Anger grows over Chihuahua crime

BY DAVID AGREN
The News

Public outcry mounted in Chihuahua on Sunday as the wave of violence plaguing the northern state continued unabated, this time claiming a top state police commander.

A group that included 62 of the state's 67 mayors as well as business and university organizations and the bishops of three Chihuahua dioceses published an open letter to President Felipe Calderón on Sunday, urging him to overhaul federal crime fighting efforts in the nation's largest - and this year, most violent - state.

"We ask that you refocus Joint Operation Chihuahua and in general the strategies of combating organized crime," stated the letter that was published in newspapers throughout the state.

Hours before the letter's publication, yet another police official was murdered in the border city of Ciudad Juárez. José Manuel Sanginés Leal, regional director of investigations for the state police, was shot at 149 times while driving a police pickup truck, according to investigators. Police captain Miguel Carlos Herrera González was killed the day before by unknown assailants.

A crime reporter for the newspaper El Diario was also assassinated last week in the city.

Joint Operation Chihuahua organizes federal, state and local officials to battle organized crime in the state and is part of Calderón's efforts to crack down on trafficking cartels. Experts say the operation is failing to produce results because of problems with intelligence and an inability of federal and state officials to work cooperatively.

According to UNAM security expert Pedro Isnardo de la Cruz, Sunday's open letter sent the right message to Los Pinos.

"The system of coordination between federal and state authorities isn't trustworthy. The president has to do a top-to-bottom purge," de la Cruz said.

"The level of infiltration by the cartels into police forces and the infiltration into politics and governments is now, after Sinaloa, the highest [in Mexico]."

Chihuahua has been the scene of a bloody turf war between narcotics trafficking gangs, who have increasingly been turning their guns on local and state police - 59 law enforcement officials have been slain in Ciu-dad Juárez so far this year. Reforma estimates that the war on organized crime has claimed 1,368 lives in Chihuahua thus far in 2008, a sharp increase from the 147 deaths registered the previous year.

In response to the violence, increasing numbers of Chihuahua residents are acting or speaking out for change.

Last week, members of the state's 40,000-member Mennonite community shuttered business to demand an end to the violence. On Saturday, the state's opposition National Action Party demanded the resignation of Chihuahua's two top law enforcement officials.

One diocese in the southern part of the state has even gone as far as to deny funeral rites to narcotics gang members murdered for their criminal activities.

Average citizens suffer horrors of kidnapping, too

BY DAVID AGREN
The News

Pedro Fletes, a Mexico City teacher and father of six, was pulled from his 1994 Ford Escort by five kidnappers as he passed through the Colonia Roma on a winter morning seven years ago.

His abductors brought him to a "safe house," blindfolded him and kept him confined to a closet for nearly two months. A chain was attached to his leg every night.

Feletes subsisted on a diet of tea and pastries, but was also extended a surprising number of courtesies, including packs of Raleigh cigarettes, his preferred brand.

"If I had been an addict, they would have found me drugs," Fletes said, explaining that his captors treated him like "merchandise" that required care and attention. "The most important thing for them was taking care of me."

Yet in the high-stakes crime of kidnapping, the same captors who brought him his favorite cigarettes might just as easily have cut off an appendage, or even killed him, had the deal for his ransom gone wrong.

Instead, his ordeal ended with him being dumped - penniless and wearing the same clothes he had on when he was grabbed 59 days earlier - at an unfamiliar street corner in a working-class neighborhood near the airport. His family had paid the ransom, the sum of which he declined to disclose, except to say that it was a mere fraction of the millions of dollars demanded by kidnappers involved in high-profile abductions.

Fletes' kidnappers nabbed him for purely economic reasons - even though his salary from his job at a private high school pays him only a middle-class salary. But his abduction came during the early years of a trend in Mexico's lucrative kidnapping industry that has seen the middle and working classes become targets as well as the rich.

"In the '90s and early 2000s, a lot of these kidnappings were done by professionals, groups that were very sophisticated," said Ana María Salazar, a Mexico City political analyst and security expert. "They would plan ahead: who they would kidnap and how much money they were going to get.

