How Dangerous is Mexico?

[TotallyOz]

I just sat next to a guy on an airplane for 17 hours. He has businesses in Mexico, China, Thailand, and several other places. He says that the Mexican government is easy to work with and the cost to make the product is cheaper there than anywhere else for their firm. But, he said that he hated to go there even for a visit as all foreigners are targets and that he personally knows people who were kidnapped by their Taxi driver, in their hotels, etc. He says it is just not safe for people to visit and he said this was true for even the upscale beach areas.

Does anyone travel there know this to be the case? Is it something that will go away with time?

[TampaYankee]

This is really a no brainer, IMO.

I only know what I see in the media and the story is pretty much the same whatever the news source.

The last thing anyone should put stock in is any Tourist or Chamber of Commerce, hotel or Mexican government information. They depend on travelers which colors their information.

I would love to go to Mexico but the only way I would go these days is if I were kidnapped and transported there. No way, no how.

[OneFinger]

A few years ago I worked on a project in Mexico. We were always warned, prior to going there, about the potential for kidnapping, assault, robbery, etc. In fact, our business office was robbed more than once on payday.

Unfortunately, I've been told that things have only gotten worse. Part of this is because of the drug wars and part of the blame is on the corrupt police.

I would ONLY go to Mexico if I was on a cruise or going directly to a resort facility. There is no way I would go out in Mexico on a my own or without a very large group. And, I really don't see things getting any better in the near-term.

[flguy]

After arranging a trip to Puerto Vallarta with Dane from Raleigh we arrived at the first resort which was all inclusive and didn't really leave the grounds. After transferring to Casa Cupula for the last 5 days the only warning from the staff there was being it was off season and so many people out of work, they strongly suggested taking a cab home from the clubs at night, simply to not invite any problems. We both felt very comfortable but seldom went anywhere in town alone. I still think there is a vast difference between places like Mexico City and PV in regards to safety, but I do understand the problem is still spreading.

[TampaYankee]

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Americas/2009/0615/p06s13-woam.html

http://www.newser.com/story/83215/24-die-in-drug-violence-in-mexican-resort.html

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7897345.stm

[TampaYankee]

6 abducted police found slain in Mexican state

September 19, 2010 02:03 PM EST | AP

ACAPULCO, Mexico The bodies of six kidnapped police officers, most of them dismembered, were found Sunday in a ravine in the Mexican state of Guerrero, bringing to eight the death toll from a mass abduction of policemen, officials said.

Fernando Monreal Leyva, director of State Investigative Police, said one survivor of the massacre was located in this coastal state known for beach resorts that has become a drug cartel battleground.

Two other bodies were found on Saturday, accounting for all nine officers who disappeared Friday after going to identify a body in the community of El Revelado, located about 165 miles (265 kilometers) south of Mexico City. Authorities said they later learned that the officers had been abducted by gunmen.

Four of the six bodies had been dismembered and were found with a warning note apparently directed at authorities, Monreal said.

The bodies included the group's chief, Commander Enrique Figueroa Abundes, said Monreal, who declined to name the survivor.

Monreal did not say who was suspected in the killings.

Mexico's government says the Gulf Cartel and the Zetas gang are fighting for control of the region with La Familia Michoacana. The state was also a base for detained drug lord Sergio Valdez Villarreal alias "La Barbie" who was fighting for control of the Beltran Leyva cartel with Hector Beltran Leyva.

The bodies found Saturday corresponded to two heads thrown from a moving vehicle into a refreshment stand in the municipality of Coyuca de Catalan in Guerrero, according to a report by the state Public Safety and Civil Protection office.

The first two bodies were accompanied by a note that threatened a similar fate for anyone supporting Hector Beltran Leyva and suspected trafficker Reynaldo Pineda Chavez, saying "Guerrero and Morelos (states) have an owner and they know who is it is."

Hector is the brother of Arturo Beltran Leyva, the former head of the cartel who was slain in a military operation in December 2009. Hector is the only one of the four Beltran Leyva brothers still alive and at large.

More than 28,000 people have died in drug-related violence in Mexico since President Felipe Calderon launched a military offensive against drug traffickers in late 2006.

See original article at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20100919/lt-drug-war-mexico/

[lookin]

They do it, of course, for the money. According to Wikipedia, U. S. citizens spend somewhere between $14 billion and $49 billion on drugs coming into the country.

Most of our efforts are focused on cutting off the supply, but the results have been marginal. We can point to a 50% increase in the street price of cocaine, but it's not clear that higher prices lead to lower demand, and certainly not to a complete drying up of demand. We like our drugs and we're good at figuring out how to pay for them.

Kinda makes me wonder what would happen if we shifted our efforts toward reducing demand in the U. S. That would certainly take some of the money out of it.

