Frontera NorteSur October 2001

Coverage of the attack runs deep in all of the border newspapers with numerous articles that outline the events of September 11 and follow the beginnings of crime investigations. Other articles look at such things as Mexicans working in the World Trade Center at the time of the attack, Mexican law enforcement reactions to events, the economic effects of the attack and the effects of increased delays at the international ports. In Cd. Juárez, the newspaper El Diario ran--in just its first section--more than 60 articles and 20 photos related to the attack.

Under two front-page articles detailing World Trade Center rescue attempts and the alleged threats against the White House and Air Force One, El Diario ran an article about twelve missing Mexican citizens that worked in the World Trade Center and another article that looked at the financial effects of the attack.

According to El Diario, there were between 100 and 150 Mexican citizens that worked in the World Trade Center. Twelve of these people have disappeared since the September 11 attack, said the Mexican consul to New York, Salvador Beltrán del Río. The newspaper also states that unofficial sources have indicated that the bodies of four Mexicans have been found in the ruins of the World Trade Center.

Already concerned about the large loss of jobs in Mexico due to the US economic slow down, it's not surprising that El Diario's fourth and final front-page article looks at the economic consequences of the attack. Like most other border newspapers, El Diario noted that the attack closed New York stock markets but that there would probably be only a limited impact on the world financial system.

In Tijuana, the newspaper Frontera (no relation to FNS) reports four-hour waits to enter the US at the international ports there. In Cd. Juárez, waits have been up to three hours long and a false bomb threat closed the bridges for 45 minutes yesterday, according to El Diario. In Nuevo Laredo, a false bomb threat stopped traffic for twenty minutes.

The long waits at the border are due to the Level One procedures put into effect by Customs and INS after the attack against the US. These inspections are described by the INS as a "sustained, intensive, anti-terrorism operation."

More rigorous inspection at international ports has also begun on the Mexican side of the border. Mexican officials from along various parts of the border have said that they are watching for terrorists that might try and leave the US through Mexico.

Sources: El Diario, Frontera, El Mañana (Reynosa & Nuevo Laredo), September 13, 2001.

Three Hour Waits to Cross from Juárez into El Paso, Stores in Both Cities Affected

According to Mexico's Caminos y Puentes Federales (Federal Highways and Bridges, Capufe), border crossers had waits of between 2 1/2 and 3 hours to enter El Paso from Ciudad Juárez on Sunday, September 23, 2001. The long lines at the bridges are due to increased inspection times at the US ports of entry. Heightened security procedures have been in place at the bridges since the September 11 attack on the US. On Sunday, lines of vehicles extended from the bridges far into downtown Cd. Juárez despite a 50% drop in bridge traffic since September 11.

Capufe said that while vehicular traffic is down at the international bridges, pedestrian traffic has increased 20%. On an average day, 18,000 people walk across the bridges that connect the city. Recently, 21,000 people per day travel on foot between the El Paso and Cd. Juárez.

Due to the decline in border crossers because of the fall off in vehicle traffic, Capufe stated that it has lost 85,328 pesos (approximately US$9,000) per day in bridge toll money between September 11 and September 21.

Articles in the El Paso Times and the Cd. Juárez newspaper El Diario have reported a drop in sales at downtown stores in both El Paso and Cd. Juárez. In the Cd. Juárez Avenida-Juárez area which caters to tourists and El Paso residents, store owners say that business is off 90-99%. Comprised of bars, restaurants, pharmacies and shops that sell artisanal goods, the area was vacant of buyers over the past weekend. One store owner said that business is worse than ever before, worse even than in bad recessions.

While shoppers are avoiding border crossings, illegal immigration seems to be more or less unchanged between the US and Mexico. Méxicali's newspaper La Crónica wrote that a Beta official stated that the number of daily attempts to cross the border has not changed following the events of September 11. Beta is a migrant protection and rescue organization.

On September 24, Doug Mosier, the Border Patrol public affairs officer for the El Paso sector, told Frontera NorteSur that the number of apprehensions in the sector since September 11 has remained steady at the sector average of 200-300 apprehensions per day. The Border Patrol's El Paso sector includes all of New Mexico and the Texas counties of El Paso and Hudspeth.