"Now people are basically getting kidnapped if they have a nice car or they're wearing a watch, or for some reason there's a perception that they have cash available," she said.

Security experts and the leaders of public security advocacy groups say that the problem for the middle and working classes has only become worse since Fletes was apprehended in 2001. Kidnapping is now so widespread that even impoverished rural villages are feeling its impact.

"There are kidnappings for just 5,000 pesos," said Joaquín Quintana, leader of the anti-crime civic group Convivencia sin Violencia, of the situation in rural areas.

"There are kidnappings where they take a family's child . and ask for a cow and two pigs."

MEDIA ATTENTION

Kidnappings are up 9.1 percent this year in Mexico, averaging 65 per month nationwide, according to the Attorney General's Office. Citizens' groups, however, say that most crimes go unreported, and the real kidnapping rate is likely more than 500 per month.

It's a crime that affects people of all socioeconomic groups. Yet the trend of middle- and working-class kidnappings has been given scant attention by the national media, which this month has focused heavily on the plights of two wealthy families, whose children fell into the hands of kidnapping gangs.

Fernando Martí, whose father Alejandro Martí founded a sporting goods retail empire, was found dead in the truck of an abandoned car July 31. His parents had reportedly paid a $5 million ransom, but it failed to save their 14-year-old son.

The mother of Silvia Vargas made an emotional plea for her daughter's return last week along with offering a reward and posting a billboard to flush out information on the kidnapped 19-year-old, whose father previously ran the National Sports Commission.

The plights of both teenagers made the front-page headlines.

"What happens is that when it's someone from the upper class, and it's a well-known person, it appears in the press," Quintana said.

In the Martí case, the extensive press coverage fomented immense public outrage. A massive march against kidnapping is now planned for Saturday evening in downtown Mexico City.

The coverage also prompted political action - and public displays of support from the country's most prominent politicians. President Felipe Calderón attended the funeral Mass for the 14-year-old kidnapping victim. The president, all 31 governors and the mayor of Mexico City also convened a security summit last week, where the leaders agreed to a 74-point action plan after receiving a public tongue-lashing from Alejandro Martí.

In an apparent reference to the Martí case, Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora acknowledged that "perhaps it takes emblematic events to make us realize that the government is far from living up to its obligations."

But some have suggested that class interests are what drive the government's and public's concern for kidnapping. Back in 2004, then-Mexico City Mayor Andrés Manuel López Obrador, a self-styled champion of the poor and working classes, branded the backers of an anti-kidnapping protest as "spoiled rich kids."

`AN INCREDIBLE BUSINESS'

Security experts say the kidnapping industry began taking off in the mid-1990s, a time when the peso collapsed and authoritarian one-party rule came to an end on the national and Mexico City levels. Asked to explain kidnappings of working-class people, experts cite reasons ranging from lax law enforcement and deteriorating economic conditions to efforts by the rich to make themselves more difficult to apprehend by purchasing bulletproof vehicles and hiring private security.

Perhaps most important of all, the kidnapping of the middle and lower classes, especially in volume, can be a highly lucrative activity.

"There are gangs that do a lot of small-time kidnapping, because these types of kidnappings are a good business," Quintana said.

"There are no complaints filed, nobody goes after anybody. It's an incredible business."

A flood of new entrants changed the industry by carrying out both express kidnappings, in which the victims are forced to simply empty their bank accounts, and virtual kidnappings that trick victims via the telephone into thinking that their loved ones have been apprehended.

Traditional kidnappings are also becoming less sophisticated as victims are increasingly being mutilated and killed, according to Quintana.

"What we're seeing now, unlike before, is that there are no longer any ethics," he said.

"Before, if they were professionals, they would kidnap [the victim] and treat them like merchandise - take care of them, feed them well, return them in good condition. What's happening now is that you pay for the rescue and [the victim] is murdered."

