Americans are flocking to Mexico, with travel now dwarfing pre-pandemic levels, but a security expert has warned that travel south of the border remains “risky” weeks after the State Department issued a safety warning. trip to the country.
Major destinations across Mexico’s Caribbean and Pacific coast have been marred by incidents that have put innocent victims in the crossfire, but it hasn’t been enough to deter American travelers from visiting Mexico.
Mexico received 10.26 million international arrivals from January to June 2022, eclipsing pre-pandemic levels, according to the Mexican Ministry of Tourism.
Former DEA special agent Derek Maltz told The Courier-Journal that he warned a friend not to send his daughter to Cancun for spring break, one of six cities tourists prefer to visit in the coastal state. Caribbean of Quintana Roo.
“I would show them the phone with all the violence and say, ‘I wouldn’t send my daughter there because it’s too risky,'” Maltz said.
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Security cameras show how an armed gang of drug dealers roamed the Hyatt beachfront hotel in Mexico before shooting two rival drug dealers dead in November 2021.
The Jalisco New Generation Cartel is said to have been responsible for unleashing a wave of attacks in August in the states of Jalisco, Guanajuato and Baja California, setting several businesses and vehicles on fire.
A still image from a surveillance camera showed a man pulling out a gun at the Xcaret Hotel in Playa del Carmen before two Canadians were killed inside a restaurant in January.
Mexican troops were stationed at Tijuana International Airport in August following a weekend of violent incidents that left 24 vehicles burned across Baja California state, including 15 in Tijuana, a border city across from San Diego.
A series of mid-August weekend attacks in the states of Jalisco, Guanajuato and Baja California by the Jalisco New Generation Cartel forced the US State Department to reissue a travel advisory.
The government implored US citizens not to travel to the states of Colima, Guerrero, Tamaulipas, Zacatecas, Michoacán and Sinaloa.
Everard Meade, director of Proceso Pacífico, a Mexico-based peacebuilding organization, suggested tourists stay away from the Guerrero resort town of Acapulco, which once attracted A-list characters like Bono and Sylvester. Stallone.
At least 236 people were killed from January to June compared to 213 during the same period in 2021.
‘Acapulco is the only place where I would really tell people to hesitate. And I hate doing it,’ Meade said.
The State Department advisory also urged potential visitors to reconsider traveling to the states of Sonora, Morelos, Guanajuato, Durango, Chihuahua, Baja California (where the August attacks took place) and Jalisco, the site of a downtown shooting. commercial on Sunday that left a bodyguard dead after gunmen from the Jalisco New Generation Cartel tried to kidnap a businessman in a shopping center in broad daylight.
The US government also listed 16 states and Mexico City, the capital, as places where Americans should “exercise the greatest caution.”
Canadian citizen Raphaël Huppé, accused in two Quebec fraud cases, was murdered in a Playa del Carmen condominium in June. He and a woman identified as Fannie Lorrain both had their throats slit.
At least 3.4 million US citizens landed at Cancun International Airport during the first half of 2022 to visit Cancun and the neighboring resort towns of Playa del Carmen, Tulum, the Riviera Maya, Cozumel, Isla Mujeres, and Isla Holbox.
In recent months, the area’s reputation has suffered due to a series of murders.
In June, Canadian citizens Raphaël Huppé, 44, and Fannie Lorrain, 38, were found with their throats slit in a condominium that attracts a large number of tourist reservations in Playa del Carmen. Huppé was issued an Interpol Red Notice for his arrest for failing to appear for a court hearing in March 2016 in Quebec.
In February, two men were shot to death and a third was injured at the Art Beach restaurant in Tulum. Authorities believed the shooting was sparked by a drug turf war between rival drug trafficking networks.
In January, two Canadian men allegedly linked to organized crime were executed in front of hotel guests at a restaurant inside Hotel Xcaret in Playa del Carmen.
In November 2021, attackers invaded a beach near the Hyatt Ziva Riviera Cancun and shot dead two drug traffickers.
Anjali Ryot, from San Jose, California, was one of two women killed at a bar in Tulum, Mexico, in an incident sparked by rival drug traffickers in October 2021. The 25-year-old, born in India, was visiting on Mexican resort for his birthday
And in October 2021, Anjali Ryot, a 25-year-old travel blogger from California, was among two women who were shot to death in an attack at a Tulum bar that left a drug dealer and three others injured.
Robert Almonte, an expert on international criminal organizations who also served as a U.S. Marshal, told the newspaper that the shooting incidents were examples of criminal organizations fighting for control of areas that make money from a crowd of tourists who have appetite for drug use.
“When you see things like that happen, that’s just an indication that the cartels are fighting each other to gain control of those areas, not only because of drug smuggling routes, but also because of street drug sales,” he said. . (The tourists) go to the resorts, and some are drug users. So, they’re buying drugs, and the cartels are fighting each other over those sales.’
At least 20,722 homicides were reported from January to August 2022, according to Mexican government data.
Despite the wave of violence, Meade said criminal groups are aware that foreign tourists are banned.
“I mean, there are very few incidents where foreign tourists are victims of violence and, in particular, homicide,” he said. “Organized crime groups know that it is not productive to attack them. They know that if they did that, the result would be the National Guard running all over the city. And they just don’t want that.
Scott Stewart, vice president of TorchStone Global, a US-based security company, believes that some of the innocent victims have been “in the wrong place at the wrong time” and that anyone traveling on vacation or doing business in Mexico should be aware of its surroundings before heading there.
“And you can if you’re careful and you know the risks ahead of time and you have plans to mitigate the risks — you can certainly have a great visit there,” Stewart said.
For those who continue to ignore travel advisories, Almonte suggests arranging transportation through hotels before traveling to Mexico and refraining from leaving resorts.
“I wouldn’t venture into other areas of the neighborhood, things of that nature because the tourists are going to stand out to the cartels and the gangs as tourists,” he said.