Source: El Diario, September 23 & 24, 2001. Articles by Rosario Reyes and Gabriela Minjáres. La Crónica (Méxicali), September 18, 2001. Article by Héctor Peralta.

Arab Residents of Chihuahua City under Investigation

A joint investigation of Chihuahua City residents who are citizens of Arab states is being conducted by the Instituto Nacional de Migración (National Migration Institute, INM) and the Procuraduría General de Justicia del Estado (State Attorney General's Office, PGJE), according to an article in the Ciudad Juárez newspaper, El Diario. A national intelligence organization, the Centro de Inteligencia y Seguridad Nacional (National Security and Intelligence Center, Cisen), is also gathering information about people from Arab nations that reside in Chihuahua City.

The joint INM-PGJE operation, known as "Milenio" (Millennium), is being coordinated by the PGJE. PGJE authorities told El Diario that since the September 11 attacks against the US, the PGJE has not detected the presence of any alleged Islamic terrorists in the state.

Braulio Gutíerrez Almuina, state director of the INM, said that as part of Operation Milenio his agents will watch people of Arab origin to obtain information about their activities in Mexico. He said their rights will not be affected.

A Cisen source that El Diario would not name told the newspaper that it was investigating post cards that were sent to a mosque in Saltillo, Coahuila from Chihuahua City. Cisen is also looking for at least two people from Pakistan that were walking the streets of the city selling artisanal goods last week. Cisen wants to locate them and find out the motives for their stay in Mexico.

In addition to the above mentioned investigations, Cisen is also gathering information about all Chihuahua City residents from Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq and other countries.

Source: El Diario, September 21, 2001. Carlos Coria Rivas.

US Border Patrol Training for Mexican Federal Police

The Ciudad Juárez newspaper El Diario reports that agents from the Mexican Policía Federal Preventiva (Federal Preventative Police, PFP) received a week of specialized training from the US Border Patrol in Harlingen, Texas. The goal of the training was to create a unified front against organized crime along the US-Mexico border, according to the Secretaría de Seguridad Pública (SSP).

Some of the Border Patrol instructed classes were about such topics as K9 searches, compartment searches, traffic control, bus inspection and highway checkpoints. The SSP noted that it viewed the training sessions as an opportunity to exchange ideas and experiences with US law enforcement and as an opportunity for the substantial improvement of Mexican federal police practices. As a Mexican federal police agency, the PFP deals with such federal-level crimes as human and drug trafficking and contraband.

Citing the need for a common front against international organized crime, the SSP also stated, "It's lost on no one that human and drug trafficking bring with them collateral crimes like organ trafficking, money laundering and tax evasion."

Source: El Diario, September 10, 2001.

Mexican Anti-Drug Agent Killed in Tijuana, Used Cocaine and Opium Derivatives

Just weeks after recent statements by US officials about Mexico's increased reliability in the war on drugs, a member of an elite Mexican anti-drug unit was found dead in a Tijuana-area motel on Sunday, September 16, 2001, according to Tijuana's Frontera newspaper. The newspaper also reported that a PGR spokesperson said that Gregorio Vázquez Torres, a 26 year old Feads agent (Fiscalia Especializada para la Atención de Delitos Contra la Salud), was strangled to death and had used cocaine, alcohol and an opium derivative prior to his death. The Feads is part of the Federal Attorney General's Office, the Procuraduría General de la República (PGR).

According to Frontera newspaper (no relationship to Frontera NorteSur), Vázquez had attended the Feria Tijuana 2001 with friends where they drank beer, tequila and whiskey. Vázquez and his friends later checked into a motel and his friends left him and a woman alone there. When his friends returned in the morning they discovered Vázquez's body and the woman was gone. There was no robbery related to the case and the PGR does not have a motive for the killing.

In a separate story, Frontera newspaper reports that out of 403 surprise drug tests, 27 Rosarito city employees tested positive for drug use. Of the 27 people that tested positive, sixteen were city police officers. The most commonly used drug was methamphetamine which turned up in nineteen of the cases. Cocaine was found four times, marijuana three times and another drug once.

A Rosarito city counselor said that it is worrying when police officers test positive for drugs because people begin to suspect that the police are linked to drug dealers.

Source: Frontera, September 19, 2001. Articles by Said Betanzos and Manuel Lomelí.