Fletes, who now runs a support organization for the families of kidnapping victims, expressed gratitude that his kidnappers were of the professional variety.

But the reason he was ever targeted in the first place still mystifies him.

"I'm not a rich man," he said.

Cops not packing heat in Ecatepec

This is from the amusing side of the news: Police officers in Ecatepec, a sprawling municipality to the east of Mexico City, are carrying guns with empty cartridges. Due to red tape tying up a potential purchase with the State of Mexico's security agency, some Ecatepec cops are without bullets and many are apparently using out-dated equipment.

Cops in Mexico are obviously notorious for corruption, but it partially stems from the fact that many officers must purchase all their supplies, put gas in their patrol cars and even buy bullets. Thus, extracting mordidas (bribe), stretches their already slim paycheques. Some, though, are just plain nefarious and bribe in order to get rich.

So how much worse is public security in Ecatepec without armed cops patrolling the streets? Probably not much.

The Legend of Jesus Malverde, Patron 'Saint' of Narco Traffickers, Grows in Mexico

The Legend of Jesus Malverde, Patron 'Saint' of Narco Traffickers, Grows in Mexico

David Agren | Bio | 28 Jun 2007
World Politics Review Exclusive

MEXICO CITY -- Alejandro Ruiz Rodriguez, a Mexico City law student, lost a stack of important legal documents last year. Despite searching everywhere imaginable, they never turned up. As a last resort, he asked Jesus Malverde, an unofficial saint beloved by narcotics traffickers, for intervention. Inexplicably, the documents surfaced shortly thereafter.

"I don't know if it was just by chance or if Jesus Malverde was responsible," the 26-year-old said at a monthly gathering of Malverde adherents in Mexico City.

"Either way, I'm here every month to give thanks . . . it was absolutely miraculous."

Like an increasing number of Mexicans, Ruiz believes in the legend of Jesus Malverde, a mustachioed bandit from the hills of Sinaloa state that, like Robin Hood, reputedly stole from the rich and gave to the poor until his death by hanging in 1909. Narcotics traffickers claim him as their own and donate heavily to maintain a shrine in Culiacan, the capital of Sinaloa, a western state notorious for smuggling activities and home to a powerful drug cartel of the same name. Even with narcotics-cartel violence flaring across Mexico, Malverde's legend is growing and seeping into the broader popular culture. In addition to the Culiacan shrine, a smaller shrine was recently built on a sidewalk in Mexico City's tough Doctores neighborhood. A martini bar in the capital's chic Condesa district adopted the narco saint's name and a piece inspired by Malverde recently won acclaim at a major art fair.

In Doctores, Maria Alicia Pulida Sanchez, who makes a modest living by running a mom-and-pop store, erected the Malverde shrine after her teenage son recovered from an automobile accident more quickly than expected -- something she credited to her praying to the unofficial saint, who she insisted "wasn't a narco.

"He was a thief, but at the same time, he was a thief who helped his community," she said.

Like Robin Hood, "He was a thief who would steal from the rich and give to the poor."

As dusk fell on a quiet Sunday in Mexico City's Colonia Doctores, a group of men in blue jeans loaded a life-size statue of Jesus Malverde along with a similar statue of San Judas, the patron saint of lost causes, into the bed of a Ford pickup truck for a spin around the neighborhood. On the third day of every month, some 30 to 70 adherents gather at the sidewalk shrine to pay homage to the bandit-turned-unofficial saint, whom they attribute miracles to and in many cases ask for intervention.

A similar scene is carried out in Culiacan on a regular basis at the Jesus Malverde shrine, which stands near the state legislature and a McDonald's restaurant and appears on maps distributed by the municipal tourism board. On May 3, the supposed anniversary of Malverde's death, the shrine throws a party complete with banda groups playing narcocorridos -- songs glorifying narcotics traffickers -- and despensas (giveaways) of food, household items and toys. Throughout the year, the shrine reportedly funds charity projects -- like paying funeral expenses for those lacking money. According to some of the shrine's visitors, narco donations underwrite almost everything.