And, as long as we're just talkin', I wonder what would happen if we legalized everything, produced it here, and sold it at cost plus a reasonable markup plus tax. That would take nearly all the money out of it, and all the drug smugglers would be free to go find other ways to spend their days.

I know, I know, legalizing all drugs would make us a nation of day trippers; our economic engine would sputter to a halt; our elected officials would sit around listening to reggae instead of making up new laws all day; and our kids would all tune in, turn on, and drop out.

Or would they?

There was a time, a century or so ago, when all drugs were legal in the U. S., and we seemed to get by OK. And there are other countries in the world today where drugs are fairly easy to come by; the Netherlands hasn't fallen apart after decriminalizing marijuana.

I wonder what would really happen if we took the government out of the drug war business, and let it focus on helping those who have an addiction they want to overcome. Would it be any worse than what we have now? How big a pile of bodies do we need before we try a different approach?

Much to ponder.

[TampaYankee]

They do it, of course, for the money. According to Wikipedia, U. S. citizens spend somewhere between $14 billion and $49 billion a year on drugs coming into the country.

Most of our efforts are focused on cutting off the supply, but the results have been marginal. We can point to a 50% increase in the street price of cocaine, but it's not clear that higher prices lead to lower demand, and certainly not to a complete drying up of demand. We like our drugs and we're good at figuring out how to pay for them.

...

Kinda makes me wonder what would happen if we shifted our efforts toward reducing demand in the U. S. That would certainly take some of the money out of it.

And, as long as we're just talkin', I wonder what would happen if we legalized everything, produced it here, and sold it at cost plus a reasonable markup plus a bit of tax. That would take nearly all the money out of it, and all the drug smugglers would be free to go find other ways to spend their days.

I know, I know, legalizing all drugs would make us a nation of day trippers; our economic engine would sputter to a halt; our elected officials would sit around listening to reggae instead of making up new laws all day; and our kids would all tune in, turn on, and drop out.

Or would they?

The so-called 30-year-old-plus War on Drugs is stark proof that intelligent beings doesn't always learn from experience.

What we are doing doesn't work. What we have done didn't work. We try to interrupt the supply and stop only a trickle. In the past, we tried locking up everyone who used. All that did was fill our prisons and destroy as many or more lives than the drugs did.

There are only two solutions: all out war, or taking the money out of the trade.

We do not have the balls for all out war. It means suspending Constitutional rights which we never extend to enemy combatants. We kill the enemy that doesn't surrender. We see that surrender is not an option with the cartels.

We can only take the money out of it if we legalize and sell at a price that makes black market operations insufficiently profitable.

We do not have the fortitude to do either so we waste money and lives in futile pursuit of an imaginary resolution.

It might be argued that if one carried on long enough maybe the population through generation replacement might outgrow the problem. The trouble with that is the obscene profits provide tremendous incentive to the providers to keep the cycle going from generation to generation.

Bottom line is that we are more prepared to live with the problem than to solve it. That's the fact.

[Guest tomcal]

I consider Mexico much more dangerous than Rio! I have a good friend who was just in Mexico city to address a business conference. He was basically told don't leave the hotel during your stay, eat at the hotel restaurant(this was one of the premier hotels in Mexico city), they know you are here for a business meeting, therefore you must have money and are a good target. They insisted on arranging a limo p/u at the airport rather than have him take a taxi! too dangerous.

I used to go to Mexico at least once a year, mainly Cancun, Cabo or Puerto Vallarta. I stopped going to Mexico, which is a easy, shot from SoCal after being shaken down by police in Puerta Vallarta in our rental car, about 6 blocks from the hotel, saying we had committed a traffic offense, although they were vague on what offense it was! We knew it wasn't speeding we were on a small one way street, and we knew it wasn't running a stop sign, there were none! but if we gave them $200.U.S. we wouldn't have to stay for the court date which conviently happended to be a day after our departure, this was after looking at our itinerary!

I have never had a incident in Brazil after 50 trips and approximately 500 nights there! Yet the first question I get from people is "isn't Brazil really dangerous?"

[Guest epigonos]

I spend two weeks a year in Mexico. I travel there in early November for one week and again in either March or April for another week. During the last seven years I have visited and spent time in Acapulco, Chichen Itza, Guadalajara, Guanajuato, Huatulco, Morelia, Patzcuaro, Puerto Vallarta, Quererato, San Miguel de Allende, and Tulum. The two places I have spent the greater part of my time are Acapulco and Puerto Vallarta. At NO time, day or night, have I ever been accosted, threatened or felt unsafe.

