| | |  News Around the Republic of Mexico | October 2009 
Canadian's Harrowing Mexico Tale a Croc
 Anna Mehler Paperny - Globe and Mail
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October 02, 2009
B.C. 20-year-old says he was shot and thrown to the crocodiles in Cancun; RCMP probe upon his return suggests otherwise.
It sounds like a harrowing tale of a Mexican vacation gone horribly wrong: A young man kidnapped, forced to strip and fight other men, only to be shot and dumped in crocodile-infested waters when he lost.
It's also untrue, Richmond RCMP say.
A 20-year-old British Columbia man was vacationing with friends in Cancun when he phoned his family with that frightening story. Frantic, his parents contacted Canadian authorities who met the man at Vancouver International Airport, only to find his version of events didn't quite check out.
“He got back into the country and was not being overly co-operative … just not all that interested in providing information,” said Richmond RCMP Corporal Jennifer Pound.
After speaking with Mexican authorities, police say the story sounds rather less menacing: Having consumed copious amounts of alcohol, the man tried to relieve himself in a lagoon, ignoring signs in both English and Spanish warning of crocodiles inhabiting the water.
He was apparently bitten by a crocodile, tripped and fell, scraping himself on rocks surrounding the lagoon and was further gnawed by the sharp-toothed reptiles inside.
Despite being no more than 30 centimetres long and too small to pull their prey into the water, the pint-sized creatures could do “a significant amount of damage to human flesh,” Cpl. Pound said.
“They'd give you a fair bite.”
The man received medical treatment for serious lacerations both in Mexico and in Canada, but there's no indication of a gunshot wound, Cpl. Pound said.
“There was nothing to support his initial complaint of kidnapping, being shot, thrown in with the crocodiles.”
The man was so drunk it's still not clear how much of his own story he believes, she said.
“There are certain areas that he believes but has absolutely no detail to back it up, so you know it's hard to lend any credibility to that story. … I'm not sure how much he had to drink but probably enough to harm his memory and his judgment calls.”
The RCMP issued a press release Thursday to set the record straight, after local media reported the man's kidnapping story. They aren't charging the man with mischief, however, or releasing his name.
“People don't need to be in fear for this reason,” Cpl. Pound said. “On an international level it does a disservice to Mexico – they thrive on tourism so we needed to get to the bottom of this one. … We were trying to do this as more damage control.”
It's been a bad week for Canadian tourism press in Mexico: On Sunday two B.C. men were shot dead poolside in Puerto Vallarta. Authorities have suggested the killings were targeted, and may have been drug-related.
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