"Narcos pretty much sponsor this place," said Alfredo Aguilar, a sugar cane farmer from rural Sinaloa.

Like many at the shrine, he insisted Malverde was for all people -- not just narcos.

"All sorts of people come here . . . famous people, important people, poor people, rich people," said Doña Tere, an elderly woman, hawking Malverde busts at the shrine.

Visitors to the Malverde shrine often leave Polaroid photos with pithy notes. Wealthier visitors, including some from the United States, sometimes pay for permanent plaques, which usually give thanks for "favors received" and "success in business."

Drawing on Malverde's notoriety is now becoming a good business for entrepreneurs beyond Sinaloa. The Malverde Bar in Mexico City attracts the fresa crowd (young monied set) with $7 martinis and an ambiance drawn from the tacky side of Mexican pop culture. Bartender Luis Mondragon insisted, "This place isn't about glorifying narcos."

Beyond the trend of Mexican youth indulging the naco (low class) side of their pop culture, researcher Arturo Navarro Ramos of the ITESO university in Guadalajara described most of Malverde's followers as marginalized people.

"He makes it possible to live life on the margins," he said, pointing to narcotics traffickers as prime examples.

"Malverde facilitates the view that people can be saved while not giving up their improper activities."

Due to the sketchy accounts of Malverde's life -- even details of his death are disputed -- Navarro figured Malverde would never be recognized as an official saint by the Catholic Church, which only in the past few years promised to start better scrutinizing the sources of large donations that may or may not be coming from narcotics traffickers.

Regardless of Malverde's shady reputation, law student Alejandro Ruiz Rodriguez, who insists he'd never engage in illegal activities, said he would be returning to the Doctores shrine every month.

"It's pure faith," he commented.

Cocaine found in dead Canadian's system

The Canadian Press is reporting that toxicology tests found traces of cocaine in the system of Jeff Toews, the Grande Prairie, Alta. man, who suffered a fatal head injury while vacationing in Mexico last Monday morning. The Cancun hospital that treated Toews carried out the tests.

The family still insists there's a cover up, although their comments at a press conference on Thursday - held prior to the toxicology report being released - were unconvincing. CanWest News Service reports:

"Murray Toews admitted the family has no firm answers about what happened between 3 a.m. and 3:30 a.m. on Monday, but claimed Mexican authorities were trying to protect their tourism industry in releasing the damaging report."

When in doubt, blame the Mexicans. And since Canadian reporters and editors generally know little about the country - Mexico isn't a priority or interest - they're inclined to run with that narrative. (If I sound bothered by this: I AM.)

So many Canadians are unfairly maligning Mexico these days, but failing to properly scrutinize the reckless and disrespectful behavior of some of their fellow citizens coming down here.

Canadian media stick to script

Yet another Canadian tourist met misfortune in Mexico and once again the Canadian media are all over the story. Jeff Toews, a northern Alberta man, is in a coma after suffering a head injury. The family - and some headline writers - say he was beaten at the Cancun resort where he had been staying. Mexican authorities - the same ones handling the Ianiero case - say otherwise.

A friend of Toews told the Edmonton Journal: "He was on the resort property and somewhere between the nightclub and his room, something happened."

I'd like to know what that something was, too. Did he accidentally fall over the stupidly-low railings that are so common in Mexico? Alcohol? (I must ask.) But since Mexico is involved, there can only be one outcome, right?

Somewhat unbelievably, the same Journal story says of the Thunder Bay women erroneously considered suspects in the Ianiero case by the Quintana Roo attorney general: "The two women have launched a website, http://www.mexicoinjustice.ca/, proclaiming their innocence and lobbying the federal government to ban travel to the Cancun and Mayan Riviera regions." (Emphasis added)

I just returned from a jaunt to Culiacan and Mexico City. Surely those places warrant more of an advisory than Cancun and the Mayan Riviera - even though I've never encountered problems on my eight trips to Mexico City over the past year. Also, aren't Canadians free to travel where they wish?

