Latest news with #bulletproof
CNN
28-05-2025
- Business
- CNN
‘We are living in a war': Mexicans brace for violence ahead of judicial elections
Gadi Mokotov makes cars bulletproof. Living in Mexico City, he sees all sorts of demands for armored vehicles – from military trucks and secretive government vehicles to the Cadillacs of the capital's high rollers and even 10-year-old Hondas. As criminal violence ticks up across the country, the lines for his services have grown longer – and more of his customized cars are coming back for repairs with bullet pocks and shattered windows. 'We are living in a war,' he told CNN. 'A war with the cartels.' Despite the efforts of successive governments to combat Mexico's deeply entrenched cartels, tens of thousands of people are killed each year in crime-related deaths, according to government figures. Recently, Mokotov says one of his private clients in Guadalajara brought their Ford pick-up truck back to his shop with over 100 bullet marks, breaking down into tears, thankful to have survived an ambush. In years past, Mexico City was seen as a relatively peaceful oasis in the country. But even here, violence is spiking, with murders up over 150% compared to the same period last year, according to reporting by El Pais. Some attacks appear to be designed to send a message to Mexico's political class. Last week, two aides to the mayor of Mexico City were gunned down on their way to work, in what authorities concluded was a 'direct and highly planned attack.' A few days earlier, a mayoral candidate in the state of Veracruz had been shot and killed alongside three other people during a festive campaign march. As controversial national judicial elections approach on Sunday, some Mexicans across the country are preparing for the worst. According to Mexican think tank Laboratorio Electoral, last year's legislative elections were the most violent on record, with over 40 candidates assassinated and hundreds more violent incidents, including attacks and kidnappings, largely attributed to cartels aiming to sway the vote and intimidate candidates. While the run-up to this year's judicial vote has not been quite as bloody, a climate of fear persists. Across the country, at least four candidates have already abandoned their campaigns after receiving threats, per the international conflict research organization Crisis Group, and several judges have refused to campaign at all in areas controlled by cartels. Since 2012, at least 17 judges and six clerks have been killed in connection to their work, the group notes. One of the last acts of former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador in 2024 was to pass a constitutional reform mandating that all judges in the country be elected by direct vote – a radical shift from the system of internal appointments that had populated most of Mexico's judiciary until then. The vote – seen by supporters as an effort to guarantee judges' autonomy and impartiality – has been embraced by Lopez Obrador's successor and protege, President Claudia Sheinbaum. On Sunday, June 1, thousands of candidates will be competing for the 881 seats up for grabs. César Gutiérrez Priego, a criminal lawyer in Mexico City running for a seat on the country's Supreme Court, told CNN he's been campaigning this spring with a bulletproof vest under his suit. 'It doesn't smell very good. But it's something that I needed to do because I have to protect myself. I have two kids and I don't want to just be another number,' he says of the vest, which he's been wearing for two months on the campaign trail. Priego is no stranger to the potential for violence and corruption in Mexican politics – he decided to study law when he was in his 20s, after seeing his high-ranking military father, Mexico's then-drug czar, imprisoned on what he says were false charges. Across the country, trust in the justice system has been broken over and over. Judges are widely perceived as among the most corrupt officials in the country, and many high-profile cases have never been concluded. In 2022, just 16 percent of criminal investigations overall were resolved, according to Human Rights Watch. Critics argue that addressing these issues requires far more profound change – including repressing organized crime and addressing corruption at the prosecutorial level and in government – than this week's judicial vote can address. Both the Biden and Trump administrations in the US have warned against the judicial vote, voicing concern that making judges run for election could further expose them to political interests and to potential corruption or intimidation by organized crime groups. Still, Priego says he's willing to try the new system – and to face the personal risk to his own life – for a shot at a seat on the highest bench in the country. 'In Mexico, we have a big trouble here in our country. And what is that trouble? It's that criminals take control of some places, some institutions, and one of those institutions is the justice system. And I believe if we change that, we can make the change that really helps people, because if you make the criminals go to jail, you can end impunity,' Priego tells CNN. Ending impunity, everyone agrees, is long overdue in the country – though not everyone agrees on how to get there. In his Mexico City garage, Mokotov sees daily evidence of the crisis, including a fast-growing number of first-time clients asking for his services: women looking to add bulletproof armor to humble commuter cars. It's a request that leaves even him a bit disturbed, he says. 'It's not nice to see moms coming here saying 'I need to protect my kids to go to school.' They're afraid for the lives of their kids.'
