Global Networks: Mexico

Showing posts with label Mexico. Show all posts

5:55 pm

New Mexico police shooting ruled unjustified, charges weighed

#GNN U.S: A special prosecutor may soon be appointed to determine whether to press criminal charges against two New Mexico police officers after a grand jury ruled that a 2013 shooting of a motorist in Santa Fe was unjustified, the District Attorney said on Friday.

The grand jury determined on Thursday that the shooting was not justified but was not asked to rule on whether prosecution was warranted.

Santa Fe District Attorney Angela Pacheco said she was now in a position to appoint a special prosecutor from another district to consider whether or not to file charges against the officers, Stephen Fonte and John DeBaca.

"The only purpose of this grand jury was to determine if the shooting was justified not to file charges," Pacheco said. "It was a secret proceeding so I do not know why they determined the shooting to be unjustified."

The move comes as police in nearby Albuquerque are working with the U.S. Department of Justice to implement reforms to fix a pattern of excessive use of force uncovered by an 18-month federal probe, including several fatal police shootings.

In Santa Fe, Pacheco said the two police officers are accused of having shot Roberto Mendez, 25, in the face after police said he tried to run them down in a convenience store parking lot in August 2013 with a stolen vehicle.

The Albuquerque Journal newspaper reported that the vehicle Mendez was driving had been full of passengers, including a young child, at the time of the shooting.

The paper reported that video showed Mendez had backed up in an apparent attempt to flee, hitting a police cruiser and prompting the two officers to jump out of the way, and that the officers appeared to fire on the vehicle as it pulled away.

Pacheco said Mendez, who survived the shooting, had been among those who testified to the grand jury. She declined to disclose which officer is thought to have actually shot Mendez.

Matt Ross, spokesman, for the City of Santa Fe, said the city has placed both officers on alternate duty pending a determination by the district attorney on whether criminal charges will be filed.

Ross declined further comment, and could not immediately say whether the officers had secured legal representation or identify who was representing them.

(GNN, AIP)(Reuters)(Editing by Cynthia Johnston)

4:37 pm

Mexico captures drug lord Beltran Leyva: government source

#GNN MEXICO CITY: Hector Beltran Leyva, head of a family crime syndicate that waged a bloody conflict in Mexico with a former ally, drug kingpin Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman, was captured on Wednesday, an interior ministry source said.

The snaring of the boss of the Beltran Leyva drug cartel is likely a serious blow to the gang, which has been substantially weakened since its founding by a group of brothers who gave the outfit its name and split from Guzman, accusing him of betraying them.

There were few details available about the circumstances of the detention of Beltran Leyva, one of the highest profile Mexican drug bosses still at large. Officials said tests were being carried out to confirm his identity.

The detention of Beltran Leyva marks another major victory for President Enrique Pena Nieto, who has sought to shift the focus away from combating drug violence and onto a raft of economic reforms he has pushed through Congress.

By the time he was caught, Hector, 49, was the only one of the clan's brothers known to be involved in drug trafficking not dead or behind bars.

When Mexican special forces arrested Alfredo Beltran Leyva in early 2008, the brothers reportedly believed Guzman had sold out their sibling to the government, sparking a war with Mexico's most wanted man and his powerful Sinaloa Cartel.

Over the next three years, the rupture with Guzman, who was eventually captured by Mexican marines in February 2014, ushered in a new brutality to the criminal violence that dominated the 2006-2012 administration of then-President Felipe Calderon.

In May 2008, four months after Alfredo's capture, gunmen shot dead Edgar Guzman, a 22-year-old son of the Sinaloa boss, and the bloody spiral of exchanges between the two gangs sowed chaos in cities across northern Mexico.

By 2010, the Beltran Leyvas had lost several leaders and Hector, alias "The Engineer," was in control.

Hector was born in 1965 in the northwestern state of Sinaloa. His gang had a reputation as one of the most vengeful and ruthless in the business.