With the Canadian media these days, the only stories from Mexico that matter involve tourist tragedies. It's as if bad things don't happen back home; is there a sudden lack of crime?

Update: Jeff Toews unfortunately has been declared brain dead. He was flown back to Alberta last night. The family alleges a cover up, something many Canadians are no doubt inclined to believe. And why not? In Quintana Roo, the Cancun police chief is now under investigation for links to narcotics traffickers.

But the Mexican Embassy in Ottawa disputes the Toews' claims. It issued a document detailing what supposedly happened on early Monday morning at the Moon Palace in Cancun. Among other things, the victim had been drinking heavily, according to Mexican authorities.

The fact the Mexicans are taking public relations seriously is a welcome change. Having worked as a journalist in Mexico for more than two years now, I find few people down here understand the concept of publicity or communications, but I digress ...

Some Mexico observers are tiring of this endless barrage of stories on Canadian tourists encountering problems in Mexico. The Mexfiles perhaps sums up the frustration best with this headline: http://mexfiles.wordpress.com/2007/05/10/canadian-press-on-mexico-same-shit-different-day/

3 de mayo: a day for bricklayers, journalists and the patron saint of narcos

Everyone in Mexico is feted for at least one day on the calendar and on May 3, albañiles (bricklayers) receive their due. Additionally, the country observes press freedom day - a rather grim event in 2007 - and up in Culiacan, Sinaloa, a bizarre mix of narcos and the clases populares (working classes) celebrated the unremarkable life of Jesus Malverde, the patron saint of narcotics traffickers, who was reputedly hanged on May 3, 1909.

Ianiero case keeps making news

The usolved 2006 murders of Canadian tourists Domenic and Nancy Ianiero in their Playa del Carmen hotel room keep getting ink back in Canada as The Globe and Mail is reporting that a documentary to air on CTV alleges the oft-maligned Mexican prosecutor in the case has attempted to "cast suspicion on innocent Canadians and away from a suspected Mexican killer." The motive: protect Mexico's tourism industry, which is ailing due to drug-gang violence in the northern border region and Acapulco and the lingering effects of last year's conflict in Oaxaca. (The Tourism Secretariat reports visits to Mexico dropped in 2006.)

The theory sounds plausible since Mexico depends so heavily on tourism income and the Mayan Riviera was badly battered by hurricane Wilma in 2005. More recently, President Felipe Calderon pushed expanding the tourism industry as one of his government's top priorities. (He even said Mexico would make issuing 180-day tourist visas standard.)

But Mexico's prosecutorial system is often lacking. Sad, but true. And the Ianieros aren't the only ones seeking justice. Take the case of Brenda Martin, a Canadian woman locked up in Guadalajara's notorious Puente Grande prison. She and an American woman, Rebecca Roth, ended up working in Puerto Vallarta for a Canadian, who, according to the Edmonton Journal, was running an Internet scam. Although the fraud artist has since been convicted and acknowledged that the women had no role in his schemes, the pair have been locked up for more than a year.

What sadly taints things are cases like Peter Kimber, who spent time in an Oaxaca jail and told a horror story to Canadian media outlets seemingly anxious to run anything that smacked of a Canadian suffering misfortune in Mexico. It turns out that a British couple in Huatulco, who were not contacted for their side of the story, allege that Kimber cheated them out of $20,000. (Kimber was not asked to pay a $20,000 bribe, but to reimburse the couple.) The Canadian also apparently passed himself off as a building contractor, but did shoddy work on a building the Huatulco asked him to construct. Kimber is thankfully out of jail - and out of Mexico.

More attention given to crime in Mexico

At some point this rash of stories about Canadians meeting misfortune and death will quiet down - but not just yet. The Globe and Mail ran an excellent investigative piece on the 2006 murders of Domenic and Nancy Ianiero in Playa del Carmen in the Saturday paper. It's quite possible what the victims' son and his high-profile lawyer allege - robbery and later murder - isn't so.

