Mexico. INAH
In its statement, the Culture Ministry provided an update on the construction of the Palenque archaeological site’s CATVI, located about nine kilometers from the town of Palenque, Chiapas. The center — which is being built three kilometers from the ancient city — is 55% complete, the ministry said.
The site where the center is being built was excavated between 1990 and 2000 and inspected again for ancient artifacts in 2021 before construction began. Carlos Varela Scherrer, a Palenque archaeological site official, said that last year’s inspection turned up just 40 ceramic shards, confirming that “there wasn’t an intense occupation of the area.”
Citing representatives from the private consortium building the Palenque-Escárcega stretch (Section 1) of the Maya Train railroad, the Culture Ministry said that the centers’ objective is to “optimize the visitor experience and to serve as development hubs for nearby communities.”
Juan Ignacio Roldán Suárez, chief engineer for the section 1 project, said that the Palenque CATVI will function as a “filter” for the archaeological area, a place where tourists can rest before and after visiting the ancient city.
The visitor center will feature solar panels on the roof.
The center’s design, inspired by traditional Mayan homes, will have parking for cars and buses, an “introductory module,” drinking fountains and washrooms that “converge at a Mayan arch,” the Culture Ministry said.
It also said the CATVI will be a sustainable building, noting that it will have its own water treatment plant and that its palm-leaf roof will have solar panels.
“With the support of biologists, we’ll create wildlife crossings and we’ll make sure that animals are not affected by power lines, bright lights or excessive noise,” Roldán Suárez said.
Over 100 residents of Palenque and nearby communities are working directly and indirectly in the construction of the CATVI, the Culture Ministry said. Palenque already has a site museum, where visitors can learn about the pre-Hispanic settlement and the Mayan people who occupied it.
A burned out bus in Zapopan, Jalisco, set alight by armed criminals. @ahtziricardenas/Twitter
An operation to arrest a Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) leader triggered a violent response in Jalisco and Guanajuato on Tuesday, where at least a dozen vehicles and businesses were set on fire.
Carried out by the army and the National Guard in the metropolitan area of Guadalajara, the operation reportedly succeeded in detaining Ricardo Ruiz Velasco, a presumed CJNG plaza chief in western Mexico and the Bajío region.
According to a Reforma newspaper report, the violence began at approximately 7:30 p.m. when a group of armed men seized three public transit buses and two private vehicles in Zapopan, a municipality that adjoins Guadalajara. They subsequently set the vehicles alight to create fiery narco-blockades.
Jalisco Governor Enrique Alfaro reported on Twitter that there was a confrontation between the army and organized crime members in the area where the municipalities of Ixtlahuacán del Río and Cuquío meet. In an attempt to block the passage of security forces, vehicles were set alight on the highway to Saltillo, he said. “Fortunately, there are no injured persons. The situation is under control,” Alfaro wrote.
After Ricardo Ruiz Velasco’s arrest, criminal groups began setting fires in Zapopan.
The violent response to the arrest of Ruiz – who has previously been identified as a leader of a CJNG elite group – spread to the neighboring state of Guanajuato later on Tuesday night. Armed men set vehicles and businesses on fire in the municipalities of Celaya, Irapuato, Salamanca, Silao and Apaseo el Grande, according to a Milenio newspaper report. Reforma reported that public transit vehicles and convenience stores were also torched in León and Guanajuato city.
Irapuato, a city known as Mexico’s strawberry capital, bore the brunt of the backlash, according to Reforma, with at least a dozen stores and a gas station set alight. More narco-blockades were created by setting vehicles on fire on the highway between Celaya and Apaseo el Grande.
Guanajuato Governance Minister Libia García said that the violence in that state was related to the events in Jalisco. In a Twitter post, she also said that some of the aggressors involved in setting vehicles and businesses on fire had been detained.
“The criminal action is contained and under control, there are no injured persons,” García wrote.
This video posted on Twitter shows a person driving through Irapuato while cars were on fire Tuesday night.
Known as “El Doble R” (The Double R), Ruiz is a central figure in the CJNG, according to a report by news website Publimetro. It was reported in 2020 that Ruiz and another key cartel lieutenant could challenge the leadership of Nemesio “El Mencho” Oseguera Cervantes, who is rumored to have kidney problems. However, two years later Oseguera remains at the helm of the CJNG, which is believed to operate in 28 states across Mexico.
