KIDNAPPINGS AND ORGANIZED CRIME CHALLENGE CIVIL SOCIETY

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 MONTERREY 000414

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DS FOR IP /ITA AND IP/WHA

E.O. 12958: DECL: 9/2/2018
TAGS: KCRM PINS SNAR ASEC PGOV PHUM MX
SUBJECT: KIDNAPPINGS AND ORGANIZED CRIME CHALLENGE CIVIL SOCIETY

REF: MONTERREY 390

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CLASSIFIED BY: Bruce Williamson, Consul General, Monterrey,
Foreign Service.
REASON: 1.4 (c),(d)

1. (C) Summary. Over the past few weeks, Conoffs have
reached out to various players within Nuevo Leon civil society
to gauge the effect that the increase in kidnappings since the
beginning of the year has had on local institutions. In our
conversations with military and police officials, mayors, the
press, academics, security consultants, and business leaders, we
have found a unanimous sense of gloom, most marked among those
government officials charged with the responsibility for
correcting the situation. For instance, Monterrey Tec leaders
note that applications to that university are down 20 percent, a
fact which university officials attribute to the increasing
violence.
In this tense environment, the public is looking at all
solutions (even bad ones) -- although given the drug cartel's
penetration of state and local police none is likely to prove
effective in the short-term. As a result, a number of wealthy
families are considering how they might legally relocate to the
U.S. End Summary.

The Military
--------------

2. (C) The Mexican army remains the tip of the spear in
terms of the Calderon administration's attack upon the drug
cartels. On August 15, Consul General, visiting Embassy ATF
Attache, and Consulate ALAT met with General Javier Real de
Magallanes, head of Mexico's Fourth military region (which
consists of Nuevo Leon, Coahuila, Tamaulipas, and San Luis
Potosi). Normally aloof and taciturn, on this occasion he was
expressive and direct, reflecting openly upon the challenges he
faces in combating narco-trafficking. The military, he said,
had been hampered by the procedural delays involved in obtaining
search warrants and the inability of the state and local police
to provide any useful support for such efforts. Indeed, he
commented, confidential information shared with those entities
generally made its way to the traffickers, thus frustrating
search and seizure actions. A 47-year Army veteran, he joined
up in 1961, Real worried that the campaign against the cartels
would inevitably lead the public to view the military as corrupt
as well. (In his remarks, Real pointedly refrained from
attributing any responsibility to the military to deal with
kidnapping as this, he felt, was a state police function.)


3. (C) In contrast to previous meetings in which he appeared
to prefer a go-it-alone approach, this time General Real
welcomed cooperation with ATF and FBI (less so, DEA) and
Consulate law enforcement officials are following up with him.
Nevertheless, he indicated that in his view the situation would
get worse before it got better. The drug traffickers had
expanded their product range, he stated, and now engaged in the
smuggling of weapons, people, human organs, and pirated goods.
In local flea markets, the price of pirate CDs had doubled over
the past year, he observed, as the trafficking cartels had
become more efficient in taxing the vendors of such goods. With
his retirement imminent next year, Real said that he wished to
do what he could, while leaving it to his successors to continue
the fight in the medium and long-term.

Security Consultants
--------------

4. (C) Post spoke with two separate corporate security
experts, one in a more public environment and the other in a
private setting. In the first encounter, the local Overseas
Security Advisory Council (OSAC) Director noted that while many
were worried about the increase in kidnappings over recent
months, no one had any accurate figures. While corporate
security directors pooling their information had come up with
158 events from January to August (68 kidnappings for ransom, 66
"levantones" of persons with organized crime connections, and 24
disappearances),official state figures showed only 54 such
events. Yet clearly the number was higher, he said, as after a
show of hands nearly one-third of the audience (8 of 25)
revealed that they knew of a co-worker, colleague, or friend
whose family had been victim of a kidnapping. Indeed, the
public's fear had created a new industry: virtual kidnappings,
in which a victim receives a phone call demanding that he pay
money or else as there is an SUV filled with armed men outside
the person's house -- and a quick check reveals that there
actually is. The victim usually pays.