For many expats living down in Mexico, this whole saga - more specifically, the intense media coverage - has been bothersome. No media outlet that I'm aware of has mentioned that for all of the bad news streaming out of Mexico, the Canadian expatriate population in Ajijic, Jalisco keeps on growing. (It probably numbers around 7,000.) And if the expats are looking for a dose of bad news, a friend here commented, "Everyone down here can watch City TV, which they get through their satellite system, and see crime and shootings back in Toronto on a regular basis."

Why some of the other cases down here - the story of Peter Kimber, the B.C. native rotting in an Oaxaca jail, case comes to mind - suddenly receive attention is curious? I exchanged emails with a British couple near Huatulco, whom Kimber's supporters allege screwed over the Canadian. The couple, Kevin and Tess Hunneybell, seemed rather perplexed that two years after Kimber's incarceration began, the Canadian media suddenly showed interest. No one bothered to contact them for their side of the story either.

Or most egregiously, the excessive coverage on the London, Ontario couple struck in a hit-and-run in Ajijic last month. Since when does a snowbird getting hit in a foreign country warrant a front-page story? (the Guadalajara Reporter quoted a public security official who said the male victim had alcohol in his system ... Not sure if the Canadian media has mentioned that.)

Other Canadians have met misfortune in Mexico and returned - I include myself in the group. I once interviewed a prospector from Vancouver who was drugged and robbed while travelling on a bus from Guadalajara to Michoacan. He expressed no bitterness towards Mexico; here's what he told me back in the spring: “I’m not down on Mexico at all ... I think this could have happened anywhere.

“Just be a little more intelligent than me.”

The couple of Canadians caught up in a recent Acapulco shootout expressed similar sentiments and drew ridicule from back in Canada for their positive feelings towards Mexico.

One thing puzzling in all of this: why are some of the Canadians meeting misfortune in Mexico receiving such attention, but not others? The Ianieros' deaths were preceded by the murder of a Canadian in the Lake Chapala area in late 2005. The facts are murky - a lot of people have theories - but only the Vancouver Sun ran an opinion piece on the case. Kristen Deyell, an exchange student from Calgary, was shot dead outside a Guadalajara-area nightclub in April 2004 (I lived 200 meters from the crime scene and was at the same place that night). The main suspect is the son of public enemy No. 1. This case hasn't received near the attention of the Ianieros'.

Perhaps most unfortunate in all this - speaking for myself - is seeing how ignorant Canadians are about Mexico and Latin America. There's more to this country than sleaze and sin in Tijuana and murder in Playa del Carmen, but you'd never know that by reading a Canadian newspaper.

Dog coming back to Mexico

Duane "Dog" Chapman, the Hawaii bounty hunter with a legendary mullet, lost his extradition fight and could be sent to Jalisco state for trial. Chapman, who gained notoriety through his A & E reality show, nabbed fugitive Max Factor heir Andrew Luster in Puerto Vallarta back in 2003, but was subsequently detained by Mexican authorities. The bounty hunter left Mexico upon being released, returning to Hawaii, where he had been free on bond while awaiting the court decision on Mexico's request.

Dog could go to jail for up to four years if convicted. Mexican justice moves extremely slow - there are few oral trials - so a verdict could still be a long way off. (Oral trials have been introduced on a limited basis in some states.) Chapman, 53, has expressed fears he'd never survive a prison term in Mexico and be the target of every want-to-be tough guy wanting to scalp a gringo.

Mexican officials should tread carefully ... Dog's potentially lousy fate could sour U.S. public opinion on the country and reinforce negative perceptions of its under-performing justice system.

Another tale of a Canadian experiencing Mexican injustice - or not

An interesting press release (for lack of a better description) from an expatriate couple in the Huatulco area contradicts the woeful story of Peter Kimber, a British Columbia native locked up in an Oaxaca jail who has recently been the subject of nationwide media coverage in Canada.

