Donkey jailed in Mexico for violent behaviour
A Mexican donkey has landed itself in jail after biting and kicking two men.
The animal was locked up in a holding pen normally used for keeping drunks off the streets after it lashed out at the pair at a ranch in Chiapas state, local police revealed yesterday.
The owner of the angry ass, Mauro Gutierrez, has been told that he will have to pay the injured men's medical bills before the creature is released from custody.
Genaro Vazquez, 63, told police that the unnamed donkey bit him in the chest on Sunday and then kicked 52-year-old Andres Hernandez as he tried to come to the rescue, fracturing his ankle.
"All of a sudden, the animal was on top of us like it was rabid," Hernandez said.
It took six men to restrain the enraged beast, police said.
Throwing non-humans in is nothing new in Chiapas. Previous animal inmates include a bull that devoured corn crops and destroyed two wooden vending stands in March.
In 2006 a dog was locked up for 12 days after biting someone. His owners were fined US$18.
Yesterday, a Chiapas police officer Sinar Gomez said the donkey would remain behind bars until its owner agreed to pay the men's $420 (£215) medical bills.
"Around here, if someone commits a crime they are jailed no matter who they are," said Gomez.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/may/20/mexico?gusrc=rss&feed=networkfront
Thursday, May 22, 2008
More Dangers in Mexico
Monday, March 17, 2008
Mexican police catch top Tijuana drug hitman
Mexican police catch top Tijuana drug hitman
Sat Mar 15, 2008 11:37pm EDT
By Lizbeth Diaz
TIJUANA, Mexico, March 15 (Reuters) - Mexico captured a high-ranking Tijuana drug cartel hitman on Saturday, the public security ministry said, the second big arrest to hit the organization in five days.
Saul Montes de Oca, known as "El Ciego" (the blind guy) and close to cartel bosses, was arrested as he was about to take part in a car race in the tourist resort of San Felipe, the Baja California state attorney general's office said.
Montes de Oca is suspected of being a top killer at the powerful cartel, also called as the Arellano Felix Organization and known for its gruesome torture and execution methods.
He also faces extradition to the United States where he is wanted on organized crime charges, the ministry said.
Police had been tracking him for five months and got a breakthrough this week when they dismantled a kidnapping ring whose leaders said they reported to him.
The capture was also helped by the arrest on Tuesday of another senior Tijuana operative, Gustavo Rivera Martinez, who is being extradited to the United States to face drug charges.
Montes de Oca worked for Rivera Martinez, handling drug cargo movements and abductions, the security ministry said.
The arrests were the latest in a series of victories for President Felipe Calderon's 15-month-old army crackdown on drug traffickers and the latest blow to the Tijuana gang, which has seen a string of its leaders jailed or killed in recent years.
The feared Arellano Felix family controls drug routes in the northwestern state of Baja California, including around the busy border crossing of Tijuana, where it fights for turf with the Sinaloa alliance that controls most of western Mexico.
Montes de Oca was involved in a 1997 assassination attempt on a renowned Tijuana journalist who exposed drug gang crimes.
Half a dozen raids on the Tijuana cartel this year have put around 30 mid-level operatives behind bars. A bust this month of one of its safe houses turned up a huge arsenal of weapons, including guns decorated with gold skulls.
One former Tijuana cartel boss was released from a U.S. jail this month and returned home, but with many of the rest of the clan of sibling leaders still in prison, analysts believe a sister is now in charge.
Calderon sent some 25,000 soldiers and federal police to drug hotspots on taking office in December 2006, and sent extra troops to Tijuana in January to curb a spike in violence.
Nationwide, drug violence killed more than 2,500 people last year and murders so far this year total more than 500. (Writing by Catherine Bremer; Editing by Doina Chiacu)
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
9 Mexican Officers Heading To Prison
MEXICO CITY -- A Mexican judge has ordered nine former police officers to serve prison sentences ranging from four to 46 years for killing and kidnapping under orders of the Tijuana-based Arellano-Felix drug cartel.
Authorities said Tuesday that the men were members of a group of cartel enforcers known as "the Black Commando." Authorities said they worked as police officers in Ensenada, about 70 miles south of San Diego, when they were arrested in 2005.
The Arellano-Felix cartel emerged as a drug-trafficking powerhouse in the 1980s in Tijuana, across the border from San Diego, when it recruited dozens of police into its ranks and paid millions of dollars in bribes to law enforcement and military personnel.
The cartel's influence is widely believed to have waned in recent years as its leaders have been killed or captured.
source: nbcsandiego.com
Friday, March 7, 2008
Mexico police battle drug gang in 5-hour shootout
TIJUANA, Mexico, March 3 (Reuters) - Mexican police and soldiers traded gunfire with suspected drug gang members on Monday in a five-hour battle near the U.S. border that left a police officer and one of the suspected criminals dead.
The shootout began at a house in a residential neighborhood of Tijuana, a drug smuggling hot spot across the border from San Diego. It started on Sunday night and went on until early Monday, police said.
President Felipe Calderon has sent thousands of troops and federal police to Tijuana and other cities in Baja California, Mexico's most violent state, to fight warring drug cartels and clean up corrupt local police.
Tijuana has recently suffered a spike in violence. Drug gang hitmen broke traditional codes of honor in the city in January by killing children, including a 3-year-old boy and a 9-year-old girl.
