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 Editorials | Issues | May 2008 
'Mexican Kidnappers are Operating in the United States'
 Julieta Martínez - El Universal
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Tijuana, Mexico – Organized crime gangs have exported the kidnapping industry to the San Diego, California area, where they have kidnapped at least 15 people who were then taken to safe houses in Tijuana.
The kidnapping gangs are crossing the Mexican border, and they have begun to make incursions in the neighboring country where at the least 1,000 Mexican families are refugees, having fled the crime in Mexico.
The legal adviser of the Asociación Esperanza Contra Desapariciones Forzadas y la Impunidad (Hope against Forced Disappearances and Impunity Association), Miguel Angel Garcia Leyva, maintained that at least nine of these kidnappings were committed in recent months.
He advised that U.S. authorities are already aware this, so there is increasing concern insofar as the problem has been going on since 2006 but in recent months with greater frequency.
Relatives of people affected said that they were deprived of liberty in the United States, and they were brought to safe houses in Tijuana. And, what is more serious, they contend that a "large number" of [other] victims have been seen in these places.
The victims
Garcia warned that there could be many more cases, this based on testimony of other victims, but due to the terrorizing fear of placing the lives of hostages at risk family members prefer to remain silent. He added that most [of those kidnapped] are people who fled from Tijuana to the United States or Hispanics who reside there.
This is a new phenomenon of organized crime that is establishing a pattern, since to talk of 15 cases indicates that they are not isolated events, said anthropologist Victor Clark Alfaro, who for decades has monitored the issue of crime in Tijuana.
Clark described kidnapping as one of the most successful activities of organized crime, as [the criminals] go unpunished most of the time. And while there are occasional arrests of some gangs, there are always many others operating, and they are generally protected and even include police officers.
The situation has forced businesspersons to flee to the United States, from where they run their businesses via the Internet and with the placement of video cameras that they can monitor from their safe haven in U.S. territory.
Porosity border
Clark explained that the "porosity" of the border facilitates criminal activities that occur in a binational context.
The mobility of organized crime is the ease of coming and going from one country; not all stay here, and proof of this is in the activities of the Arellano Felix [brothers], who for a long time lived on the U.S. side. Benjamin and Javier had their social lives in Tijuana, and they crossed [the border] to the United States whenever they wanted. This is a publicly [known] fact, Clark said.
The border offers that advantage, which organized gangs take advantage of, [and] that's why the concept of transnational organized crime is used, he said.
Clark believes that the abductions in San Diego are due to the proliferation of gangs. He did not rule out the victims of kidnappings in the United States being people who have fled Tijuana’s insecurity, because "it is likely that their steps have been followed." Once they cross the border those who fled from Mexico to the United States feel safer, and that is what makes them more vulnerable, said Clark who is also the director of the Binational Human Rights Center [in Tijuana].
Clark noted the presence of at least 1,000 Tijuana families [now living] in southern San Diego area cities, while acknowledging that most of them are people with economic means that had sufficient resources to settle, [and] even to export their businesses.
Edited translation from El Universal, May 26, 2008, Mexico City - MexiData.info translation |
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