CNN
28-05-2025
- Business
- CNN
‘We are living in a war': Mexicans brace for violence ahead of judicial elections
Gadi Mokotov makes cars bulletproof. Living in Mexico City, he sees all sorts of demands for armored vehicles – from military trucks and secretive government vehicles to the Cadillacs of the capital's high rollers and even 10-year-old Hondas. As criminal violence ticks up across the country, the lines for his services have grown longer – and more of his customized cars are coming back for repairs with bullet pocks and shattered windows. 'We are living in a war,' he told CNN. 'A war with the cartels.' Despite the efforts of successive governments to combat Mexico's deeply entrenched cartels, tens of thousands of people are killed each year in crime-related deaths, according to government figures. Recently, Mokotov says one of his private clients in Guadalajara brought their Ford pick-up truck back to his shop with over 100 bullet marks, breaking down into tears, thankful to have survived an ambush. In years past, Mexico City was seen as a relatively peaceful oasis in the country. But even here, violence is spiking, with murders up over 150% compared to the same period last year, according to reporting by El Pais. Some attacks appear to be designed to send a message to Mexico's political class. Last week, two aides to the mayor of Mexico City were gunned down on their way to work, in what authorities concluded was a 'direct and highly planned attack.' A few days earlier, a mayoral candidate in the state of Veracruz had been shot and killed alongside three other people during a festive campaign march. As controversial national judicial elections approach on Sunday, some Mexicans across the country are preparing for the worst. According to Mexican think tank Laboratorio Electoral, last year's legislative elections were the most violent on record, with over 40 candidates assassinated and hundreds more violent incidents, including attacks and kidnappings, largely attributed to cartels aiming to sway the vote and intimidate candidates. While the run-up to this year's judicial vote has not been quite as bloody, a climate of fear persists. Across the country, at least four candidates have already abandoned their campaigns after receiving threats, per the international conflict research organization Crisis Group, and several judges have refused to campaign at all in areas controlled by cartels. Since 2012, at least 17 judges and six clerks have been killed in connection to their work, the group notes. One of the last acts of former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador in 2024 was to pass a constitutional reform mandating that all judges in the country be elected by direct vote – a radical shift from the system of internal appointments that had populated most of Mexico's judiciary until then. The vote – seen by supporters as an effort to guarantee judges' autonomy and impartiality – has been embraced by Lopez Obrador's successor and protege, President Claudia Sheinbaum. On Sunday, June 1, thousands of candidates will be competing for the 881 seats up for grabs. César Gutiérrez Priego, a criminal lawyer in Mexico City running for a seat on the country's Supreme Court, told CNN he's been campaigning this spring with a bulletproof vest under his suit. 'It doesn't smell very good. But it's something that I needed to do because I have to protect myself. I have two kids and I don't want to just be another number,' he says of the vest, which he's been wearing for two months on the campaign trail. Priego is no stranger to the potential for violence and corruption in Mexican politics – he decided to study law when he was in his 20s, after seeing his high-ranking military father, Mexico's then-drug czar, imprisoned on what he says were false charges. Across the country, trust in the justice system has been broken over and over. Judges are widely perceived as among the most corrupt officials in the country, and many high-profile cases have never been concluded. In 2022, just 16 percent of criminal investigations overall were resolved, according to Human Rights Watch. Critics argue that addressing these issues requires far more profound change – including repressing organized crime and addressing corruption at the prosecutorial level and in government – than this week's judicial vote can address. Both the Biden and Trump administrations in the US have warned against the judicial vote, voicing concern that making judges run for election could further expose them to political interests and to potential corruption or intimidation by organized crime groups. Still, Priego says he's willing to try the new system – and to face the personal risk to his own life – for a shot at a seat on the highest bench in the country. 'In Mexico, we have a big trouble here in our country. And what is that trouble? It's that criminals take control of some places, some institutions, and one of those institutions is the justice system. And I believe if we change that, we can make the change that really helps people, because if you make the criminals go to jail, you can end impunity,' Priego tells CNN. Ending impunity, everyone agrees, is long overdue in the country – though not everyone agrees on how to get there. In his Mexico City garage, Mokotov sees daily evidence of the crisis, including a fast-growing number of first-time clients asking for his services: women looking to add bulletproof armor to humble commuter cars. It's a request that leaves even him a bit disturbed, he says. 'It's not nice to see moms coming here saying 'I need to protect my kids to go to school.' They're afraid for the lives of their kids.'