Matamoros State Police Commander and Driver Murdered

Jaime Yáñez Cantú, the Matamoros state police commander who was investigating a recent raid on state police headquarters by 20-25 alleged narcotraffickers, was shot to death on Monday, July 9, 2001 along with his driver Gerardo Gazcón Soltero. The two men were in a car parked just a few blocks from the state police station.

Francisco Cayuela, an Assistant Attorney with the State Attorney General's Office (Procuraduría General de Justicia del Estado, PGJE), said that his office has three parallel lines of investigation in the case. The PGJE is currently examining whether the crime is linked to narcotraffickers, human traffickers or organized bands of car thieves. At the time of his death Yáñez was investigating a raid on Matamoros state police headquarters by a group of 20-25 alleged narcotraffickers that freed a kidnapping suspect that was being interrogated in the police offices.

Reactions to the killings have been varied. Both Tamaulipas Governor Tomás Yarrington Ruvalcaba and the Catholic Church have expressed their outrage and condemnation of the crime. The business sector is worried about a growing crime wave, according to El Mañana, a regional newspaper. However, the newspaper also reports that the PRI, the state's governing party, believes that the recent strikes against the state police only prove that criminal groups are reacting to an increased level of law enforcement in Tamaulipas.

Two hundred federal police officers arrived on Tuesday, July 10 in Matamoros to comb the city and help in the investigation of the Yáñez and Gazcón murders.

While the Reynosa press mentioned nothing negative about Yáñez, the July 11, 2001 edition of El Mañana out of Nuevo Laredo ran an article saying that Yáñez's death left unresolved a number of cases and complaints against the man who had once been the head of the state police in that city. Mauro Cruz Ríos, director of the city's human rights office, said that "during his [Yáñez's] sweep through this city, citizens lived under the yoke of the chief of police." Yáñez was in Nuevo Laredo from early 1998 until April 1999.

Héctor Medrano Rico said that Yáñez extorted US$30,000 from him by threatening to plant drugs on him if he did not pay Yáñez the desired amount. Vicente Guerra said that he also paid Yáñez an unspecified amount of money to avoid having drugs planted on him as well.

Source: El Mañana (Reynosa and Nuevo Laredo), July 11, 2001.

Child Drug Traffickers in Ciudad Juárez

In April, 2001 close to 170 kilograms of marijuana were confiscated from four adolescents who were trying to smuggle the drug into the US across one of the international bridges between Ciudad Juárez and El Paso. This set a new all-time high for the number of minors arrested in one day by the US Customs Service. Previously no more than three minors had been arrested on any one day.

Between January and April, 2001 US Customs Service arrested 57 minors, the majority between 15 and 17 years old. Customs seized over 700 kilos of marijuana from the youth.

The desire to obtain easy money is elevating the number of adolescents as young as 14 years old who get involved in drug smuggling.  According to US authorities the use of Mexican children in the smuggling of drugs has been a problem that has only increased in the last five years.

Traffickers persuade the adolescents with amounts of money between US$300 and US$800. Some youth receive as much as US$1500 for taking drugs across the international border. Adolescents are recruited at schools, supermarkets, or others places were minors can be found. Authorities say that the youth are used as look-outs or even bait. To distract law enforcement officers the minors are given small amounts of drugs to get caught with so that later larger amounts can be safely smuggled to the US.

US Customs Service reported 155 adolescent arrests last year. These minors were caught with more than 5,600 kilograms of marijuana and 15 kilos of cocaine.

Source: El Diario, June 29, 2001. Article by Lorena Figueroa.

Gay Prostitutes Targeted & Arrested in Reynosa, Same Planned for Juárez

The Reynosa newspaper El Mañana quoted city councilor Ernesto Cantú as saying that roundups of transvestite male prostitutes in the city center were necessary to protect the image of the city and to keep the city from filling up with "maricones" (faggots).

Over the previous weekend 15 transvestite male prostitutes were arrested and taken to the police station. A judge told El Mañana that the men were released after they were warned not to "use the streets of the city center to walk around dressed as women and offering their services to drunken men." The roundup was ordered by the mayor according to the Reynosa newspaper.

