Latest news with #organizedcrime
Al Bawaba
4 hours ago
- Health
- Al Bawaba
Deadly fire at Mexican drug rehab center claims 12 lives
Published June 1st, 2025 - 09:10 GMT ALBAWABA - A tragic fire erupted at a drug rehabilitation center in central Mexico on Sunday, killing 12 individuals and injuring three others, according to the Guanajuato State Prosecutor's Office. Also Read Video: 2 killed as Mexican Navy training ship hits Brooklyn Bridge Authorities are still investigating the cause of the blaze, which broke out in a facility located in one of Mexico's most violence-stricken regions. Organized crime groups, particularly drug cartels, have previously been linked to attacks on such centers, often targeting them to forcibly recruit recovering addicts. In an official statement, the prosecutor's office confirmed that forensic teams are collecting evidence and conducting witness interviews to determine the exact cause of the incident. This is not the first violent episode involving rehab centers in Mexico. In April, armed assailants attacked a rehabilitation clinic in Sinaloa state, killing at least nine people. Officials suspect that drug cartels have increasingly resorted to eliminating or coercing patients who refuse to join their ranks. 🇲🇽 Mexicali | Fuga de internos tras operativo fallido en centro de rehabilitación🚨 Fiscalía General del Estado y COEPRIS no logran controlar la situación, decenas de internos huyen durante operativo.¡Preocupación por la seguridad en la zona! 📰 #SeguridadMexicali — El Blog del Narco (@narcoblogger) January 26, 2025 Mexico has faced a wave of cartel-related violence since 2006. Government data indicates that nearly 480,000 people have been killed in criminal incidents since then, and around 120,000 remain missing, underscoring the deep crisis plaguing the country's security landscape. © 2000 - 2025 Al Bawaba (
Forbes
20 hours ago
- General
- Forbes
FBI And Police Warning—If You Get This Call, Hang Up Immediately
These calls are always dangerous Whether it comes by way of a text message or a call, Americans are under threat from a plague of attacks targeting their cell phones. Fueled by Chinese organized crime gangs and overseas scammers, warnings now come almost daily. It has prompted Google to update Android phones, warning that these cybercriminals 'act without fear of punishment when people are uninformed about fraud and scam tactics.' Nowhere is that lack of awareness more evident than with scammers pretending to be federal, state or local law enforcement officers, demanding payment for fines or to avoid arrest, or asking for personal information. Multiple warnings have appeared again in recent days, with reports (1,2,3) of such attacks targeting various U.S. states. The New York State Police warns there is 'an ongoing phone spoofing scam in which scammers impersonate members of law enforcement or government agencies in an attempt to solicit sensitive personal information from individuals across New York State and beyond.' These calls 'demand personal information such as Social Security numbers and have threatened punitive action against recipients who refuse to comply.' Attacks spoof real phone numbers 'to make it appear as if calls are coming from trusted agencies. These scams are designed to create confusion and fear, often leading victims to comply with demands or share information that can be used to commit further fraud.' If you receive any call purporting to be from law enforcement and making any kind of request, hang up right away and call back using a publicly available number. That same warning has been issued to citizens in Virginia: 'If you receive such a call, hang up immediately. Do not provide any personal or financial information. If you're ever unsure about the legitimacy of a call, you can always hang up and call us directly.' The FBI warns 'of fraud schemes in which scammers impersonate law enforcement or government officials in attempts to extort money or steal personally identifiable information.' Again, the bureau says 'scammers often spoof caller ID information, so fraudulent calls appear to be coming from an agency's legitimate phone number.' Their advice is just as clear cut. 'Be advised, law enforcement does not call or email individuals threatening arrest or demanding money.' If you ever receive such a call, 'cease all contact with the scammers immediately' and then 'contact your local law enforcement and file a police report.'
