Vigilantes Seek Justice as Narcos Take Their War Into Mexican Beach Resorts Nacha Cattan and Eric Martin - Bloomberg
go to original July 24, 2017

A team of computer experts and hackers work in a cabin in Playa del Carmen (Brett Gundlock/Bloomberg)

Carlos Mimenza won’t say whether the 200-man team he’s assembled carry guns. “I’ll have to leave it to your imagination. My lawyers don’t let me talk about it.”

But they fly drones. They wear masks. Some are skilled hackers, hired from the Anonymous collective. They operate out of a luxury cabin in the woods, its entrance screened by a waterfall. And they claim to have the local governor, along with senior officials and cops, under surveillance 24 hours a day. Because Mimenza, a real-estate developer, says Mexico’s authorities are responsible for the spread of violence and extortion, colluding with the country’s drug cartels instead of protecting entrepreneurs like him.

He’s hardly the first Mexican to say “no mas.” Vigilante justice has been a feature of the drug-war decade, when Mexico turned into one of the world’s more dangerous places. What’s troubling is where Mimenza’s private army is waging its campaign: Not among the meth labs of Michoacan, or the border badlands of Ciudad Juarez, but in the Riviera resort of Playa del Carmen - just down the coast from Cancun, and right in the heart of a tourism industry that brings in $20 billion a year.

The narco-traffickers already hold sway over swaths of Mexico, either co-opting state officials or openly defying them. Now they’re encroaching on the country’s spring-break meccas like never before, leaving bodies in suitcases outside exclusive condos, or shooting up nightclubs. The bubble that’s protected international beachgoers is threatening to burst.



... It’s not surprising that many tourists aren’t aware of the killings going on around them. Recent murders haven’t always made the front pages of the local papers left in hotel lobbies. That’s no accident.

Cancun’s authorities have urged local media to tone down the coverage, according to two people with knowledge of the matter. The cartels, meanwhile, have different methods but a similar agenda. “They don’t want to sabotage themselves, because the moment it’s in the news then tourism, the goose that lays the golden egg, dries up,” said Alejandro Schtulmann, who runs the political-risk consultancy Empra in Mexico City.

Read the rest at Bloomberg

Related: Mexico's Bloody Drug War Is Killing More People Than Ever (The Los Angeles Times)

Related: Mexican Agents Capture Member of Jalisco Cartel in Cancun (Canadian Press)

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