According to Publimetro, Ruiz was wanted in connection with the 2012 murder of Venezuelan model Daisy Ferrer and the 2013 homicide of former Jalisco tourism minister José de Jesús Gallegos Álvarez.
Two of the Danzante stones at Monte Albán, which were probably carved by the Olmecs, the city's first occupants. Photos by Joseph Sorrentino
The Monte Albán ruins sit majestically on a flattened hilltop in the Valley of Oaxaca, about 9 kilometers (5.5 miles) west of the city of Oaxaca. The site on which it stands has been occupied for over 1,500 years by various groups; first Olmecs and then the Zapotecs and Mixtecs.
The Zapotecs built the city, which for over 1,000 years was one of the most important in all of Mesoamerica. But despite its importance, no one today knows what its Zapotecan name was.
Several possibilities have been put forward, including Colina de Jaguar (Jaguar Hill), Montaña Sagrada (Sacred Hill) or Cerro del Tigre (Tiger Hill). And it’s not clear where the name Monte Albán came from either.
It may have been the name of a Spanish soldier, or it may refer to the Alban Hills in Italy, although why it would be named for some Italian hills is a mystery. It’s also thought that Monte Albán may be a corruption of the original Zapotecan name.
Monte Albán’s elegant and well preserved ball court.
Olmecs were the first to occupy the site and may have carved some of the stones known as Los Danzantes (The Dancers). At the very least, that civilization influenced their depictions, since some of the faces have distinctive Olmec traits, such as large heads and thick lips (more about these intriguing stones later).
It’s generally agreed that the Zapotecs arrived around 500 B.C. At that time, another Zapotec city now known as San José Mogote was the largest city in the valley. It’s believed that rulers from there decided to build a new capital on top of a hill primarily for defensive reasons — the period was characterized by ongoing warfare, and locating a city on top of a hill would certainly provide more security.
At its start, the city covered about 800 acres and had an initial population of about 5,000.
Between 500 and 150 B.C., the city grew to cover 1,092 acres, and its population expanded to about 17,000. This explosive growth is believed to be due to the relocation of residents from San José Mogote which, along with other sites in the valley, showed a rapid decline in population.
The city’s population continued to grow, reaching its peak of 35,000 between A.D. 250 and 500. It appears that the city’s center was reserved for the ruling elites while the bulk of the population lived outside the center, where they grew crops on terraces.
The city began a slow decline around A.D. 500. Then, for reasons still unknown, it collapsed completely between A.D. 850 and 900. It was then occupied sporadically by other groups, most notably Mixtecs.
Monte Alban’s spectacular Main Plaza, which measures 300 by 200 meters, has pyramids, a palace, an observatory, at least 170 tombs and large slabs covered with hieroglyphics. Along its periphery are buildings believed to have been temples and which also housed the ruling elites and priests. There are two well-preserved ballcourts on which a game called tlachtli was played. Its architecture, ceramics and murals show the influence of Teotihuacán, a major urban center located about 500 miles directly north in what is now the state of México.
One of the most interesting buildings is the boringly-named Building J, which was constructed around 100 B.C. It’s shaped like an arrow, something unique in Monte Albán, and most archeologists believe it was an observatory. In addition, the site was also where Monte Albán’s rulers announced their victories over neighboring groups.
This slab is one of more than 40 similar stones with writing that may represent areas conquered by Monte Albán. The upside down figure may show sacrificed captives.
Along its sides are more than 40 carved stones with the names of different places. Many also have upside-down heads and additional writing. It’s believed that the names refer to areas conquered by Monte Albán. The upside-down heads may represent sacrificed captives.
The carved stones known as Los Danzantes are located outside Building L. Over 300 of them depict naked men, some with their genitals appearing to be mutilated. Carved between 350 and 200 B.C., they are called The Dancers because their convoluted shapes led researchers to believe that the figures depict dancers. That theory, however, has been rejected.
Although it’s now generally believed that they depict tortured and sacrificed war captives, some of whom are identified by name, a 2019 paper offers a radically different explanation: instead of sacrificed captives, it argues that the carvings depict the city’s elites in positions mimicking those of jaguars. If so, this would suggest that the stones were carved not by the Olmecs but by the Zapotecs.
