Drug Traffickers Have Infiltrated All Mexican Institutions, Warns Father Alejandro Solalinde Paolo Moiola - Eurasia Review
go to original August 14, 2017

Priest Alejandro Solalinde (Alchetron)

Each year thousands of Central American migrants try to cross into Mexico to reach the northern border and enter illegally into the United States. This is a tiring and very dangerous trek because of drug traffickers and local authorities. Very few of them reach that point. Most of them turn back or settle on the way, withstanding violence and abuse, and putting their own lives at risk.

Within this context enters the work of Father Alejandro Solalinde, a 72 year-old Mexican priest, founder of the Migrants´ Shelter “Hermanos en el Camino” (Brothers in the Road), which takes in migrants in Ixtepec, in the Mexican state of Oaxaca.

When and why did the drug cartels started to show interest in the migrants?

It all started with [ex-President] Felipe Calderón (2006-2012) who waged a senseless war — a lost war — against drug trafficking [that left 60,000 deaths and 26,000 disappeared during his term, according to official and independent figures]. This war provoked the crumbling of some drug cartels and the pillaging from others, among them the Zetas cartel.

These last ones were left without liquidity to pay for the drugs. The drugs cannot be paid on credit: they are paid immediately. So, the Zetas thought in obtaining money from the migrants. They knew that the migrants do not have anything on them, but they have friends and relatives living in the United States. So, they started to kidnap them and to ask for ransom. In a few short months they were able to extract millions of dollars.

Besides the ransom, they also realized that they could get more from the migrants: from prostitution, labor exploitation, and organ trafficking.

How many cartels are involved?

Mainly the Zetas and in a smaller scale the Golfo cartel; we do not know about the rest, but they certainly do not traffic with migrants in a systematic manner.

And what are the Mexican authorities doing about it?

They are part of the business, of course! Immigration agents, the police, politicians at all levels are accomplices, especially in the case of the migrants. They know that they are an easy and large source of money.

I usually define my government as a “narcokleptocracy”. The drug traffickers have infiltrated all the Mexican institutions. It is unusual to find — and I have never met one — a politician or government official that does not steal.

Read the full interview at Eurasia Review

We invite you to add your charity or supporting organizations' news stories and coming events to PVAngels so we can share them with the world. Do it now!