Also in January, gunmen and more than 100 police and soldiers fought a three-hour battle outside a Tijuana kindergarten.
More than 2,500 people were killed in drug violence in Mexico last year and over 300 have died so far this year as cartels smuggling cocaine, methamphetamine and marijuana fight each other for control of routes to the United States. (Reporting by Lizbeth Diaz, editing by Alan Elsner)
source: rueters
SCORE touting better security for its Baja race
By Bill Center
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
March 6, 2008
* Motorsports report: the ripple effect of open-wheel merger
Sal Fish took an unprecedented step two weeks ago in an open letter to the off-road racing community.
Although the bulk of the text discussed the March 14-15 SCORE San Felipe 250 race and changes to the course, Fish detoured toward the end of the letter to discuss an issue on the minds of all tourists to Baja California.
“My trip (to San Felipe) took me through Tijuana, Ensenada, San Felipe and Mexicali,” said the president of SCORE. “I can personally report that there is a noticeable increase in security along the roads.
“My compliments to the new government for their conscientious effort in addressing the situation.”
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Ah, the “situation.”
In November, Fish thought SCORE had one of its better races in the 40th-anniversary running of the Baja 1000.
“It was a great race,” Fish said of the historic run to the Cabo San Lucas tip of the peninsula.
But even before Fish arrived back on this side of the border, he was receiving reports of two fatal accidents involving nonrace vehicles on the highway coming north from the finish and armed robberies by men masquerading as police officers on the toll road between Ensenada and Tijuana.
The post-race incidents received more notice on this side of the border than the race did.
“Unfortunately the race was overshadowed by all the stuff that happened,” said Fish. “I, as the organizer, should be concerned. We've taken it very seriously.”
There is only so much that Fish, even with his strong ties in Mexico, can do as a U.S. promoter of an event staged in Mexico. Fish has, however, discussed the recent problems with Mexican government officials in Baja California and Mexico City.
And the SCORE leader is optimistic as his organization returns to Mexico for the first time since the November race.
Not everyone is returning immediately to Mexico – including some of the biggest names in off-road racing (Herbst, McMillin, Arciero) – for a variety of reasons.
But while the early entry numbers are down by a third from last year's race-record 394 – the 2007 San Felipe 250 was run out of Ensenada because of problems with the land owners on part of the course – the current count of 256 entries represents the third-highest total in the 23-year history of the event.
Fish believes the racers will be greeted warmly when they clear the border.
“I feel there is a very serious attitude on the part of Mexican officials,” Fish said this week. “They are embarrassed and fed up about what happened late last year. They are victims, too.
“This is not a situation that can change 100 percent overnight. But the Mexican government is trying to make things safer at every level. I was there. I saw it first-hand. I kept my eyes open. I saw a big difference.
“I saw a much bigger police and army presence on the highways. I saw enforcement officers all along the toll road, including a new group in distinctively marked cars.”
Fish also believes SCORE racers and crews bear some responsibility.
“We've got to take a step back, too, and take a look at what we're doing,” said Fish. “Don't get crazy. We've been spoiled because Mexican officials have looked the other way at some things we've done, and we've pushed it.
“Plus, we need to use a little common sense.”
Fish is advising race teams to travel in convoys whenever possible to and from the course area. And he advises against traveling the highways alone at night.
“It's common sense not to put yourself in harm's way,” he said. “Bad things can happen on either side of the border.”
source: signonsandiego.com
Saturday, February 9, 2008
Mexican gangs try to bribe army as drug war flares
http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSN08562036
By Lizbeth Diaz
TIJUANA, Mexico, Feb 8 (Reuters) - Mexican drug gangs are trying to corrupt the army into siding with them in a turf war near the U.S. border, threatening to blunt President Felipe Calderon's offensive against the cartels.
Military men from generals to foot soldiers say they are being offered up to hundreds of thousands of dollars to turn a blind eye to shipments or call off anti-drugs operations in Baja California state, where there has been a surge of violence this year.
"These groups are coming to us to try to negotiate, to take us over to their side, trying to break us down," Gen. Sergio Aponte, who co-heads the military operation in Baja California, told reporters.
Since the late 1990s, Mexico has convicted at least five army generals for taking drug money, including the man who was once its anti-drugs czar and led the war against the gangs but was later found to be on the payroll of the Juarez Cartel.
Despite that record, Calderon has used the army as the driving force in his effort to destroy the cartels, sending 25,000 troops into action in an unprecedented campaign that began shortly after he took office in late 2006.
More than 2,500 people were killed in drug violence in Mexico in 2007 and at least 250 have died so far this year as cartels smuggling cocaine, marijuana and methamphetamine fight each other for control of routes to the United States.
The military is widely regarded as cleaner and more efficient than Mexico's thousands of local, state and federal police forces.
Senior military personnel have taken over municipal and state police forces in Baja California to root out officers working for the region's main drug cartel, the Arellano Felix gang.
Soldiers in Tijuana, just south of San Diego and one of the busiest border crossings into the United States, say they have rejected bribes but fear drug money will tempt others.
"We are not used to this kind of civilian contact, the army was always such a closed institution and it brings risks in Baja California, where corruption is such a problem," an army captain who declined to be named told Reuters.