5. (C) The second expert we spoke with was more pessimistic.
His view was that the various state and local police were
infiltrated and that, as a result, local leaders were unable to
mount a serious effort against both the traffickers and the
kidnapping rings. He cited a recent case involving a father and
a son who were themselves kidnapped within state police
headquarters while reporting an incident involving organized
crime. Although this episode had been covered by the local

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press, our contact noted that when several police indeed tried
to react to the intruders their unit leader received a call from
persons unknown on his mobile radio (on state police
frequencies) directing him to stand down. In yet another case,
police arrived at the scene of an organized crime
related-shooting only to find the victim still alive and eager
to file a complaint. However, in transporting the victim back
to the police station officers had not traveled four blocks when
gunmen intercepted their vehicles and took the complainant away.
None of this could have taken place, our interlocutor noted,
unless the gunmen had strong ties to the police. However
well-intentioned, police leaders can do little as they
themselves are under threat. High-level state and local law
enforcement officials report that they regularly receive phone
calls from cartel front-men clearly informing them of the
red-lines they must not cross. Earlier this month, the chief of
the state police discovered surveillance being done by the
traffickers on his posh San Pedro home. Several kidnap victims
who had been ransomed later reported that their captors had
access to state law enforcement data bases and the state's GPS
squad car tracking system. This problem could become even more
acute once Nuevo Leon's new law enforcement C-4 center becomes
operational next year as it could provide both the police (and
organized crime) with improved monitoring capabilities.

Business and Academic Community
--------------

6. (C) Industry leaders and civil society are up in arms
about the ever-increasing lack of security and making their
concerns known. The latest sign of the decay was the first-time
ever appearance in Monterrey August 26-27 overnight of public
banners posted by the Gulf cartel decrying law enforcement
complicity with its Sinaloa cartel rivals. While previously,
President Calderon had received high marks from local
opinion-makers, now he is coming under mounting criticism. Some
say that he has too many other priorities (energy reform,
education, etc.); others say that, unlike Colombia's President
Uribe, he has not personally experienced the agony of having
close family members kidnapped and executed. Searching for a
way to address the situation, the wealthy municipality of San
Pedro has distributed personal security tips to its residents
and the city's citizen advisory committee is urging victims to
report kidnappings and extortion. The latter may be a hard sell
given the possibility that the victims could well be subject to
retaliation given the suspected involvement of the police with
organized crime.


7. (C) While numerous business lobby groups (CANACO, COPARMEX,
CAINTRA, etc.) have gone to the Governor demanding immediate
action, slowly the realization is dawning that little can be
done in the short-term as the public security apparatus has been
compromised. Investment in armored cars, bodyguards, security
training, and polygraphers is booming as those who can afford it
begin to take protective measures. Those less well-healed,
unfortunately, are not able to avail themselves of such
resources and are heading north. Inquiries regarding long-term
investor visas to the U.S. are rising and there are anecdotal
reports that Monterrey residents are increasingly purchasing
homes in Texas. Indicative of the public mood, post officers
have heard our business contacts wonder whether Monterrey's
large corporations will bypass the government and take direct
action against the kidnapping rings. (One industrialist openly
called for a return of the "Brigadas Blancas" vigilante squads
of the late 1970s.) Another sought to confirm "news" that in
Tijuana business owners had hired Israeli consultants to take
out the kidnapping rings.


8. (C) One businessman told us that in retrospect, the days
when Monterrey was a peaceful haven in tumultuous Mexico may
have only been a transitory phase, and that now the region is
facing the same situation as much of the rest of the country.
Monterrey Tec leaders note that applications to that university
are down 20 percent, a fact which university officials attribute
to the increasing violence. Local industry leaders realize that
Mexico is just beginning its struggle against organized crime
and the drug cartels and frankly worry whether the government
will given the immense resources available to the cartels.

Local Government
--------------

9. (C) Perhaps those most under pressure are local
government leaders. Mayors from all over Monterrey metropolitan
area have expressed their frustration to us. While they face
increased demands from their constituents, their hands are often
tied by: 1) the inability of either the federal government to
mount an effective response against narco-trafficking or the
state government against kidnapping, and 2) cartel intimidation
of their law enforcement and judicial apparatus. The Mayor of

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wealthy San Pedro told us that corrupt judges were hindering his
ability to close down several night clubs and casinos which were
suspected of being narco-fronts or hangouts for organized crime.
He recounted stories of receiving threatening phone calls for
his efforts, which, when investigated, turned out to have
originated from Mexican prisons. In contrast, the Mayor of
working-class Apodaca and the Secretary of Public Security in
nearby Santa Catarina have made it clear that given the
inability of anyone to protect them, the best they could do was
merely to try to keep out of organized crime's way. The former
floated the idea of a collective commitment on the part of
society to refrain from paying ransom to kidnappers (very likely
a non-starter) while the latter pointed out that during the wave
of executions in early 2007 a number of his officers were
targeted and that the current corps of policemen had not
forgotten this.