The Drive
14-05-2025
- Automotive
- The Drive
Bill Gates Once Bought the Slowest Bulletproof Car in the World
The latest car news, reviews, and features. Once the richest person in the world, Bill Gates played an instrumental role in helping pass the 'Show and Display' rule that lets collectors register an imported car not built to American standards, as long as it's driven sparingly. The law allowed him to legally drive around in a Porsche 959, but he wanted a more low-key car to use daily, and he wanted it to be armored. As a result, he ended up with one of the slowest bulletproof cars ever. Terry Haigh, a former high-end car sales manager in Bellevue, Washington, said in VINwiki's recent video that he remembers a representative for Gates walking into Mercedes-Benz of Bellevue and asking to order a bulletproof station wagon. Gates, who was already a high-profile executive, was seemingly concerned about safety and wanted his kids to ride around in an armored car. The video doesn't identify the model Gates wanted to buy, but it shows a picture of an S124, which later morphed into the original E-Class. There was no such thing as an armored, regular-production wagon in the Mercedes portfolio at the time, so Haigh reached out to Germany and asked whether they could build one for a wealthy, high-profile client. Surprisingly, Mercedes allegedly shot down the request. Haigh summed up the company's reply in a few sentences: 'We're not gonna do that. The liability is too much. If something should happen, if something happened to those kids, and we told Bill that we made a car that was bullet-resistant or something like that, or that couldn't be damaged… we just don't want to get there. We don't want anything to do with that car.' The search for an armored wagon didn't end there. The representative for Gates reportedly asked a Volvo dealership whether a 240 could be bulletproofed, and somewhat surprisingly, the answer was 'yes.' We don't know if Volvo armored the wagon in-house or if it outsourced the work to a third-party company, what was done during the conversion, and where the wagon is located today, but the added safety came at the expense of performance. Making a car bulletproof adds a lot of weight, and the 240 wasn't very fast to begin with. Volvo stopped selling the 240 after the 1993 model year, so we'll use that as an example. Offered as a sedan and a wagon, the model came with a 2.3-liter four-cylinder engine rated at 114 horsepower and 136 lb-ft of torque. The wagon weighed about 3,050 pounds, and hitting 60 mph took over 10 seconds. Adding even, say, 1,000 pounds of armor (including thicker glass) would give it Super Beetle-like acceleration. The S124 would have fared a little better: In 1993, the 3,450-pound 300TE came with a 177-hp 3.0-liter straight-six engine. It sounds like the wagon's performance was the last of the Gates family's problems. Haigh, who worked for the same company that owned the Volvo dealer across the street, remembered an amusing anecdote: The armored Volvo was in the shop every month because the driver's window motor failed under the weight of the thicker glass. Fitting a more powerful motor wasn't considered, for some reason. The shop simply removed the door panel, replaced the motor, and then sent the car on its way. These and a few more interesting stories can be heard in the full episode. Got tips or information about the armored Volvo's current location? Send 'em to tips@