STACKS OF CASH
Traffickers now offer discreet stacks of cash instead of the drugs, jewels and prostitutes commonly used in the past to bribe police and the army, soldiers say.
Political analysts believe the military is so far largely untainted by corruption but that may not last.
"The only institution in Baja California that's not corrupt is the army, but if it is corrupted, and there is that risk, Calderon's whole security project collapses," said Victor Clark, a drug trade expert at San Diego State University.
"The long-term threat is that the traffickers control senior military officers," he added.
Calderon hopes the army can dampen drug violence as a consortium of smugglers from the Pacific state of Sinaloa, led by Mexico's most wanted man, Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman, wages war against other cartels.
The president faces criticism from rights groups about his use of the army and he is eager to reassure the public that military operations will eventually be phased out.
"Once we have cleansed and strengthened police forces and the state prosecutor's office ... the role of the army will gradually diminish," he said this week.
Wages sometimes as low as a few hundred dollars a month have played a part in pushing many police to the drug trade to supplement their pay.
"We are catching traffickers who have police radios with them, who show all the signs of working on a daily basis with police protection," said an army major who declined to be named. "They sell information, alert the gangs to our operations."
Calderon hiked army wages on taking office to prevent them from going the way of the police, but desertion rates are high and some of those who leave join the drug gangs.
A group of U.S.-trained Mexican special forces soldiers switched sides in the late 1990s to work for the powerful Gulf Cartel and create the gang's ferocious armed wing, the Zetas. (Additional reporting by Robin Emmott in Monterrey; Editing by Kieran Murray)
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Reputed drug lord held over for trial in Mexico
Death of another confirmed
ASSOCIATED PRESS
6:52 p.m. January 29, 2008
MEXICO CITY – Reputed drug lord Alfredo Beltran Leyva was ordered to stand trial on weapons-possession and money-laundering charges, authorities said Tuesday, while forensic experts identified a man killed in a November helicopter crash as a top cartel hit man.
Beltran Leyva and three alleged accomplices were arrested Jan. 21 in the northern state of Sinaloa. He is accused of being a top financier for the Pacific drug cartel, the Attorney General's Office said in a statement.
The suspects, who were allegedly carrying firearms and almost $1 million in cash when arrested, also face organized crime charges.
In a separate statement, the office announced that the remains of a man killed on Nov. 13 when a helicopter crashed near the start of the Baja 1000 off-road race in Baja California, near the city of Ensenada, had been identified as belonging to a feared drug enforcer.
Merardo Leon Hinojosa was “one of the most dangerous hit men of the Arellano Felix” cartel, which is based in the border city of Tijuana, the office said.
Two of the four people aboard the helicopter were killed in the crash; witnesses said the craft appeared to be filming the race and may have become entangled in power lines.
Thursday, January 24, 2008
Baja businesses, tourism officials to U.S. customers: 'Come Back!
By Greg Gross
UNION-TRIBUNE BREAKING NEWS TEAM
5:38 p.m. January 23, 2008
TIJUANA – With cross-border visits showing marked declines, business and Baja California tourism officials are going into full-scale damage control in hopes of regaining ground lost over the past year.
“The image of the security problem has hit the state very badly,” said Baja California's tourism secretary, Oscar Escobedo Carignan.
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At a news conference Wednesday at state government offices in Tijuana, Escobedo described a new program aimed at luring visitors back to the region's tourist spots.
The program, called “Get Your Passport,” offers discounts at hotels, restaurants bars and shops to those holding a U.S. passport.
On the promotional posters and other materials being printed for the campaign are the words, “Come Back!”
Escobedo also told reporters that the state was contracting with a public relations firm to help Baja California deal with what he termed “crisis management.”
The problem lies in a major falloff of visitors driving to the Baja California region from the United States. Escobedo said there were 1.5 million fewer visitors in 2007 than in 2006.
“We have over 80,000 people who are U.S. citizens who live in Baja California. They are aware of what the situation is and we don't have any problem with those people,” Escobedo said. “The problem is with people who do not understand the border.
“It's a challenge and we're working on it.”
Escobedo said the region has suffered a significant blow to its image with reports of organized crime and violence in Baja California, as well as of robberies and assaults on foreign tourists in the last year.
That image wasn't helped by news videos broadcast around the world showing a fierce 3½-hour gunbattle last week between Mexican police and soldiers and gunmen believed loyal to the Arellano Felix drug cartel. Six bodies of presumed kidnap victims were found in the house after the shooting ended.
Escobedo insisted, however, that stepped up patrols along what he termed “secure routes” between Tijuana and Ensenada had taken hold, and that no additional highway banditry had been reported since Nov. 17.
“This is something that will be permanent by the state and federal government and we feel confident that this will not be an issue anymore,” Escobedo said.
Those who view Baja California as a dangerous, crime-ridden region, Escobedo said, do so because of what he described as heavily repeated news accounts of robberies and assaults. He said that gives the impression that the incidents are more frequent and recent than they actually are.
“If my children go to school in the United States,” he said. “I'm not going to pull them out just because of Columbine.”
In his view, the long waits at the ports of entry to return to U.S. territory present more of an impediment to travel, he said. But he also insisted that with the Mexican federal government beginning to take a hard line against organized crime in that country, the region's image would improve.
“We are going through a maturing process, and we're not going to put up with this anymore,” he said.