Arturo Solís, president of the Centro de Estudios Fronterizos para la Promoción de los Derechos Humanos (Center for Border Studies for the Promotion of Human Rights, Cefprodhac), wrote a letter to the mayor asking him to allow gay men their Constitutional right to freedom of movement. Solís also complained that, ". . . sexual freedom is recognized throughout most of the world and we believe that the individual rights of gays are being violated.

In Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua the head of city police, Jorge Ostos, ordered law-enforcement agents to begin an operation aimed at gay prostitutes working in the city center. According to the Cd. Juárez newspaper El Diario, the decision to begin the operation began after the department videotaped two male prostitutes kissing in public, one man urinating in public and one prostitute taking a pair of sunglasses from a passing car.

Ostos commented that it is sad to see the loss of values reflected in the considerable demand for gay sexual services among men from Cd. Juárez and El Paso, TX.

Police agents familiar with the area said that when the bars in the center of the city close at 1 a.m. approximately 300 gay prostitutes "take over" the area for their work. The agents also said that they see many differences between male and female prostitutes. Women they said are not so uninhibited in their street-side conduct.

In response to the threatened roundup of gay prostitutes some men filed complaints with the city police Internal Affairs Office. The men allege that police agents constantly harass them and charge them fees so that they, the prostitutes, can work in the area.

Complaints were also filed with the state human rights office in Cd. Juárez.

Source: El Mañana (Reynosa), August 24, 2001.
El Diario, August 23, 2001. Article by Luz del Carmen Sosa.

Matamoros-based State Police Investigated

The Tamaulipas State Attorney General's Office (Procuraduría General de Justicia en el Estado, PGJE) gathered in the state capitol Ciudad Victoria, 40 of the 52 State Police (Policía Ministerial del Estado, PME) officers and their commanders that are stationed in Matamoros. The agents will be investigated to see if they participated in the June 21 raid on the Matamoros PME headquarters that resulted in the freeing of a kidnapping suspect. Police involvement in the raid is suspected because the group of 20-25 men that entered the building knew exactly where kidnapping suspect José Ramón Dávila López was being held in the police offices.

Matamoros PME commander Jaime Yáñez Cantú said that the state director of the PME, Francisco Cayuela, is determined to make the PME more transparent. This includes ending corruption and getting rid of bad and unfit agents.

In a further development in the story, Yáñez said that PME agent Rogelio García García resigned from the force for family reasons and because he feared the PGJE investigations which are wide ranging.

El Bravo writes that its reporters have confirmed that Rogelio García García is the brother of Ricardo García García, who along with his wife Manuela "Melly" Peña was allegedly kidnapped by José Ramón Dávila López and others. FNS originally reported the names of the kidnapped couple as Ricardo González Chapa and Nelly Peña based on information from the Reynosa and Nuevo Laredo newspapers El Mañana.

The State Attorney General Eduardo Garza Rivas has said that the kidnapping was a typical "adjustment of accounts" or move between warring factions of drug traffickers.

Source: El Bravo, June 26, 2001. Article by Martín Castillo González.

Tamaulipas Rural Police Detained in Drug Trafficking Investigation

A total of 28 officers from the Tamaulipas Policía Rural del Estado were detained for alleged connections to narcotraffickers that operate in the state. Following a further investigation, 14 of the agents were later confirmed to have had no connections to criminal organizations. They will be returned to service and will receive the back pay owed them. The remaining 14 officers are said to have been either directly related to drug traffickers or at least had some knowledge about the operations of different groups.

Some of the detained were arrested a few months ago in the case of "Guardados de Abajo" when military elements and elite PGR units detained Gilberto García Mena and Osiel Cárdenas Guillen, alleged members of the Gulf Cartel. The other suspended officers were detained because of their alleged involvement with drug organizations in Nuevo Laredo, Matamoros, Reynosa, Valle Hermoso and the rest of the border, according to Tomás Anaya Berrones, head of the Policía Rural del Estado.

Anaya said that he is prepared to face a lawsuit by agents that had been placed on un-paid leave during the investigation.

El Mañana also reported that some agents have said that Anaya allegedly received US$3,000 per month or more from other agents and officers who then received Anaya's protection.

Source: El Mañana (Reynosa), August 7, 2001.