The key to safe travel in Mexico is much the same as it is anywhere else in the world. First: know where to travel and where NOT to travel. I never visit anywhere within one hundred mile of the U.S./Mexico border. Not only is this area dangerous it is also completely uninteresting. Second: Don’t hang out in bars and clubs outside of the main tourist areas. Third: Don’t wander around deserted areas alone during the wee hours of the morning. Fourth: Imbibe in moderation.

I have walked to my condo from Club Anthropology, in Puerto Vallarta, at two o’clock in the morning along major streets without incident or concern. I have done the same from several stripper bars in Acapulco. Just ALWAYS be aware where you are and what is going on around you. If you have doubts about where you intend to go, simply ask the concierge/desk clerk at your hotel or the doorman at your condo. These guys know where it is safe and where it isn’t and they want your business and they don’t want you hurt.

P.S. I will admit I have one major advantage, I am fluent in Spanish

[TampaYankee]

October 2010 Last updated at 17:04 ET

Armed gang 'kidnaps 22 Mexican tourists in Acapulco'

An armed gang has kidnapped 22 Mexican tourists in the resort city of Acapulco, the prosecutor's office in the southern state of Guerrero said.

They said the group, who was from the neighbouring state of Michoacan, was abducted on Thursday.

Local media reported they were looking for a hotel when they were seized by gunmen.

Acapulco is popular with visitors but it is also the scene of a violent turf war between rival drug cartels.

The prosecutor's office said it did not know the motive for the kidnapping, or who was behind it.

Director of the investigative police in Guerrero state Fernando Monreal said the kidnapping had been reported by a man who had been travelling with the group.

The man said they all worked for an auto-mechanic company and had come to Acapulco for a weekend stay.

He said he got out of one of the cars the group had been travelling in to buy something in a nearby shop. When he returned, his colleagues had disappeared.

Eyewitnesses said the kidnappers were driving cars with Michoacan number plates.

Michoacan is the power base for La Familia Michoacana, a violent drug cartel active on Mexico's Pacific coast.

The BBC's Julian Miglerieni in Mexico City says that while violent attacks have become more common in Acapulco, this is the first mass kidnapping to happen in the popular tourist spot.

See original article at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-11459463

[numerito]

The drug war that the Government is fighting has made certain areas of Mexico quite insecure, especially the border and the Center. People often question the pertinence of such policy and the casualties it has entailed but, as a Mexican citizen, I am convinced that it is the right thing to do, given the power drug cartels had acquired and the pervasive corruption they brought. Too much money is involved in the lucrative drug and arms trade. It is a fact that as drugs go North, weapons come South. And I have a question: how do those drugs go from Tijuana to New York and those firearms from Chicago to Laredo?? Why do we never hear of distribution groups in the US? I find it hard to believe that there are no American "cartels" involved. Where are they? Is somebody doing something about them? Are they not part of this extremely complex problem?

The US Government is finally acknowledging that there is some responsibility on your side of the border and I am happy they are helping out with resources. When told that Mexico was a big diving board for drugs getting to the US, a Mexican politician is said to have replied: yes, the US is the largest drug swimming pool, and we have it next door.

As far as visiting g Mexico, I would still encourage it, with the natural precautions mentioned here. I live in Mexico City and have never had any problem. Of course Spanish helps.......

[TampaYankee]

AP IMPACT: Mexico says its troops killed US man

By ALEXANDRA OLSON, Associated Press – Sat Dec 25, 12:58 pm ET

MEXICO CITY – Joseph Proctor told his girlfriend he was popping out to the convenience store in the quiet Mexican beach town where the couple had just moved, intending to start a new life.

The next morning, the 32-year-old New York native was dead inside his crashed van on a road outside Acapulco. He had multiple bullet wounds. An AR-15 rifle lay in his hands.

His distraught girlfriend, Liliana Gil Vargas, was summoned to police headquarters, where she was told Proctor had died in a gunbattle with an army patrol. They claimed Proctor — whose green van had a for-sale sign and his cell phone number spray-painted on the windows — had attacked the troops. They showed her the gun.

His mother, Donna Proctor, devastated and incredulous, has been fighting through Mexico's secretive military justice system ever since to learn what really happened on the night of Aug. 22.

It took weeks of pressuring U.S. diplomats and congressmen for help, but she finally got an answer, which she shared with The Associated Press.

Three soldiers have been charged with killing her son. Two have been charged with planting the assault rifle in his hands and claiming falsely that he fired first, according to a Mexican Defense Department document sent to her through the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City.

It is at least the third case this year in which soldiers, locked in a brutal battle with drug cartels, have been accused of killing innocent civilians and faking evidence in cover-ups.

Such scandals are driving calls for civilian investigators to take over cases that are almost exclusively handled by military prosecutors and judges who rarely convict one of their own.

"I hate the fact that he died alone and in pain an in such an unjust way," Donna Proctor, a Queens court bailiff, said in a telephone interview with the AP. "I want him to be remembered as a hardworking person. He would never pick up a gun and shoot someone."