The “Get Your Passport” program begins as the region braces for U.S. border crossing rules that go into effect Jan. 31. The rules require U.S. citizens to show proof of citizenship, such as a birth certificate, naturalization papers or a passport, to re-enter the United States through any land crossing. Some businesses fear the rules will further hurt tourism.
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Baja California: Increased security between Tijuana and Ensenanda
Monday, January 21, 2008
Baja California: Increased security between Tijuana and Ensenanda
More Tijuana newsSecurity is beefed up amid violence
Officials aim to create 'safe zone' for tourists
By Sandra Dibble
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
January 20, 2008
TIJUANA – As reports of violence in Baja California take a heavy economic toll on key tourist destinations, officials say they are working to increase security along well-traveled roads and in shopping districts frequented by U.S. visitors.
The federal government has stepped up patrols on the toll road between Tijuana and Ensenada, while the state has posted officers at the entrances and exits, said Oscar Escobedo Carignan, Baja California's tourism secretary. The federal Angeles Verdes tourist assistance police also has an increased presence in the area.
Municipal governments are banding together to create a “safe zone” for tourists from the San Ysidro border crossing to south of the port of Ensenada, along a coastal strip where assaults have occurred. They are revamping their tourist police to focus on areas such as downtown Rosarito Beach and Tijuana's Avenida Revolución.
Though not the only factors, extortions by police officers and attacks on tourists last year helped drive down the number of visitors to the state by nearly 2 million, said Escobedo, from 20.3 million in 2006 to 18.6 million in 2007. Though violence in Tijuana this week has not targeted tourists, promoters worry that the reports could further discourage visitors to the state.
Escobedo and other government officials claim that a series of government measures has drastically reduced the numbers of incidents against tourists since Gov. José Guadalupe Osuna Millán took office Nov. 1 and five new mayors were sworn in Dec. 1. The newly elected officials have vowed an unprecedented front with President Felipe Calderón's administration against organized crime and police corruption.
Tourism is a key industry for Baja California, creating close to 9 percent of jobs in the state and accounting for 11 percent of its revenues, Escobedo said. In Rosarito Beach, Mayor Hugo Torres said 70 percent of the 130,000 residents who work in the city depend either directly or indirectly on tourism.
Rosarito Beach has especially suffered from the drop in tourism revenue over the past year, Torres said.
“Thirty percent is the official figure that is used, but in many cases it's more than 50 percent,” Torres said from his second-floor office at Rosarito Beach City Hall. Occupancy of the Rosarito Beach Hotel, which Torres owns, has fallen between 30 percent and 40 percent, he said.
The city's 149-member police force became a subject of scrutiny last month after gunmen attacked its headquarters, reportedly intending to kill Jorge Eduardo Montero Álvarez, Rosarito Beach's director of public safety. His bodyguard was killed. The entire force was subsequently disarmed as the officers and their firearms undergo background checks. In the interim, state and federal police have been leading routine patrols in the city, and Torres claims that reports of tourist extortions have ceased.
Torres is creating a 30-member tourist police force to be based in the offices of the city's Conventions and Tourism Committee and responsible for patrolling areas frequented by visitors. In addition, he said he is equipping 120 volunteers with radios so they can report suspicious activity in the tourist areas, and give the volunteers a non-police contact to call.
Baja California's tourism secretariat has hired its own watchdog to oversee the road between the San Ysidro border and the entrance to the toll road in Playas de Tijuana.
“If somebody is stopped by a police officer, he (the watchdog) walks up to the police officer, and says, 'I am here to serve as an interpreter,' ” said Escobedo, the tourism secretary.
While many visitors have been canceling their visits to the state, Tom Mitchell said he is continuing to lead tours down the Baja California peninsula.
“We never drive in the dark. It's just thinking safe,” said Mitchell, an East County resident. “If you're an American traveling down, we recommend that you caravan with somebody else.”
Carlsbad resident Kathy Berlin was in Rosarito Beach last week with her sister and a friend, spending three nights together at a house she and her husband have owned for 11 years.
When the friends drove to Ensenada, they made sure to stay close to another vehicle, the retired insurance agent said.
“I don't like what's going on,” she said of the current wave of violence. But I'm still here. I still love it.”
Sandra Dibble: (619) 293-1716; sandra.dibble@uniontrib.com
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Two top Tijuana police officials found slain
By Sandra Dibble
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
2:35 a.m. January 15, 2008
TIJUANA – A high-ranking police official and his second-in-command were found shot to death late Monday in a central part of this city. The killings marked the second in less than two weeks of top municipal police officials.
* Tijuana police official and family slain
* Furiosa embestida del crimen organizado
The Baja California Attorney General's Office identified the victims as Jose de Jesus Arias Rico, chief of the central La Mesa District, and Elbert Escobedo Marquez, the assistant chief.
Their bodies were found slumped inside a 1988 blue Ford Escort. Numerous shells from 9-millimeter and .223-caliber weapons were found at the scene, according to a written statement.
The Agencia Fronteriza de Noticias, a Tijuana news agency, reported that the killings occurred at about 10:20 p.m. within the victims' district, a block from a busy intersection known as La Cinco y Diez.
In a written statement, Baja California's attorney general, Rommel Moreno Manjarrez, vowed to find those responsible for the crimes.