10. (C) Following on President Calderon's recent anti-crime
package, on August 27 Nuevo Leon state government and local
mayors agreed to raise minimum police salaries, effective 2009,
to approximately US$1,000 per month (roughly a five to fifteen
percent raise). Even with this pay hike, officers remain poorly
compensated for the risks that they face. Indeed, this pay
initiative could be coming much too late as once officers forge
links to organized crime, it is nearly impossible to sever these
links and still remain safe. Two local legislators told Poloff
that narcotics traffickers have either intimidated or gained
control of municipal governments in the small towns north of
Monterrey (Cienega de Flores, Salinas Victoria, Juarez, China,
Sabinas Hidalgo, etc.) lying along the trafficking routes to the
United States. They worry that drug money could easily flow
into Nuevo Leon political campaigns, just as they say it has in
the neighboring state of Tamaulipas.

11 (C) The problem is even more acute in smaller
municipalities in rural areas. On August 15, CG and EconOffs
met with the Mayor of Juchipila, Zacatecas, a small town in the
southern most part of Zacatecas, near the border with the state
of Jalisco. It appears to lie along a strategic transit route
that is most likely used to transport narcotics from Guadalajara
to the North. Three other small towns near Juchipila are also
along this transit route; Apozol, Juchipla, and Jalpa. The
Mayor reported that he and the three mayors of the nearby towns
are becoming increasingly concerned over the growing presence of
drug traffickers in their communities. He believes that
Southern Zacatecas is becoming a battle ground for the Gulf and
Sinaloa cartels, which are seeking to recruit new members and
territory. Although there have not yet been executions in
Juchipila or the other towns, the Mayor said that levantones
(express kidnappings for a specific purpose) have greatly
increased. He believes cartel members are kidnapping members of
the rival cartel in order to force them into joining theirs. He
said that there are now armed men in the town that openly walk
around with their weapons, and who are quick to threaten anyone
who gets in their way. Local police are not doing anything
about these or other narco-related crimes because they are
either corrupt or too afraid to take action. In fact, earlier
in the year, several Juchipila police quit, leaving an already
small force even more short-handed. He noted that despite the
growing influence of drug traffickers in the area, no military
operations have taken place there. Given the lack of jobs and
activities in the town, he believes that youths are even more
susceptible to falling prey to drugs and drug dealing.


12. (C) The Mayor reported that he and the other mayors have
requested assistance from the state government, specifically the
state's Secretary General Carlos Pinto Nunez, but that their
pleas have been ignored. Neither the state nor local
authorities, he concluded, are equipped to deal with the growing
power of the cartels operating in the state. By chance, on
August 29 post officers met Pinto, giving us a chance to hear
his side of the story. Pinto, a two-time former Attorney
General for the State of Zacatecas, said that, in his view, the
state police had not been infiltrated by the cartels, but that
they had no capacity to react to cartel violence. While 1,500
of Zacatecas' 2600 state and local police had received training
recently, he said, they neither possessed the weaponry,
equipment, intel capacity nor the infrastructure to challenge
organized crime. He feared that the situation would only worsen
as the state's security forces were clearly outmatched.

The Press
--------------

13. (C) The press has come under similar assault. Reftel
reports upon the dilemma faced by Monterrey's prestigious daily
"El Norte" and its publishers as they confront specific threats
from the traffickers. We are still trying to determine whether
a relative of El Norte's founder was the victim in a recent

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kidnapping near several Consulate residences, and, if so,
whether the crime was connected to the previous threats.

Comment.
--------------

14. (C) The next step for Nuevo Leon is not at all clear.
Everyone agrees that the rule of law needs to be strengthened
but no one knows how to do this in the short-term. In addition,
while the public has fixated on the wave of kidnappings as the
principal threat to security, the kidnappers only operate with
impunity because the narco-traffickers have so weakened the law
enforcement and judicial apparatus. With respect to the health
of civil society, with gubernatorial and congressional elections
upcoming in August 2009, the situation is only likely to get
worse before it gets better. The challenge will be to prevent
narco-money from infiltrating into the coffers of the various
candidates, thereby making those officials that are eventually
elected beholden to organized crime masters.
WILLIAMSON