President Felipe Calderon has proposed a bill that would require civilian investigations in all torture, disappearance and rape cases against the military. But other abuses, including homicides committed by on-duty soldiers, would mostly remain under military jurisdiction. That would include the Proctor case and two others this year in which soldiers were accused of even more elaborate cover-ups.

The first involved two university students killed in March during a gunbattle between soldiers and cartel suspects that spilled into their campus in the northern city of Monterrey. Mexico's National Human Rights Commission said soldiers destroyed surveillance cameras, planted guns on the two young men and took away their backpacks in an attempt to claim they were gang members. The military admitted the two were students after university officials spoke out.

In that case, military and civilian federal prosecutors are conducting a joint investigation into the killings. The military, however, is in charge of the investigation into the allegation of crime-scene tampering.

In the second case, two brothers aged 5 and 9 were killed in April in their family's car in the northern state of Tamaulipas. The rights commission said in a report that there was no gunbattle and that soldiers fired additional rounds into the family car and planted two vehicles at the scene to make it look like a crossfire incident. The Defense Department stands by its explanation and denies there was a cover-up.

The rights commission, an autonomous government institution, has received more than 4,000 abuse complaints, including torture, rape, killings and forced disappearances, since Calderon deployed tens of thousands of soldiers in December 2006 to destroy drug cartels in their strongholds.

The commission has recommended action in 69 of those cases, and the Defense Department says it is investigating 67.

So far military courts have passed down only one conviction for an abuse committed since Calderon intensified the drug war four years ago: an officer who forced a new subordinate in his unit to drink so much alcohol in a hazing ritual that he died. He was sentenced to four months in prison.

Another officer was convicted, then cleared on appeal, in the Aug. 3, 2007 death of Fausto Murillo Flores. Soldiers arrested Murillo and two other men in the northern state of Sonora, accusing them of arms possession. However, they only presented the two other men to the media and did not immediately acknowledge ever having had Murillo in custody.

Murillo's body was later found by the side of a road and the military acknowledged having detained him.

The Defense Department has not explained why the officer was acquitted.

The military justice system operates in near total secrecy, choosing what to publicly reveal and when.

While privately informing Proctor's family about his case, Defense Department officials have publicly refused to discuss it at all. The day after his death, Guerrero state prosecutors announced to reporters that Proctor was killed after attacking a military convoy.

His mother, angry that she kept reading news reports with that version of the events, has asked Defense Department officials to reveal publicly that soldiers were charged with planting the gun on her son. The department replied, in writing, that it would only do so after the soldiers had been sentenced.

Defense Department spokesman Col. Ricardo Trevilla told the AP to file a freedom of information petition. IT DID but was rebuffed with the explanation that information on the ongoing investigation was "classified as reserved for a period of 12 years."

Proctor's family, meanwhile, still doesn't understand why he was killed.

Donna Proctor said her son hated guns so much that he rejected her suggestion that he follow in her footsteps and become a court bailiff, a job that requires carrying a sidearm.

Instead, he become a construction worker and eventually started his own business in Atlanta, Georgia. Last year, he moved to Mexico's central state of Puebla with his Mexican-born wife and their young son, Giuseppe. The marriage foundered and his wife returned to Georgia.

Proctor stayed behind with his son and eventually met and fell in love with Liliana Gil Vargas, a waitress and mother of four. After a vacation in Barra de Coyuca, the beach town outside of Acapulco, the couple decided to move there. Proctor was saving up top to open a restaurant.

According to the document sent to his mother, the soldiers tried to stop Proctor and inspect his vehicle. They claim he fled, prompting one of the soldiers to shoot at him, hitting his car. The soldiers chased down the car and fired again, "wounding the driver who nonetheless continued to drive away, fleeing, crashing the car three kilometers down that road," the document said.

A superior officer in the patrol told the battalion commander what happened. The battalion commander sent another officer to the scene with the AR-15 rifle "in order to be placed in the vehicle, using the hands of the deceased to try to simulate an attack against military personnel," the document says.

For the family, there are many unanswered questions. Did Proctor really flee? Why would he have refused to stop?

Donna Proctor said he complained about being shaken down by Mexican police and soldiers but also spoke of being friendly with soldiers on the base near the home he was building in Barra de Coyuca.

"He was 32. He loved life. He loved his son and he wanted to work hard to give him something," she said.

Donna Proctor said Mexican Defense Department officials visited her recently in Long Island and compensated her for the cost of flying her son back to the U.S. and the funeral. She said she told them she wanted justice — and for the world to know what really happened.

"I told them I had no intention of this being the end of it," she said.

See original article at:http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101225/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/lt_mexico_uncovering_cover_ups