The Canadian, who was in Mexico with his common-law wife and children, said Mexican authorities tossed him in jail after hotel owners Kevin and Tess Hunneybell supposedly sent the cops after him because of $20,000 that was owed. The money was paid, according to the Hunneybells, for Kimber to construct a building. Kimber's completed work was apparently shoddy.

The couple took exception with this line from The Globe and Mail story on Kimber's plight and the work the Canadian was hired to for:

At a site where he was helping to build a hotel, a dispute developed with the owners who told police that he owed them money.

The Hunneybell's countered:

(Kimber) was NOT ‘helping’ to build the hotel, he WAS the contractor and was paid to do this work. He was later found to be both negligent (unsafe foundations) and illegal (had no permit to work, nor build, nor to remain in the country.)

Kimber's story of spending more than two years in a Mexican jail ran in The Province (Vancouver) on Jan. 31 and later in both national newspapers. Coincidentally, a spate of newspapers stories on Canadians' misfortune have come out around the same time.

This is, unfortunately, part of a feeding frenzy. Canadian newspaper editors generally show a crushing disinterest in Mexican affairs - except when a Canadian tourist meets an untimely end or misfortune. For an alternative opinion on Mexico, a media outlet could run a dispatch from Ajijic, Jalisco, where the Canadian population keeps on swelling each year. It's one of the largest enclaves of Canadians outside of Canada. The Kimber story, though, fits what they're looking for. And, in fairness, Peter Kimber could be the victim of an injustice and his accounts of prison life are certainly hellish.

The Hunneybells perhaps should have scrutinized Kimber's immigration documents - which the couple said were fakes - a little more thoroughly, although in expatriate circles, there tends to be a lot of good will and a willingness to give people the benefit of the doubt. And no shortage of charlatans and people with shady backgrounds pass through.

The other side of this story definitely needs to be reported more thoroughly.

The Mexfiles blog summed up this situation quite nicely and the author quite accurately commented towards the end of his post, "Canadians, for all their good qualities, sometimes can be awfully provincial."

Update: The Globe and Mail reported on Saturday that police in Acapulco impounded a green Nissan Tsuru taxi (aren't all taxis Tsurus in this country?) and are searching for the driver who usually rents the vehicle, which might have struck and killed Ontario native Adam de Prisco on Jan. 7. The family said it hasn't received updates on the case and maintains that de Prisoco was beaten prior to being involved in the hit-and-run collision that two coroners concluded was responsible for his untimely death.

Some people say the stupidest things about Mexico

A young Canadian traveler sadly died outside of an Acapulco nightclub last week and news of his death is generating no shortage of headlines and emotionally charged comments on message boards. The facts are still sketchy, but similar to the case of the two Canadians killed in their Playa del Carmen hotel room last winter, the grieving family is alleging police and judicial ineptness. Many Canadians are also urging the federal government to issue a travel advisory for the entire country - instead of just certain zones like Oaxaca.

That would be overkill. Guadalajara is as tranquil as ever, as is Chapala and Ajijic - where record numbers of Canadians keep arriving each winter - and San Miguel de Allende. I spent the days leading up to New Year's in Mexico City with a Canadian friend and found it an ideal time to visit.

Canadians - even the ones that take winter junkets down to Puerto Vallarta and Cancun - really know very little about Mexico and thus a number of stupid and downright prejudiced comments have been appearing on message boards. These comments on the Globe and Mail's site by someone called Lyn Alg tops them all for sheer ignorance:

"One would be safer and wiser to take a vacation in the centre of Baghdad or in Afghanistan than in Mexico."

Please. It's small town cheap comments like this that make me not miss Canada, which for all of its supposed tolerance and worldliness, is distressing parochial and small minded - not to mention ignorant of Latin America.

To its credit, CTV posted a large collection of comments, which often struck a more reasonable note and included the feelings of Canadians presently residing in Mexico. One interesting theme was how many people had negative expriences in Acapulco. Those going to Puerto Vallarta grouse frequently about pushy time-share vendors, but those in the CTV forum raved about their experiences. Acapulco is badly over-built and ringed by slums. It's also in Guerrero, perhaps Mexico's most corrupt and backwards state. Acapulco is now a playground for rich chilangos (Mexico City residents) and not a prime destination for foreigners.