In Zapotecan culture, the jaguar represented the land and fecundity, and its roar was believed to be the voice of the mountains. In Monte Albán, the jaguar was revered as the city’s guardian god. Researcher Fahmel Beyer also argues that the figures don’t display genital mutilation. Rather, he believes that the area’s covered with a flower glyph, which represents a sex organ.
Monte Albán was named a World Heritage site by UNESCO in 1987. Currently, a little over 5,100 acres of it are protected land. An agreement between Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) and the municipality of Oaxaca city in 1993 gives INAH the power to control any proposed development in and around the site and allows for archeological investigations.
The fastest way to get to Monte Albán is by car or taxi. A taxi will run 140 to 180 pesos (US $7 or $8). There are also buses that cost about 8 pesos, but the trip takes much longer and the buses tend to be packed. The entrance fee is a modest 85 pesos.
The site is open every day from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Like many ruins across Mexico, there’s precious little shade, so sunscreen and a good sun hat are must-haves. And water. Once past the entrance, there’s none to be had.
Figure about two hours to leisurely explore the ruins. The museum is currently closed, but you can grab a drink and a snack in the restaurant and pick up some souvenirs in the gift shop.
Entrepreneur Luis Oswaldo Espinoza Marín killed himself while authorities raided his Zapopan property on Saturday. Video capture
A businessman who committed suicide during a police raid on his Jalisco home on Saturday fleeced hundreds if not thousands of people by using celebrities to seal his credibility.
After recording a mea culpa video, Luis Oswaldo Espinoza Marín shot himself in the head during a state police raid on his property in Zapopan, part of the metropolitan area of Guadalajara. The police were seeking to arrest Espinoza after some 130 fraud complaints were filed against him.
The businessman operated the real estate company Asesores Jurídicos Profesionales (AJP) for 30 years, during which time he purchased old, run-down homes and renovated them before selling them at a healthy profit.
According to a report by the newspaper Mural, Espinoza used his supposed relationships with political figures, celebrities and sports stars to convince people he could be trusted. He also had a way with words, using persuasive language to cajole people into investing their hard-earned cash in his company. AJP was supposed to pay monthly returns to investors, but those payments stopped earlier this year, according to one defrauded person.
Espinoza, left, used this picture to convince potential investors that he was close to boxer Saul ‘Canelo’ Álvarez. This is actually a picture of Espinoza with one of Álvarez’s brothers.
Mural reported Tuesday that over 200 complaints have now been filed against Espinoza, adding that state authorities estimate that investors’ losses could amount to some 250 million pesos (US $12.3 million). El Universal reported that there could be as many as 10,000 fraud victims.
One victim, Marisol Sandoval, says Espinoza swindled her to the tune of 550,000 pesos (US $27,100). She told Mural that the entrepreneur showed her photos of him with famous people when she was considering investing in AJP. His aim, Sandoval said, was to get potential clients to trust him, and in her case, the tactic worked.
“You say to yourself, ‘How could he defraud [champion boxer Saúl] ‘Canelo’ [Álvarez]? How could he defraud [government official and television presenter] Eli Castro?” she said.
Sandoval said she was offered a return of 2% if she invested for six months, 2.5% for nine months and 3% for a one-year investment. The minimum investment was 100,000 pesos (almost US $5,000), while some people entrusted millions to Espinoza’s company, she said.
In addition to using his supposed links to famous, rich and powerful people to seal deals with investors, Espinoza showed them property deeds to convince investors that they could entrust their money to AJP, according to Eduardo Sherman, a lawyer for three victims.
“He convinced them by providing them with the guarantee from the deeds of three properties,” he said, adding that one of the deeds corresponded to the Zapopan property where Espinoza took his own life.
Sherman called on Jalisco authorities to act quickly to trace Espinoza’s monetary transfers during his time at the helm of AJP.
Another victim – identified only as Fidel by Mural – said he lost 2 million pesos (US $98,700). He said he decided to invest in Espinoza’s company 1 1/2 years ago and everything went as expected in the beginning.
Celebrities were not only used to convince investors of Espinoza’s credibility, some were also victims, including singer Christian Nodal.