On Jan. 3, another district chief with the Tijuana municipal police was found dead four days after he was abducted from his home. His body and that of another Tijuana officer were found off a highway in an unpopulated area of Rosarito Beach.
Officials linked the killings to the victims' involvement with organized crime.
Tijuana police have faced rising attacks since Mayor Jorge Ramos' administration took office in December, vowing to eradicate corruption from the 2,300-officer force.
source: signonsandiego.com
Saturday, January 12, 2008
Positive Baja Tourist Press?
It would seem that those across the pond have not heard of all the recent problems, especially when they recomend flying into TJ. On top of that they say driving Highway 1 is a good thing. Silly English.
____________________________
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/main.jhtml?xml=/travel/2008/01/12/et-winter-sun-112.xml&page=3
Winter sun: top 10 destinations
7. Baja California
Why go? Baja California (Lower California) is that long, narrow arm of Mexico that dangles southwards from the United States border between the Pacific Ocean and the Gulf of California for about 775 miles. On the Pacific coast there are excellent long, wide beaches in the far north while the calm, clement inland Sea of Cortez laps some beautiful bays in the southern reaches. A highway runs from end to end, which makes for a great driving holiday - you can explore the whole length easily in 10 days.
Baja California has some beautiful bays and world-class diving
Away from the beaches there are stunning deserts, colonial towns (Loreto and La Paz are lovely), world-class diving and sport fishing, vineyards - and little traffic.
Islands in the Sea of Cortez have empty, white-sand beaches as well as impressive marine life (turtles, dolphins, seals). Down in Los Cabos, the upmarket resorts of the south, you can take a gentle voyage on a beautiful Turkish-style gulet. There is sunshine all year at this latitude, but winter is more pleasant and the Cortez, while still warm, is not bath-water sickly.
In central Baja, between February and early April, you can see grey whales that have migrated here from the Arctic; they bask in the shallow, protected waters and calve off Ojo de Liebre, southwest of the town of Guerrero Negro and in Bahía Magdalena.
There is great snack food all over, and top-notch modern Mexican cuisine in Cabo San Lucas, San José del Cabo, Mulejé, Punta Chivato, Ensenada and Tijuana.
Getting there Fly to Mexico City and on to Tijuana, Guerrero Negro or Los Cabos. With good connections, total travelling time is about 13 hours.
Packages Exsus Travel (020 7292 5060 www.exsus.com) can organise a 10-day adventure whale-watching trip to Baja California, including all flights, stopover in Mexico City, surfing lessons in Todos los Santos, sea kayaking and arm's-length encounters with grey whales in Magdalena Bay. From £2,995 per person.
More information www.discoverbajacalifornia.com; www.visitmexico.com/wb/Visitmexico/Visi_Baja_California_Sur
Thursday, January 10, 2008
Federal police flock for operation
TIJUANA – Hundreds of federal police arrived in Baja California yesterday to join forces with state and municipal agencies launching a new front against organized crime.
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Members of the Federal Preventive Police swarmed Tijuana's bustling Rio Zone yesterday afternoon, but the agency remained tight-lipped about plans, leaving state officials to explain the purpose of this latest operation.
Baja California's attorney general, Rommel Moreno, said about 1,000 officers would be arriving in the state, “and if it's necessary, we could be speaking of up to 2,000.” He did not give a timetable.
Salvador Juan Ortíz, a deputy state attorney general in Tijuana, said, “I consider it the response . . . to the requests from the governor and the attorney general for more support in the region.”
Gov. José Guadalupe Osuna Millán, who took office in November, has vowed a united front against crime in Baja California together with the federal government and the state's five new mayors.
The officers' arrival yesterday comes a year after President Felipe Calderón announced Operation Tijuana, touted as a major offensive against high-impact crimes such as kidnapping, homicides, drugs and weapons trafficking.
Operation Tijuana began with the disarming of Tijuana's 2,300-member police force, accused by federal authorities of being infiltrated by organized crime. It also included roadblocks across the region.
“It's fine that they come, but the question is, what are they going to do?” said José María Ramos, a researcher at El Colegio de la Frontera Norte, a Tijuana think tank.
Such operations can yield short-term results, Ramos said, but governments need to take long-term measures such as establishing crime-prevention programs and increasing the efficiency of prosecutions.
Source : Signon San Diego
Wednesday, January 9, 2008
Tourists shun crime-hit Mexico beaches
http://www.contracostatimes.com/business/ci_7890621?nclick_check=1
By ELLIOT SPAGAT Associated Press Writer
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PLAYAS DE ROSARITO, Mexico—Assaults on American tourists have brought hard times to hotels and restaurants that dot Mexican beaches just south of the border from San Diego.
Surfers and kayakers are frightened to hit the waters of the northern stretch of Mexico's Baja California peninsula, long popular as a weekend destination for U.S. tourists. Weddings have been canceled. Lobster joints a few steps from the Pacific were almost empty on the usually busy New Year's weekend.
Americans have long tolerated shakedowns by police who boost salaries by pulling over motorists for alleged traffic violations, and tourists know parts of Baja are a hotbed of drug-related violence. But a handful of attacks since summer by masked, armed bandits—some of whom used flashing lights to appear like police—marks a new extreme that has spooked even longtime visitors.