40,000 Cd. Juárez Traffic Tickets Canceled

Nearly 40,000 Ciudad Juárez traffic fines from 1999 have been canceled due to the city's lack of a collection system. This represents a loss to the city of 20 million pesos, an amount equivalent to approximately US $2,180,000. According to Norma Gutiérrez de Del Villar, director of receivables for the city (Ingresos del Municipio), tickets and documents such as seized drivers' licenses intended to guarantee the payment of fines were destroyed and then buried in the city landfill.

To solve the problem of unpaid tickets, the city is considering the installation of computers in all traffic-police patrol cars. This would allow police to see if a driver has a previously unpaid ticket. If so, the appropriate measure to collect on a past fine could be taken. Gutiérrez emphasized that this is only a proposal and that actual details such as cost would be have to be worked out by the incoming city administration.

Source: El Diario, August 10, 2001. Article by Pedro Torres.

Matamoros Car Owners Illegally Nationalize Cars through the State of Puebla

An investigation by the Matamoros newspaper El Bravo has found that Matamoros car buyers are nationalizing their US-origin vehicles in an illegal fashion with the help of officials from the central Mexico state of Puebla. So far thousands of cars with Puebla license plates and documentation have been found at highway checkpoints in Tamaulipas, according to the newspaper. Although the cars have Puebla license plates many of them never went to that state to receive the plates as they should have.

One example of this illegal process was given by El Bravo. For instance, one person who said that he lived in Matamoros paid US$5,200 for a 1993 Ford Explorer. He purchased the car on May 12, 2001 and then nationalized his vehicle through the state of Puebla. This process was illegal for at least two reasons according to the newspaper. First of all, US vehicles may only become Mexican vehicles if they were purchased before October 1, 2000. Secondly, the Explorer should have gone to Puebla to receive its license plates. However, the owner of the SUV had the license plates and nationalization documents delivered to him in Matamoros.

Having the nationalization process done through Puebla allegedly costs as much as US$3,000. People buy their US-origin vehicles in Matamoros, fax their driver's license and vehicle title to Puebla, pay someone that is somehow connected to Puebla's car nationalization program, and then receive in Tamaulipas all the necessary documentation, license plates, stickers and hologram stickers that a car needs to become nationalized.

Source: El Bravo, July 9, 2001. Article by Víctor Manuel Villegas.

Sinaloa Group Looks for 11 Missing People in BC

The Frente Contra la Impunidad de Sinaloa (Front Against Impunity in Sinaloa) has complained to the Méxicali newspaper La Crónica that it has not received assistance from state authorities in Sinaloa and Baja California in its search for missing people. The group wants help in finding ten people from Sinaloa that were disappeared in three events between September 13, 1999 and December 5, 1999. The Frente is also looking into the June 7, 1995 disappearance of Erick Francisco Quintana, a Méxicali native.

The first group disappearance that the Frente is investigating took place on September 13, 1999 in Méxicali when four people were taken away in a vehicle or vehicles. The second and third disappearances took place on December 4 and 5, 1999 in Tijuana when three men were abducted on each occasion by men identifying themselves as federal agents.

Composed of the family members of the missing, the Frente believes that a death squad exists in Baja California and that it has links to federal law-enforcement agencies.

The group's claims ring true in many ways because in numerous recent arrests along the border some alleged drug-cartel members are found to have law-enforcement uniforms and/or documents with them at the time of their detention. Whether or not these items were willingly given to drug traffickers by law enforcement, it is certain that traffickers have tried to pass themselves off as law-enforcement agents. Also, the three biggest drug cartels along the border were begun by former federal law-enforcement agents.

In Méxicali the Frente went to a state human-rights office, the Procuraduría de los Derechos Humanos y Protección Ciudadana (PDH), to ask for its help in looking for the missing people.

For Wednesday, August 22, 2001 the group had plans to go protest in Tijuana at the international border crossing.

Source: La Crónica (Méxicali), August 22, 2001. Article by José Manuel Yépiz Ruiz.

Mass Arrests in Downtown Méxicali

To slow what Méxicali's newspaper La Crónica called a crime wave in central Méxicali, city police arrested 90 individuals on the night of Tuesday, July 31 and the morning of Wednesday, August 1, 2001. Jesús Rullán, a police shift supervisor, stated that the operation was in response to complaints from businesses about the numerous crimes in the downtown area. Arrested were individuals allegedly caught selling illegal drugs and other people that were "suspiciously driving around in cars or around businesses," the newspaper reported.