Update: Mexican authorities attributed Adam DePrisco's death to a hit-and-run accident. The DePrisco family disagreed. Now an autopsy in Ontario confirms DePrisco was struck by a vehicle, but Adam's family said the results "don't add up."

The DePrisco family is also now charging Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay and the Canadian government with not doing more to help. Justice is unfortunately bad for Mexicans - not just foreign tourists. The government, in reality, can do little - and Canadians don't have a reputation of pushing for answers like their American counterparts.

Arthur March R.I.P.

A sad chapter in one of Lake Chapala's longest-running soap operas closed on Thursday, when former resident Arthur March died in a Texas prison. He was 78. March, father of convicted killer Perry March, passed away after serving four months of a five-year prison sentence for his role in a botched murder-for-hired scheme designed to eliminate Perry's former in laws. The hit, which turned out to be a sting, snared Arthur after he went to the Guadalajara airport to pickup the hitman, who turned out to be a jailhouse informant. (Perry just filed suit against the informant.)

According to reporting by Chapala-area journalist Dale Hoyt Palfrey, Arthur March was supposed to provide a safe haven in Ajijic for the hitman. Mexican immigration authorities later seized March outside of an Ajijic doughnut shop last winter and quickly put him on a plane out of the country. (The amaparo March had obtained against police action had just expired and March's attorney apparently failed to notify his client.) March had vowed never to leave Mexico without a struggle and according to Hoyt Palfrey, March pulled a belt-buckle knife - the popular kind from the Ojeda factory in Sayula, Jalisco - while being apprehended.

Perry March, who was previously a prominent Nashville attorney, was convicted earlier this year of murdering his wife Janet, who disappeared in 1996. Her body was never found. In a plea bargain, which a Tennessee judge later threw out, March said he disposed of Janet's body at Kentucky golf course. After the deal was nixed, March was sentenced to five years in prison. Perry is serving a 56-year sentence, but is appealing. The younger March was also convicted of stealing money from his in laws' legal firm.

Although convicted of participating in a murder-for-hire scheme, Arthur March still has his supporters, one person said of him on the Chapala.com message boards, "In spite of everything, I knew him well, he was a great person always positive and helpful, he had pride.... he will be missed." Others strongly disagreed.

Even with Arthur gone, Perry will keep this saga going for years - witness his custody petitions from prison. And, just musing, where's his new Mexican wife holed up these days? And where's the money Perry allegedly swindled? Anyway, this will be gossiped about at Lakeside for a long time to come.

Pirate cabs on the prowl in Mexico City

Upon entering a cab early yesterday morning on Calle Homero in Mexico City's swank Polanco district, the driver asked, "Young man, why do you trust me so much?" I pointed to the "L" on his Federal District license plate - which signifies libre, or a taxi not attached to a station. He responded by pointing a laminated credential from the local government with a photo hanging from the rear-view mirror, before adding that many of the taxi licenses are fake. (Some pirates simply use a normal plate instead of one with the letters "L" or "S" and the necessary red trim.)

An estimated 20,000 pirate cabs prowl Mexico City's congested streets. When asked why some many are out there, the cab driver responded, "The government allows it."

Another cab driver in a more expensive sitio taxi (one with a radio and home base) said the pirate taxistas support the PRD party and thus have obtained protection against possible enforcement.

Obviously the licensed taxi drivers object to the pirates due to the extra competition. Tourists might be hesitant as Mexico has been notorious for express kidnappings in which the passenger is escorted to several bank machines and ordered to empty his or her accounts.

But what does this say about the PRD administration in capital? This smacks of the old PRI-style corporatist system that tied unions, businesses, etc. to the once-mighty party in exchange for patronage. It also suggests a lack of respect for the law - something critics of presidential candidate and former Mexico City mayor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador have long alleged the perredista is guilty of.