Yahoo
a day ago
- General
- Yahoo
Americans visiting Brazil: Beware kidnapping, ransom threats, State Department says
The U.S. State Department has issued a Level 2 travel advisory for Americans planning to visit Brazil, citing ongoing crime and possible kidnappings. 'Violent crime, including murder, armed robbery, and carjacking, can occur in urban areas, day and night. There was a kidnapping for ransom of U.S. travelers,' the agency said in its advisory posted Thursday. As if that wasn't enough to manage, 'gang activity and organized crime are widespread and often tied to the recreational drug trade,' the State Department said. Also, keep an eye on your cocktails. That's because 'assaults, including with sedatives and drugs placed in drinks, are common, especially in Rio de Janeiro. Criminals target foreigners through dating apps or at bars before drugging and robbing their victims.' But if you must go, the State Department advises, among other things, that you: Stay aware of your surroundings. Do not physically resist any robbery attempt. Do not accept food or drinks from strangers and always watch your drinks. Use caution when walking or driving at night. Avoid going to bars or nightclubs alone. Avoid walking on beaches after dark. Do not display signs of wealth, such as expensive watches or jewelry. Be alert to date drug scams. Stay alert when visiting banks or ATMs. Be careful at major transportation centers or on public transport, especially at night. Passengers are at higher risk of robbery or assault when using public buses in Brazil. Use increased caution when hiking in isolated areas. Develop a communication plan with family, employer, or host organization so they can monitor your safety and location as you travel through high-risk areas. Specify how you'll confirm you're safe (text, calls, etc.), how often, and who you'll contact first to share the information. And if you're a U.S. government employee, stay off the municipal buses 'because of a serious risk of robbery and assault, especially at night.' the State Department said. Longtime Market Basket execs say they expect to be sacked amid company's turmoil Driver 'seriously' hurt after high-speed chase ends in fiery NH crash, police say Mass. State Lottery winners: 3 tickets worth $100K won, claimed on Friday 'He was a creative force': Lead singer of '60s psychedelic rock legends dead at 82 Greenfield man sentenced for alcohol theft, knife threat to store owner, DA says Read the original article on MassLive.
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Mexico judicial elections: Government calls it essential reform. Critics say it's a farce
Hyper-democracy or ruling-party power play? That is the question as Mexicans go to the polls Sunday to elect the country's judges in a radical reshaping of the nation's power structure. At a time when many observers fear that President Trump is targeting judicial independence in the U.S., lawmakers here have opted to revamp the judiciary in a landmark — and extremely divisive — reform. Mexico, which has never before voted for judges, will become the first country to have an all-elected judiciary. The unprecedented vote has generated both widespread controversy and profound confusion as thousands of candidates vie for close to 900 federal judicial slots, including all nine on the Supreme Court. Polls have shown that many Mexicans are both skeptical and apathetic— and have no idea whom to favor among the vast array of mostly unknown contenders, some with links to organized crime. At least one candidate served time in a U.S. prison for methamphetamine smuggling, and several others have represented drug traffickers, including one would-be judge who was on the legal team of cartel kingpin Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán. Read more: So what really happened at the cartel training site dubbed 'Mexican Auschwitz'? "I've participated in elections all my life, but this will be the first time that I won't vote," said Marcelo Díaz, 68, a retiree in the capital. "I don't have any idea who the candidates are, or what they stand for." Supporters of the election, led by President Claudia Sheinbaum, hail the transition as a blow against impunity. Critics denounce the move as Mexico's latest step toward authoritarian rule in a country where Sheinbaum's Morena bloc dominates at the federal and state levels. More than half of the country's more than 1,500 federal judge and magistrate posts will be up for grabs on Sunday, and the rest in 2027. Voters in 19 states will be choosing almost 2,000 regional judges. Sheinbaum and her allies call the shake-up a necessary makeover of an ossified system riven with corruption and nepotism. Under the current system, the president says, judges routinely spring organized crime figures, tax cheats and other well-to-do criminals, while impunity for murder and other crimes is the norm. Detention of poor suspects may drag on for years without trials. "Now they accuse us of being authoritarian," Sheinbaum said recently, rejecting criticism of the elections. "How can this be authoritarian if the people decide?" While conceding shortcomings in the current judiciary, opponents label the elections a move toward a one-party state. Even though the balloting is officially nonpartisan, many anticipate that candidates close to the ruling party will dominate. Critics predict the weakening of checks and balances. "That the judicial system doesn't work as it should work, and hasn't worked, is a given," wrote columnist Denise Maerker in Mexico's Milenio news outlet. "Corruption reigns and the rich and most powerful triumph. But this is not a remedy — it's a demolition." Previously, expert panels appointed judges after a screening process that involved judicial administrators, exams and evaluations. The president appointed Supreme Court justices, with