Lori Hoffman, a San Diego-area emergency room nurse, said she was sexually assaulted Oct. 23 by two masked men in front of her boyfriend, San Diego Surfing Academy owner Pat Weber, who was forced to kneel at gunpoint for 45 minutes. They were at a campground with about 30 tents, some 200 miles south of the border.
The men shot out windows of the couple's trailer and forced their way inside, ransacked the cupboards and left with about $7,000 worth of gear, including computers, video equipment and a guitar.
Weber, who has taught dozens of students in Mexico over the last 10 years, plans
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to surf in Costa Rica or New Zealand. "No more Mexico," said Hoffman, who reported the attack to Mexican police. No arrests have been made.
The Baja California peninsula is known worldwide for clean and sparsely populated beaches, lobster and margaritas and blue waters visited by whales and dolphins. Surfers love the waves; fishermen catch tuna, yellowtail and marlin. Food and hotels are cheap.
News of harrowing assaults on American tourists has begun to overshadow that appeal in the northern part of the peninsula, home to drug gangs and the seedy border city of Tijuana. The comparatively isolated southern tip, with its tony Los Cabos resort, remains safer and is still popular with Hollywood celebrities, anglers and other foreign tourists.
Local media and surfing Web sites that trumpeted Baja in the past have reported several frightening crimes that U.S. and Mexican officials consider credible. Longtime visitors are particularly wary of a toll road near the border that runs through Playas de Rosarito—Rosarito Beach.
In late November, as they returned from the Baja 1000 off-road race, a San Diego-area family was pulled over on the toll road by a car with flashing lights. Heavily armed men held the family hostage for two hours. They eventually released them but stole the family's truck.
Before dawn on Aug. 31, three surfers were carjacked on the same stretch of highway. Gunmen pulled them over in a car with flashing lights, forced them out of their vehicles and ordered one to kneel. They took the trucks and left the surfers.
Aqua Adventures of San Diego scrapped its annual three-day kayak trip to scout for whales in January, ending a run of about 10 years. Customers had already been complaining about longer waits to return to the U.S.; crime gave them another reason to stay away.
"People are just saying, 'No way.' They don't want to deal with the risk," said owner Jen Kleck, who has sponsored trips to Baja about five times a year but hasn't been since July.
Charles Smith, spokesman for the U.S. consulate in Tijuana, said the U.S. government has not found a widespread increase in attacks against Americans, but he acknowledged many crimes go unreported. The State Department has long warned motorists on Mexico's border to watch for people following them, though no new warnings have been issued.
Mexican officials acknowledge crime has threatened a lifeblood of Baja's economy. In Playas de Rosarito, a city of 130,000, police were forced to surrender their weapons last month for testing to determine links to any crimes. Heavily armed men have patrolled City Hall since a failed assassination attempt on the new police chief left one officer dead. On Thursday the bullet-riddled bodies of a Tijuana police official and another man were found dumped near the beach.
"We cannot minimize what's happening to public safety," said Oscar Escobedo Carignan, Baja's new secretary of tourism. "We're going to impose order ... We're indignant about what's happening."
Tourist visits to Baja totaled about 18 million in 2007, down from 21 million the previous year, Escobedo said. Hotel occupancy dropped about 5 percentage points to 53 percent.
Hugo Torres, owner of the storied Rosarito Beach Hotel and the city's new mayor, estimates the number of visitors to Rosarito Beach since summer is down 30 percent.
In the city's Puerto Nuevo tourist enclave, which offers $20 lobster dinners and $1 margaritas, restaurant managers said sales were down as much as 80 percent from last year. One Saturday afternoon in October, masked bandits wielding pistols walked the streets and kidnapped two men—an American and a Spanish citizen—who were later released unharmed. Two people who were with them were shot and wounded.
Omar Armendariz, who manages a Puerto Nuevo lobster restaurant, is counting on the new state and city governments to make tourists feel safer. He has never seen fewer visitors in his nine years on the job.
"It's dead," he said.
