At her Monday morning press conference, Claudia Sheinbaum read out a statement declaring that attending to Mexico’s missing persons “problem” is a “national priority” for the Mexican government.
She also pledged that “there will be no impunity” in the Teuchitlán case involving the discovery of burnt human remains along with 200 pairs of shoes and other discarded personal items at a property in the state of Jalisco.
Near the end of her press conference, Sheinbaum signed a decree endorsing a constitutional reform that bans the cultivation of genetically modified corn in Mexico. Congress approved the reform earlier this year.
In addition to outlining “six immediate actions against the crime of abduction” and signing the aforesaid decree, the president responded to reporters’ questions on a variety of topics.
This mañanera report focuses on the responses she gave to questions on three of those topics: the hacking of President Sheinbaum’s cell phone, the United States’ construction of an additional section of border wall and the recent conviction and sentencing of the sister of 2024 opposition presidential candidate Xóchitl Gálvez Ruiz on kidnapping charges.
Sheinbaum’s cell phone and email account were hacked
A reporter asked the president about a New York Times report that said her cell phone was hacked shortly after Mexico extradited 29 drug cartel figures to the United States on Feb. 27.
“Soon after the handover, Ms. Sheinbaum’s cellphone was hacked, according to several people familiar with the matter,” the Times reported last Friday without providing any additional details.
Sheinbaum confirmed on Monday morning that her phone was hacked, but clarified that it is an old phone she no longer uses for communication that is “more personal” in nature.
She also said that a Yahoo Mail account she opened years ago was hacked. Sheinbaum said she didn’t know who provided the information about the phone hacking to The New York Times.
She said that Apple “immediately” informed the government’s Digital Transformation Agency about the hacking of a cell phone with a number she has had for some 17 years.
“Now, which telephone was it? Do you remember that during the [2024 presidential election] campaign a telephone number of mine came out? It was my number, one that I still keep, a number that everyone knew,” Sheinbaum said.
She said that current Campeche Governor Layda Sansores gave her that “telephone number,” and a phone, in 2008 during the “Las Adelitas” oil defense protest movement and as a consequence she has a certain “affection” for it.
At the time, Sheinbaum said she had a prepaid cell phone plan.
“I worked in UNAM then … and the credit used to run out … and then people couldn’t call me,” the president said, referring to her days as an academic at the National Autonomous University.
“So Layda, who was a senator then, said to me: ‘I’m going to give you this phone and I’m going to pay for it so you don’t have that problem,'” she said.
“Afterward I made it mine, Layda didn’t pay for it anymore, around three years later I put it in my name,” Sheinbaum said.
The president said she kept the number after she was elected mayor of the Mexico City borough of Tlalpan in 2015 and after she was sworn in as mayor of the capital in 2018.
“A lot of people have that telephone number … but it’s a telephone that I no longer use for my more personal communication, let’s say,” Sheinbaum said.
She said she wanted to keep the number “for communication with the people” — i.e. her supporters and other constituents — and noted that she only responded to “requests” she received to the corresponding phone “every now and then.”
“That was the phone they hacked,” Sheinbaum added.
“… Who hacked it? We don’t know. They’re investigating, it’s hard to know,” she said.
With regard to her hacked email account, Sheinbaum said she believed that it was “the first email account” she opened.
She said that her Yahoo email address is “very, very old” and a lot of people have it.
Sheinbaum stressed that she has an official email account with “all the cybersecurity conditions of the government and all the rest.”
“… I now have another telephone number that I’m not going to say here for obvious reasons,” she added.
Based on Sheinbaum’s remarks on Monday, it appears that the hackers were not able to obtain any sensitive information pertaining to the activities, discussions and dealings of the current president and federal government.
‘We don’t agree with the wall’
A reporter noted that United States Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced that “seven new miles of construction” would be added to the wall on the border between the U.S. and Mexico.
Customs and Border Protection said in a statement on Saturday that that it had “awarded the first border wall contract of President Trump’s second term in office to Granite Construction Co. for [US] $70,285,846 to construct approximately seven miles of new border wall in Hidalgo County, Texas.”
With respect to the announcement, Sheinbaum told reporters that as “you know, we don’t agree with the wall.”
“We don’t believe that it solves the [illegal immigration and drug smuggling] problem,” she said.
“I remember the conversation that [former] President López Obrador had with President Trump on one occasion. He talked about it here at the mañanera, he told [Trump]: ‘Well, you can build the wall but they will still dig tunnels,'” Sheinbaum said.
“… The best way to attend to migration is by attending to the causes, investing … in the places … where there are people who have to migrate out of necessity. That will always be our opinion,” she said.
“And we have always said it is better to build bridges than walls,” Sheinbaum added.
Sheinbaum declines to comment on case involving presidential rival’s sister
A reporter noted that the sister of 2024 presidential candidate Xóchitl Gálvez Ruiz was sentenced to 89 years in jail for kidnapping and other offenses.
The reporter noted that Jacqueline Malinali Gálvez Ruiz confessed that she used her sister’s name to “attract her kidnapping victims,” and asked the president whether she had any opinion on the matter.
Sheinbaum responded that she didn’t want to comment on the case involving the sister of the woman she defeated at last year’s presidential election.
“Whoever commits a crime must be held accountable and punished. That’s as much as I’ll say,” she said.
By Mexico News Daily chief staff writer Peter Davies ([email protected])