Senate consent. In the new system, qualifications are rudimentary. Among other requirements, aspiring jurists must possess law degrees, have at least five years of legal work experience, and certify their "good reputation" and lack of criminal convictions. Even ruling-party stalwarts have conceded serious deficiencies in the new system. Last month, Sen. Gerardo Fernández Noroña called for the scrapping of at least 20 candidates identified as having possible links to organized crime. The electoral commission said it was too late to remove them from the ballot. Among the candidates in Chihuahua state is Silvia Rocío Delgado, a one-time lawyer for the notorious "El Chapo" Guzmán, now serving a life sentence in the United States for narcotics trafficking, murder and other crimes. "There shouldn't be a stigma" for having represented El Chapo, Delgado told Univisión Noticias. "If people vote for me, I will seek impartiality of justice for both sides." Read more: 17 members of a cartel kingpin's family were escorted into California from Mexico. Why? Seeking office in the northwestern state of Durango is Leopoldo Javier Chávez Vargas. He has acknowledged having served almost six years in U.S. custody for methamphetamine trafficking. "I have never presented myself as the perfect candidate," Chávez said in a Facebook video. But, he added, "I will be a judge who will listen attentively to your stories." The tentacles of organized crime reach deep into Mexico's political and judicial order. Judges are often targets. Since 2012, at least 17 Mexican judges and six clerks have been killed in connection with their work, according to the International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based research organization. "There is little doubt that a fully independent, competent justice system is essential if Mexico's wave of violence is to end," the group concluded in a report on Mexico's judicial elections. Sheinbaum has defended the revamped process, saying that only "a very small percentage" of candidates appear unqualified. Many candidates have previously served as judges or clerks. The 64 contenders for nine seats on the Supreme Court include three sitting justices, Lenia Batres Guadarrama, Yasmin Esquivel and Loretta Ortiz. Among the candidates for lower judicial posts is Delia Quiroa, 42, who has spent years providing legal advice to families seeking to trace the fates of "disappeared" relatives. Quiroa founded a search group for the missing after her brother was kidnapped in 2014. He was never seen again. "A lot of people say we can't do anything because of threats from organized crime, or we don't have qualified people," said Quiroa, who is running in northwest Sinaloa state, an epicenter of cartel violence. "I've seen the problems in the courts. It's time to demand a change." While generating political polemics, Sunday's vote has not triggered the raucous street rallies that generally accompany Mexican balloting. Much of the campaigning has unfolded on social media, where would-be judges with limited public profiles hype their bona fides. Ballots do not denote political affiliations; political parties are banned from bankrolling candidates. Instead, candidates must rely on self-funding, which tends to favor the wealthy. One recent poll showed that almost half of Mexicans weren't even aware that that vote was happening. And those who do come out to vote will have to grapple with a convoluted, color-coded assemblage of ballots listing hundreds of names, all with corresponding numbers. Atop each ballot are circles into which voters must fill in the numbers associated with their preferred candidates. A running joke here is that learning the mechanics of voting may be more challenging than deciding whom to vote for. "The truth is I don't understand one bit how we are to vote," said Rosa María Castro, 54, a housewife in Mexico City. "It all looks very complicated." Read more: Trump wants to attack drug cartels. How can Mexico respond if he does? The elections are the brainchild of ex-President Andrès Manuel López Obrador — who, like Trump, often clashed with the judiciary, complaining that unelected judges were thwarting his aspirations for a "transformation" of Mexican society. In 2024, near the end of his six-year-term, López Obrador proposed amending the constitution to mandate judicial elections. Outraged judicial employees staged disruptive street protests, but to no avail. The Morena-dominated Congress fast-tracked the constitutional changes. Sunday's vote will be the culmination of the ex-president's vision for a people's court. It's a leap into the unknown for a country where so many long ago lost faith in the concept of justice. "The success of President Sheinbaum's plans to dismantle criminal organizations and prosecute violent crime more effectively will rest on an able, impartial judiciary," the International Crisis group wrote. "For now, however, opinions remain divided as to whether the country's grand experiment in direct election of judges will remedy longstanding failings — or just recast and possibly exacerbate them." McDonnell and Linthicum are staff writers, Sánchez Vidal a special correspondent. Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
The Guardian
3 days ago
- General
- The Guardian
Mexico steps into unknown with world's first popular election of all judges: ‘A blind date with democracy'