Saturday, January 5, 2008
Tourists Shun Crime-Hit Mexico Beaches
By ELLIOT SPAGAT,APPosted: 2008-01-05 13:23:23PLAYAS DE ROSARITO, Mexico (AP) - Assaults on American tourists have brought hard times to hotels and restaurants that dot Mexican beaches just south of the border from San Diego. Surfers and kayakers are frightened to hit the waters of the northern stretch of Mexico's Baja California peninsula, long popular as a weekend destination for U.S. tourists. Weddings have been canceled. Lobster joints a few steps from the Pacific were almost empty on the usually busy New Year's weekend. Americans have long tolerated shakedowns by police who boost salaries by pulling over motorists for alleged traffic violations, and tourists know parts of Baja are a hotbed of drug-related violence. But a handful of attacks since summer by masked, armed bandits - some of whom used flashing lights to appear like police - marks a new extreme that has spooked even longtime visitors. Lori Hoffman, a San Diego-area emergency room nurse, said she was sexually assaulted Oct. 23 by two masked men in front of her boyfriend, San Diego Surfing Academy owner Pat Weber, who was forced to kneel at gunpoint for 45 minutes. They were at a campground with about 30 tents, some 200 miles south of the border. The men shot out windows of the couple's trailer and forced their way inside, ransacked the cupboards and left with about $7,000 worth of gear, including computers, video equipment and a guitar. Weber, who has taught dozens of students in Mexico over the last 10 years, plans to surf in Costa Rica or New Zealand. "No more Mexico," said Hoffman, who reported the attack to Mexican police. No arrests have been made. The Baja California peninsula is known worldwide for clean and sparsely populated beaches, lobster and margaritas and blue waters visited by whales and dolphins. Surfers love the waves; fishermen catch tuna, yellowtail and marlin. Food and hotels are cheap. News of harrowing assaults on American tourists has begun to overshadow that appeal in the northern part of the peninsula, home to drug gangs and the seedy border city of Tijuana. The comparatively isolated southern tip, with its tony Los Cabos resort, remains safer and is still popular with Hollywood celebrities, anglers and other foreign tourists. Local media and surfing Web sites that trumpeted Baja in the past have reported several frightening crimes that U.S. and Mexican officials consider credible. Longtime visitors are particularly wary of a toll road near the border that runs through Playas de Rosarito - Rosarito Beach. In late November, as they returned from the Baja 1000 off-road race, a San Diego-area family was pulled over on the toll road by a car with flashing lights. Heavily armed men held the family hostage for two hours. They eventually released them but stole the family's truck. Before dawn on Aug. 31, three surfers were carjacked on the same stretch of highway. Gunmen pulled them over in a car with flashing lights, forced them out of their vehicles and ordered one to kneel. They took the trucks and left the surfers. Aqua Adventures of San Diego scrapped its annual three-day kayak trip to scout for whales in January, ending a run of about 10 years. Customers had already been complaining about longer waits to return to the U.S.; crime gave them another reason to stay away. "People are just saying, 'No way.' They don't want to deal with the risk," said owner Jen Kleck, who has sponsored trips to Baja about five times a year but hasn't been since July. Charles Smith, spokesman for the U.S. consulate in Tijuana, said the U.S. government has not found a widespread increase in attacks against Americans, but he acknowledged many crimes go unreported. The State Department has long warned motorists on Mexico's border to watch for people following them, though no new warnings have been issued. Mexican officials acknowledge crime has threatened a lifeblood of Baja's economy. In Playas de Rosarito, a city of 130,000, police were forced to surrender their weapons last month for testing to determine links to any crimes. Heavily armed men have patrolled City Hall since a failed assassination attempt on the new police chief left one officer dead. On Thursday the bullet-riddled bodies of a Tijuana police official and another man were found dumped near the beach. "We cannot minimize what's happening to public safety," said Oscar Escobedo Carignan, Baja's new secretary of tourism. "We're going to impose order ... We're indignant about what's happening." Tourist visits to Baja totaled about 18 million in 2007, down from 21 million the previous year, Escobedo said. Hotel occupancy dropped about 5 percentage points to 53 percent. Hugo Torres, owner of the storied Rosarito Beach Hotel and the city's new mayor, estimates the number of visitors to Rosarito Beach since summer is down 30 percent. In the city's Puerto Nuevo tourist enclave, which offers $20 lobster dinners and $1 margaritas, restaurant managers said sales were down as much as 80 percent from last year. One Saturday afternoon in October, masked bandits wielding pistols walked the streets and kidnapped two men - an American and a Spanish citizen - who were later released unharmed. Two people who were with them were shot and wounded. Omar Armendariz, who manages a Puerto Nuevo lobster restaurant, is counting on the new state and city governments to make tourists feel safer. He has never seen fewer visitors in his nine years on the job. "It's dead," he said.
Saturday, December 22, 2007
Violence in Rosarito Beach keep OC folks home.
http://www.ocregister.com/news/police-attack-rosarito-1947503-city-chief
Vacationers are concerned about terrorism in the Baja, Mexico, region.
The mayor of Rosarito Beach has asked for additional state and federal troops to deal with escalating violence there that culminated most recently in a paramilitary attack Tuesday on the town's police station, apparently an attempt to assassinate the police chief, a spokesman said today.
Tuesday’s commando-style attack killed one of the police chief’s bodyguards and injured four other people. It was only the latest in a string of violent commando assaults on police in Baja California, apparently by drug cartels.
“I definitely have concerns about going down there” said P.J. Schramel, who lives in San Juan Capistrano and has been vacationing on the scenic peninsula since 1969. “I have instituted my own personal boycott of Baja while all this is going down.”
Rosarito Beach, about 20 miles from the U.S. border, and the surrounding areas have been vacation and retirement destinations for Southern Californians for many years. The escalating violence has left some officials concerned, though tourism officials said people should not be unduly alarmed.
“We believe the police chief was the main target of the attack,” said Ron Raposa, city spokesman.
“Basically, we would say this attack is targeted to law enforcement because of increasing enforcement on organized crime. It is not going to have an effect on the average person; for the most part they will not even be aware of the situation.”
According to published reports in Mexican newspapers and the San Diego Union-Tribune, military police surrounded the police station Thursday while repairs were under way on the exterior damaged in the attack.
A funeral was being planned for the slain bodyguard; another is recovering from his injuries.
The city’s police chief, Public Security Director Jorge Eduardo Montero Alvarez, took office on Dec. 1 as part of a new city administration. He intends to continue to vigorously pursue “cracking down on the problems,” Raposa said.
During the attack, the mayor of Rosarito Beach was attending a meeting in Mexico City about security problems on the peninsula.
After the attack, the City Council issued a press release blaming the attacks on forces opposed to a crime cleanup launched by the new city administration.