“There were people who spoke well about the company and that’s why we made an investment. … It appeared to be a good, serious company. ”
However, Fidel’s monthly interest payments suddenly stopped in May. “[The company] told us ‘we have a problem, wait until next month or next week,’ that kind of thing,” he said.
Fidel said he has lost his life savings and that he needs the money in order to keep his business afloat. Another victim – a long-term neighbor of Espinoza – said she felt angry and disappointed about being swindled of an undisclosed amount of money.
“I can’t believe that a person is capable of putting together such a terrible thing,” Araceli said.
Marisol, Fidel and Araceli were among some 50 people who protested outside Jalisco government offices on Monday to seek the intervention of Governor Enrique Alfaro in the case.
Alfaro, who spoke with some of the victims, said the matter was “between private individuals” and one in which the government has no involvement, but stressed that state authorities want to assist the process “so that the work of the Attorney General’s Office can be very clear and punctual.”
Before taking his own life, Espinoza recorded a video message in which he said he was unable to service loans he had taken out due to the “disruptive” nature of the pandemic.
“I over-mortgaged the properties that I purchased with the fruit of your investments,” he said in the video he posted to his Facebook account just before the police arrived and he killed himself. The businessman said that he made all required payments to investors for 29 years before running into trouble.
Espinoza, center background in white, used his involvement in an organ transplant charity linked with celebrities to obtain photos of himself with them to seal his credibility with potential investors.
“I am currently unable to go on,” Espinoza said, adding that all of the money his company received from investors is invested in mortgaged real estate. He took full responsibility for defrauding investors and apologized to them, his family and his colleagues.
“None of my relatives or colleagues or my wife and kids … used resources fraudulently. I ask for their forgiveness as well as that of my clients,” Espinoza said.
“The guilty party, in an ethical, civil, criminal and historic sense, is me,” he said before asking that there be no reprisals against innocent people.
“… Currently I can’t go on, not even with my life,” Espinoza reiterated. “The last six months of my life, I’ve felt emotionally, physically and morally destroyed. I’ve lost everything. Don’t hold anyone responsible for my death.”
Diego Toj, advocate for the Mam language and culture.
The number of speakers of a Mayan language known as Mam declined by about 50% between 2005 and 2020, leading to fears that the language and culture could die out in southern Mexico.
The 2005 census counted over 19,000 speakers of Mam but the number had declined to just 9,800 by 2020.
The language is spoken in 14 municipalities near the border with Guatemala in the southern state of Chiapas, according to a report by the newspaper Diario del Sur. Among them are Unión Juárez, Tapachula, Huehuetán and Amatenango de la Frontera.
Diego Toj, a member of the Maya-Mam Regional Indigenous Council, told Diario del Sur that efforts to preserve the Mam language have been limited to grandfathers, grandmothers and bilingual teachers. But they don’t have educational materials to support their efforts or adequate spaces in which to teach, he said, adding that they are not remunerated for their work.
Toj said there is scant interest from Mexican authorities to preserve the Mam culture and language, which is spoken more widely in Guatemala. That lack of interest as well as the migration of young people to central Mexico and the United States are factors that have put the language, gastronomy, herbal medicine, ceremonies and rituals and culture generally at risk of extinction, he said.
Toj said that authorities need to provide resources to ensure their conservation, noting that neither the federal nor the Chiapas government has allocated funds to that end for years.
The Mam people, who live in the Soconusco and Sierra Mariscal regions of Chiapas, and other indigenous groups need more than good intentions, the council member said, asserting that investment in healthcare and basic infrastructure such as roads is also needed.
José Castañón Ramírez, a Mam teacher, told Diario del Sur that authorities have announced programs to “rescue” indigenous languages and culture, but they haven’t reached Mam communities in southern Chiapas. He acknowledged the existence of authorities such as the National Institute of Indigenous Peoples (INPI) and National Institute of Indigenous Languages (INALI), but complained that there is no on-the-ground support from them.
Irma Pineda, Mexico’s representative to the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues said earlier this year that a proposal to incorporate INALI into INPI showed that protecting native tongues is not a priority for the federal government.
Similarly, Castañón said it was regrettable that the current federal government doesn’t provide sufficient support to indigenous communities – even though President López Obrador styles himself as a champion of Mexico’s most marginalized and impoverished people.
