No it doesn’t Chris. And I generally stay away from your post!! Does that make sense to you.
#MyOnlyResponse
A free world, society is what this is all about.
I go to some part of Mexico almost every year. What city were you in? It has gotten better every year since then. Part of the problem was they beefed up the police forces and half (or more) of them were corrupt. They realized it wasn’t smart to have police on every corner with assault rifles and that was causing more issues. Going back to corruption was the safest choice. Mexico isn’t getting rid of cartels until the US stops wanting drugs from them. Way too much money and way too many guns coming from the US. But for those who are scared to go to Mexico, you will be safer down there than a lot of US cities. Cartels are all about business, killing tourists is bad for business.
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I just checked the US State Department Travel Advisory. This is the source we incorporate into our provider contracts. If a provider is providing us services or products from a location that moves to a level 4 we have a right to have that provider/supplier to move their operations for us to a new country. No ifs, ands, or buts aloud. I figured they were a 3 and they were a 3 when I worked down there although I felt like they should have been rated a 4. They are getting rated a 4 due to crime and COVID.
https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/traveladvisories/traveladvisories.html/
I am surprised to see Mexico currently at a Level 4 advisory. I have not been down there in a bit, but it was by far the most dangerous place I have ever conducted business. Far more dangerous than what the average American had a clue about. It was in the middle of their govt cartel wars a year before their election when the cartel wars caused their national elections to flip.
I primarily worked in Monterrey. A town of San Pedro within Monterrey was about the only safe area of Monterrey. I believed that city paid off the cartels. We were trained by our client’s security forces along with our own company security organization on how to stay safe and what to do if kidnapped which was common in those days and I believe still is.
At that time, it was generally safer to be an American for the cartels did not want the attention of the American State Dept by picking on Americans for targeted kidnappings. However wealthy Mexicans were high value targets. It is a reason so many wealthy Mexicans have moved to the greater Houston area over the last decade to get away from that danger. In general, they stayed away from the resort areas at that time. But they haven’t been totally safe over the years, just generally safer.
There were areas we were told never to go and there were locations that Mexican police forces would not go in Monterrey. It was not uncommon to hear gun fire. I remember one day hearing extended Uzi gun fire down the street of one of our client’s major facilities. We had protocols and processes we had to follow to help us stay safe. Plenty of not to dos.
The cartels are as brutal as they come. Beheadings to scare their competition is common. They post them on web. The average age of a cartel profession is like 25 / 26 years of age.
Until I had to work in Monterrey, the most dangerous US city I worked in was Philly. It was right before the Monterrey assignment started. Between the standard Philly homeless downtown and with the underground trains, they had Occupy Wall Street outside of City Hall. Kids were storming stores downtown, and then Verizon labor union were bringing their thugs into downtown to protest with their labor strike. All pretty dangerous, but nothing like Monterrey, but very different from Monterrey.
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My friends that have gone down to Mexico all come back with stories of being shake down by the local police, they never run into the cartels
They may not know that they have touched a cartel operative. They have their money and tenicals everywhere including the police and govenment even the churches in some places.
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Where are they going that they get shaken down?
I go a few times a year all over and I have not had issues with police. Nor with cartels. But I am careful wherever I am.
As my dad used to say, you can find the same dangers without leaving Houston. I am sure there are parts of town here you guys would not go into, especially at night.
My dad would say about getting in a tough spot…here or in Mexico…if you go looking for trouble it is not hard to find especially late at night after a beer or two.
My friends are out here in California, so these stories are are mostly close to the border but one was down on the baja peninsula. None of them were looking for trouble. All of them got out it by paying off the cops.
My brother has gone to some remote Mexico locations and says he doesn’t have those problems with police.
There were things that happended in Monterrey that would never happen to date in Houston.
Just before I got to Monterrey this casino stopped paying their dues to a cartel after almost 1/2 a decade of the war on the cartels. This was just a couple of blocks down the road from my Marriott that I got told I had to move out and move into a safer hotel inside what I called the Green Zone of San Pedro.
The flowers that were laid their outside of casino was massive and renewed weekly.