“To the people of Rosarito, we want to express that these violent acts are the result of the job that is being done in Public Security areas, in coordination with the State and Federal Government, and which will not stop until we all live in a secure city,” the release states. “These actions will not stop measures undertaken by the government in Playas de Rosarito.”
The owner of Baja Safari, a tour and travel agency based in San Diego, said he canceled several tours this week in the wake of the attack, only one in a series he said was under way by drug cartels trying to “tell the government who’s in charge.”
“Their way of doing this is to go into public buildings in the middle of the day, break out their large-caliber weapons and shoot them up,” owner Mike Overcast said.
“We are recommending to the general public and our membership to avoid all travel to the Tijuana and Ensenada region for the next 30 days,” Overcast said.
George Perez, who works for the Irvine-based Corazon de Vida charity that provides food and shelter for 700 children in 14 orphanages in Baja, said he hopes the violence won’t discourage Americans from visiting the children’s homes they support and helping the youngsters, who receive no government funding and would otherwise be homeless.
“We’re just concerned about the children,” Perez said.
The U.S. Department of State has a travel advisory for Mexico that includes border towns and warns about increasing violence including daytime shootouts related to drug trafficking in cities such as Tijuana.
“Criminals, armed with an impressive array of weapons, know there is little chance they will be caught and punished,” according to the advisory.
“In some cases, assailants have been wearing full or partial police uniforms and have used vehicles that resemble police vehicles, indicating some elements of the police might be involved.”
Contact the writer: 714-796-7994 or mfisher@ocregister.com
Thursday, December 20, 2007
Assault on police station leaves one officer dead
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/mexico/tijuana/20071219-9999-1m19pubsafe.html
Two unidentified civilians were also wounded during the assault at 12:40 p.m., according to a news release from the state Attorney General's Office.
The officers worked as bodyguards for the city's public security director, state authorities said. The director wasn't in the building during the attack.
The dead bodyguard was identified as Guillermo Castro Corona, 35. The wounded bodyguard was identified as Leonel Pizaña Trip.
Authorities later found four abandoned cars believed to have been used by the assailants. – Anna Cearley
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Two U.S. Citizens Detained in Mexicali For Alleged Weapons Smuggling
http://www.kpbs.org/news/local;id=10422
Two U.S. Citizens were detained in Mexicali over the weekend for trying to enter Mexico with a machine gun and a large amount of ammunition. KPBS reporter Amy Isackson has details.
Mexican customs officials detained the San Bernardino couple as they crossed the border from Calexico to Mexicali.
She says customs officials searched Billy Schmidt and Claudia Black's bags and found an AR-15 machine gun.
Blanco: And 25,000 rounds of ammunition. They're being held in Mexicali by federal authorities.
Crossing the border with high-caliber ammunition is punishable by five to 15 years in prison.
It’s also against the law in Mexico to possess a weapon only the military is allowed to use, like an automatic assault rifle.
U.S. and Mexican federal officials estimate more than 90 percent of illegal firearms in Mexico are smuggled from the United States.
Amy Isackson, KPBS News.
Thursday, December 6, 2007
Patrols to be added on Baja toll road
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/mexico/tijuana/20071204-9999-1b4tourism.html
“This should clearly help the security situation,” he said.
De La Rosa said communications systems also will be improved.
The meeting was held at the urging of tourism businesses, which have seen tourism dip in the wake of several attacks on U.S. citizens driving along the Baja California toll road that stretches 65 miles from Tijuana to Ensenada.
Paramilitary-style criminals driving vehicles with flashing lights and sirens carried out some of the armed assaults.
No attacks have been reported since they received widespread publicity in the media, said Nico Saad, director of the Ensenada Tourism Board.
“I feel good about the meeting,” he said later. “Actions are going to be taken by the governor and the mayors. They are going to do whatever they need to, to cool this off.”
Although he didn't attend the meeting, Saad said tourism representatives from Ensenada, Rosarito Beach and Tijuana requested that additional steps be taken to safeguard visitors from the United States.
Among the suggestions were that:
“We need that highway to have all the modern security available,” Saad said.
Police official murdered in Tecate
http://weblog.signonsandiego.com/news/breaking/2007/12/police_official_murdered_in_te_1.html
A high-ranking municipal official has been assassinated in the Mexican town of Tecate, less than a day after a drug-smuggling tunnel was discovered just across the border in Tecate, Ca., along wit some 15,000 pounds of marijuana.
According to wire and Mexican press reports attributed to Baja California state justice officials, a group of heavily heavily armed gunmen broke into the home of Juan José Soriano Pereira about 2 a.m. today and shot him to death in front of his family. His wife and children escaped injury.
Investigators found 45 shell casings of .223-caliber and 7.62-millimeter at the scene.
The Tijuana daily Frontera identified Soriano as an interim sub-director of the Tecate municipal police department, a position he had held only since Saturday, when the new city administration took office.
He was 35.
Monday, December 3, 2007
NBC picks up on Baja Violence
http://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/14752553/detail.html
LOS ANGELES -- Authorities said well-armed, masked bandits are targeting tourists in Baja California.At least seven attacks have been reported in recent months, the Los Angeles Time reported.An Encinitas woman said she was sexually assaulted in front of her boyfriend during an attack in October.
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