La Crónica did not mention reactions to the operation from local or state human rights organizations. These groups usually protest wide-scale crackdowns such as this one.

Police administrator Rullán said that despite businesses' demands for action against crime in the downtown area, there were still some business owners that were unwilling to cooperate with the police. For example, one alleged burglar fled into a restaurant and its owner did not permit police agents to enter the establishment. Police waited until the suspect left the restaurant and then arrested the man, José Isidro Córdova Meraz, who has been arrested 25 times before by local police for such crimes as attempted murder, robbery, public intoxication, gang organizing and other crimes.

According to Alfonso Ulises Méndez, assistant director of city police operations, there has been non-stop surveillance of the downtown. One problem that police faced according to Méndez was that thieves changed their tactics by using the roofs of buildings to rob businesses and to move from place to place. To remedy the situation police began observing the roofs of buildings from strategic points around the city.

Méndez also said that police may install a small watch station in this area.

The city also announced that it will begin the regular inspection of hotels in the downtown area where criminals are said to hide.

Source: La Crónica, August 2, 2001. Articles by Moisés Márquez and Carina Rodríguez Moreno.

Human Trafficker Arrested Near Calexico May Face Death Penalty

Two undocumented immigrants died Tuesday, July 10, 2001 in the Imperial Valley desert after being abandoned by a human trafficker. The suspect in the case was later detained by California Highway Patrol agents. Arturo Sandoval, a Border Patrol spokesperson, said that the man could face the death penalty given the evidence against him.

Manuel Figueroa, another Border Patrol spokesperson, told Méxicali's La Crónica that a group of ten undocumented immigrants left Mexico seeking to enter the US near El Centinela hill. Two of the migrants fell behind because of exhaustion and the day's high temperatures. The pollero (human trafficker) and the eight other immigrants continued on without them.

When the sister of one of the victims reached Highway 8 she sought help from Border Patrol agents. The pair was found just minutes later by the Border Patrol but they had already died. The sister also gave law enforcement officials a description of the trafficker that was guiding the group of immigrants.

Later that same day California Highway Patrol agents stopped a truck carrying a group of seven immigrants and the presumed trafficker in the case. The alleged pollero was driving the truck and was found to be under the influence of alcohol for which he was arrested. He was later positively identified by the sister of one of the victims.

The surviving immigrants were left at the disposition of the Border Patrol. The names of the presumed trafficker and the victims have been not yet been released.

Source: La Crónica, July 12, 2001. Article by Edgar Fabián Chávez.

Family Tries to Stop Extradition of Mexican Man to US, Blames Brother for Murder

Worried that he will not receive a fair trail, relatives of Agustín Vázquez Mendoza have asked the Mexican government not to extradite Vázquez to the US for the alleged murder of a DEA agent in Phoenix. Vázquez's wife, Mirza Hernández García, said that the government will rule on the extradition in four months and all signs point to the probable extradition of her husband who was on the DEA's most-wanted list.

Hernández said that it was Agustín's brother Juan who shot and killed a DEA agent. Juan and another man were arrested the day of the murder but Agustín escaped to Mexico.

Hernández also says that Juan wrote up a document in which he confessed that he was the one that fired the gun involved in the case. Hernández complains that Mexican and US officials have not taken Juan's confession into account.

María Trinidad Mendoza Rivera, Agustin's sister, states that he has been held incommunicado since he was arrested July 9, 2000. Mendoza also said that she has asked the Comisión Nacional de Derechos Humanos (National Human Rights Commission, CNDH) to intervene in the case. However, according to Mendoza, the CNDH has not tried to get involved on Agustín's behalf.

Mendoza is now asking the media to request interviews with her brother so that she can find out what condition he is in and so that he can give his version of events to the media.

Source: La Crónica (San Luis), July 5, 2001. Article by Santiago Barroso & Samuel Murillo.