On a heat-dazed afternoon in Culiacán, the capital of Mexico's Sinaloa state, a tannoy by the cathedral was droning through an advert for the judicial elections on loop when a plume of smoke appeared in the sky. A flicker of agitation ran through the plaza. After months of cartel conflict, Sinaloa is on edge. Yet on 1 June, it and the rest of Mexico will start to elect every judge in the country, from local magistrates to supreme court justices, by popular vote. It is a world-first democratic experiment, but one that has prompted warnings of low turnout, a political power grab and infiltration by organised crime. The reform is the most radical move made by the governing Morena party and its allies since they won a congressional supermajority last year allowing them to change the constitution at will. Few disagree that Mexico's judicial system needs change. Justice is inaccessible to many, corruption is commonplace and impunity is rampant. Morena claims its reform will address these issues by making the judiciary more responsive to popular opinion. But critics say it will bulldoze the separation of powers, and that by throwing the doors open to less qualified candidates whose campaigns may be backed by opaque interests – including organised crime groups – it could aggravate the very problems it seeks to solve. Delia Quiroa, a well-known advocate for Mexico's disappeared, is no fan of the reform. But she admits it has given her a chance to become a federal judge she would not otherwise have had. It is just the latest unexpected turn in a life that was shattered the moment her brother, Roberto, was disappeared on 10 March 2014. Though born in Culiacán, Quiroa moved to the border state of Tamaulipas when she was a child. She had been studying to become an engineer, but as the years stretched on with no sign of her brother, she retrained as a lawyer to force the authorities into action. Threats from criminal groups eventually displaced her family to Mexico City. Then last year they moved back to Sinaloa, which for years had been relatively calm owing to the dominance of the eponymous cartel. 'People used to say that the narcos in Sinaloa left the public out of [their fights],' Quiroa said, with a rueful smile. 'Then this conflict began.' In July 2024, Ismael 'El Mayo' Zambada, who founded the Sinaloa cartel with Joaquín 'El Chapo' Guzmán, was detained by US authorities along with one of Guzmán's sons after a small plane touched down in Texas. El Mayo accused El Chapo's son of betraying and delivering him to US authorities. Now a faction led by El Mayo's son is waging war against another led by the two sons of El Chapo who remain free in Mexico. As the conflict enters a ninth month, it has left well over 2,000 dead or disappeared. And it has made the judicial elections even more complicated. 'The violence has hit the campaign,' said Quiroa. 'You can't always find people in the streets.' The city centre market was Quiroa's target for the day. Friends and family came along, handing out pamphlets with her logo: a spade and a gavel crossed over the scales of justice. 'I try to explain that I have no political or economic interest in this,' said Quiroa. 'That the only thing I want is a change in this country.' But as Quiroa bounced between market stalls, people's responses did nothing to dispel fears of an uninformed vote come 1 June. Unlike in other elections, parties cannot support candidates, nor can candidates openly profess a partisan affiliation, even if they clearly have one. Radio and TV spots are also banned, meaning largely unknown candidates are limited to handing out flyers and posting on social media. Then there is the sheer number of them. Voters will be faced with at least six ballot papers, some with dozens of names on them but little else. 'It looks like an exam,' sighed Quiroa. Even an enthusiastic supporter of the reform – a butcher behind a pile of cow hooves, who celebrated the election as a chance for 'the people to stop the robbery' – could not name a candidate. Others were sceptical, if not cynical. 'I'm not going to vote for candidates I don't know,' said one shoe shiner, who was reading a dog-eared biography of 19th-century president Benito Juárez. 'Just like I won't eat a meal if I don't know what's in it. It's common sense.' According to the president of the National Electoral Institute, voter turnout is expected to be less than 20%. Even though Morena is not allowed to back candidates, many assume it will use its unrivalled capacity to mobilise voters to help its preferred candidates – particularly for the supreme court, which has often acted as a check on Morena's executive power, and a new disciplinary tribune, which will keep judges in line. 'Morena wants to hoard all the power,' said the shoe shiner. 'They don't want to leave a crumb for anyone else.' But other interests, including organised crime, may also seize the opportunity. Defensorxs, a civil society organisation, has identified various 'highly risky' candidates, including a lawyer who was counsel to El Chapo and a former state prosecutor in Michoacán accused of alleged involvement in the murder of two journalists. 'I don't think people have managed to find out who the candidates are and what each kind of position actually does,' said Marlene León Fontes, from Iniciativa Sinaloa, a civil society organisation. 'People will vote on the basis of personal connections or political parties 'It's a blind date with democracy,' she said. If Quiroa emerges a judge, she says she will be an 'iron fist' against corrupt and negligent authorities – not least when it comes to searching for the more than 120,000 people registered as disappeared, and identifying the 72,000 bodies in Mexico's morgues. 'It was the feeling of being tortured by the authorities who should be protecting me that made me put myself forward as a candidate,' said Quiroa. Yet as far as Quiroa knows, she is the only candidate to have emerged from the many thousands searching for their relatives. 'I'd have liked there to be more – and more victims of all kinds who are lawyers and human rights defenders,' said Quiroa. 'But many people said they didn't want to be part of the destruction of the judicial system.' Quiroa shares their anxiety. 'This is an experiment,' she said. 'And we don't know how it's going to go.'