During the year I was working in Monterrey hundreds of what was believed to be cartel members were assinated and buried just outside of Monterrey. They were discovered and buried. It was similar to the events the Nazis would do and have them drop into mass graves.
The list is long. But we seldom hear about them up here in the USA.
Oh I am agreeing with you. It used to be that Mexico City had crime, Monterrey has taken the mantel. Beheadings and hung bodies are a regular thing in Monterrey. That part is not like Houston at all. But I was simply saying there are sketchy parts here too.
Even our so-called “sketchy” parts of town are mostly full of good hard working people. But as you say, if you’re looking for trouble it’s not hard to find.
I live in a low income area, supposedly high crime area, but I’ve never had any issues in my 20 years here. Neither have my neighbors. I don’t buy large quantities of drugs, I don’t steal from anyone, I don’t start fights. Pretty simple. Most murders are not random, they happen for a reason.
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Yep, trouble can happen anywhere. Its just a entirely different level down there. The cartels are truly part of their culture and society. I was very glad when my year assignment was up. My wife and kids were thrilled.
The cartels are all about making money and illegally. But their behavior and activities are pretty similar to ISIS in terms of violence and intimidation and disregard for human life. Pure evil
Machine gunning that casino with a small army of Zetas, then locking the doors and firebombing it over embattled turf and lost income is a prime example. You cross the Zetas, you die a horrible death.
Agreed. It used to be they did not involve civilians but that line has been blurred. They do try not to tangle with Americans.
Some of their tactics are ISIS like but then they are endearing themselves by taking care of some of the poorest the government will not. That is how they buy silence and loyalty.
I think it was last year there was a shootout between cartel folks and the Mexican military in an affluent part of Cancun. Not to be confused with the touristy part. The Mexican military backed off as they were out gunned.
Imagine that, the home country military being out gunned.
One of our client’s VP’s sons was kidnapped right out in their front yard in affluent San Pedro in broad daylight while I was working there.
The taking care of the poor is one of the contradictions along with how religious some of them can be. I made a comment in one of our client executive meetings that “I feel more comfortable when I get into a taxi with a rosary hanging down and a statue of the Virgin Mary on the dashboard.” I immediately heard a few snickers and they gave me that “you dumb ass American” look. I then got the low down on how religious many are and how they feed the church so much money to flow to the poor.
I liked Monterrey. Been there 3 times first in 2012 and last there a few years ago. Huge difference in those 5 years on how safe the city felt. Far fewer police last time there, very few of the trucks with the mounted rifles.
I wonder what kind of impact the widespread legalization of marijuana in the US has on the cartels.
My gut feel is they’ve found ways to get their fingers into the legal market somehow.
Richard Nixon grew up in L.A. where a good number of people used recreational drugs. It was no big deal. He declared war on them, made their possession a felony and we imprisoned hundreds of thousands. The cartels came into being in their present form because of the risks and higher prices that came with those risks. Mr. Nixon made $100,000 per year and after a few years he bought the Pacific White House overlooking the Pacific from San Clemente. Its present value is $75,000,000. Gee . . . that shows yuh what you can do if you save yer money. Meanwhile millions of Americans have prison records.
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That house was put on the market for $75M but didn’t sell. It looks like it’s still on the market for less than $60M and has been on the market for years. It also seems he paid at least $1.4M for the house and the government pumped more than that in it while he was in office.
Still a nice return. Probably about what you’d get investing in the S&P 500.
If you have some cash laying around it is not a bad joint to hang your hat.
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That is a big rationale for legalizing marijuana in Texas since we are so close to the border.
A lot of people smoke weed…it’s not my thing, but I know a lot of people who smoke it recreationally and can function just fine. So there is a pretty big demand for it that is being met by the cartel right now.
Take the marijuana market out of their hands and it will be a pretty big blow to them. I don’t know very many people doing the hard drugs that will never be legalized.
Big issue with the cartel is trafficking though. Need to kill the demand side of the equation for sex trafficking by coming down harder on Johns, busting them more frequently, and shaming them publicly.