Study of BC Crime Reveals Serious Problems

A study of crime in Baja California conducted by the Centro de Enseñanza Técnica y Superior (Cetys) revealed a 61.8% increase in vehicle theft over the past three years. Crimes prosecuted at the federal level (drug crimes and others) increased 94%. In 1999 only 7,061 people received a jail sentence for 237,389 crimes.

Showing that most BC crime is not committed by recent arrivals to the state, the report's authors found that 60% of the prison population had lived in the state for at least ten years before committing the crime that landed them in prison. Only 10% of prisoners had lived in BC one year or less before going to jail. The study also reaffirmed that BC's prisons are overcrowded at 165% of capacity.

According to the 5,000 surveys completed for the study, BC residents believe that the main law-enforcement problems in the state are government inefficiency, kidnappings and corruption. Residents also believe that the rise in crime is due to unemployment, low wages and the current economic crisis.

Tijuana's newspaper Frontera reported that BC officials were upset that neither the state attorney general's office nor the federal attorney general's office would provide data for the study.

Source: Frontera (Tijuana), August 8, 2001. Article by Moisés Márquez.

Seized BC Narcohomes Forgotten by PGR

An investigation done by the Tijuana newspaper Frontera reveals that the homes and property of drug traffickers seized by the Procuraduría General de la República (Federal Attorney General's Office, PGR) in Baja California have not been adequately inventoried and have been left abandoned.

Jorge Peña Sandoval, the PGR director for the state of Baja California, told Frontera that there are innumerable seized goods in the basement of the PGR's Zona Río office and in the PGR's building in Mesa de Otay. However, Peña could not produce an inventory list for the items and admitted that there is no list of items that details everything that the PGR has seized in recent years.

According to Ricardo Cabo Alvarez, the head of the Servicio de Administración de Bienes Asegurados (Seized Goods Administration Service, SEBA) which is part of the Secretaría de Hacienda y Crédito Público (Ministry of Finance and Public Credit), the SEBA has registered only 20 seized homes and 200 vehicles. Control of seized goods in Mexico is the responsibility of SEBA.

Frontera newspaper also reports that the government is close to signing an accord with BC that would allow the transfer of seized goods to different state agencies.

Source: Frontera (Tijuana), July 16, 2001.

Seized BC Narcohomes Forgotten by PGR

An investigation done by the Tijuana newspaper Frontera reveals that the homes and property of drug traffickers seized by the Procuraduría General de la República (Federal Attorney General's Office, PGR) in Baja California have not been adequately inventoried and have been left abandoned.

Jorge Peña Sandoval, the PGR director for the state of Baja California, told Frontera that there are innumerable seized goods in the basement of the PGR's Zona Río office and in the PGR's building in Mesa de Otay. However, Peña could not produce an inventory list for the items and admitted that there is no list of items that details everything that the PGR has seized in recent years.

According to Ricardo Cabo Alvarez, the head of the Servicio de Administración de Bienes Asegurados (Seized Goods Administration Service, SEBA) which is part of the Secretaría de Hacienda y Crédito Público (Ministry of Finance and Public Credit), the SEBA has registered only 20 seized homes and 200 vehicles. Control of seized goods in Mexico is the responsibility of SEBA.

Frontera newspaper also reports that the government is close to signing an accord with BC that would allow the transfer of seized goods to different state agencies.

Source: Frontera (Tijuana), July 16, 2001.

Marijuana Shipment Seized at Checkpoint Near Tijuana

Mexican Army officers seized nearly two tons of marijuana hidden inside a cement truck yesterday at the Rosarito checkpoint leading to Tijuana. The 1,500 packages of marijuana were being transported inside the truck's cement mixer. The truck was later turned over to the Procuraduría General de la República (Federal Attorney General's Office, PGR) by the military officials.

The bundles of marijuana were not concealed inside the mixer and only had small amounts of cement powder on them. This led Army authorities to believe that the truck's driver had made a cement delivery to a nearby location.

The driver escaped by telling officials that he was going to buy a soda while they inspected the truck. The man took advantage of this time to get away from the checkpoint.

Army officers indicated that the drugs possibly could have come from an Ensenada port.

Two weeks ago, in the Playa Italiana area located in Rosarito, police officials seized a shipment of four tons of marijuana for which 16 people involved were arrested.

Source: Frontera, July 6, 2001. Article by Said Betanzos.