When Hector's older brother Arturo was cornered and killed by Mexican marines in December 2009, the government honored one of the young marines slain in the raid and images of the family funeral were broadcast around the country.

The next day, gunmen swept into the family home and killed the marine's mother, sister, brother and an aunt.

The Beltran Leyva cartel diversified into numerous side businesses, including money laundering, extortion, human trafficking, contract killings and arms smuggling.

(GNN, AIP)(Reuters)(Writing by David Alire Garcia; Editing by Steve Orlofsky)

6:24 pm

America Movil aims to sell assets as quickly as possible

(GNN) - Mexican telecoms company America Movil plans to divest assets as quickly as possible to escape tougher regulation, and it hopes to sell to a single buyer, spokesman Arturo Elias said on Wednesday.

The company controlled by billionaire Carlos Slim announced on Tuesday that it was ready to sell assets to cut its market share in Mexican telecoms below 50 percent and avoid regulations that apply only to dominant players.

Those new rules are part of a telecommunications sector overhaul approved by Congress in an attempt to curb the power of America Movil and broadcaster Televisa.

Shares of America Movil were up 8.69 percent at 14.6 pesos. The company has a market value of well over $70 billion. It has some 70 percent of the mobile market and is the dominant force in fixed line and Internet.

America Movil will have to sell 15 percent to 17 percent of its share in telephony to weigh in below the 50 percent threshold and still have margin to grow, and aimed to do so as quickly as it could, Elias said.

Speculation has already begun to swirl over who might buy the assets. Analysts have zeroed in on companies such as AT&T, which sold its stake in America Movil for $5.57 billion to a company controlled by Slim in June.

AT&T declined to comment.

"It would have to be someone who comes to Mexico to really invest in telecommunications, to create a true, tough competitor," Elias said.

He declined to name a price for the assets, which industry experts say could be worth well over $10 billion.

Elias added that the company also plans to offer pay television as quickly as possible, a lucrative market that it has been kept out of so far. If regulators approve Slim's divestiture plan, the pay TV market could open up to him.

Congress on Wednesday gave final approval to secondary laws laying out the fine print of the telecoms sector overhaul.

The legislation will now be signed into law by President Enrique Pena Nieto, who has pushed a host of reforms through Congress to boost lackluster growth.

The telecoms measures are the toughest battery of regulations Slim has faced since he took control of Mexico's former state phone monopoly Telmex at the start of the 1990s. That helped him to become the world's richest man by 2010.

Approval of the reform's rules and regulations was delayed by more than six months, as lawmakers clashed over issues such as whether the bills would give an unfair break to Televisa, the biggest player in Mexico's television market.

Presidential legal advisor Humberto Castillejos said that no dominant tag was planned for pay TV, but added the new telecoms regulator would have to investigate if any firm had "substantial market power" that could require tougher regulation.(GNN)(Reuters)(AIP)

(Reporting by Alexandra Alper, Gabriel Stargardter and Tomas Sarmiento; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn and Lisa Shumaker)

4:27 am

Mexico police detain alleged serial child killer

(GNN) - Mexican police have detained a man who allegedly murdered four children and a woman in a small town in the center of the country, authorites said on Saturday, as statistics show a marked increased in the number of women being murdered.

The state attorney's office in the town of San Luis Potosi said Filiberto Hernandez, 43, was detained on Thursday and confessed to five murders between 2010 and 2013. The office said he also raped his victims.

The crimes took place in Tamuin, a town of 16,000 southeast of San Luis Potosi, where Hernandez was a zumba and karate teacher.

The state attorney said it used the confession to find the remains of two of his victims, 9-year old Dulce Jimena Reyes, who disappeared in April, and Eliehoenai Chavez, 32, abducted in May after leaving the factory where she worked.

He is also alleged to have killed Adriana Martinez, found dead in 2011 at the age of 13 after disappearing on the way home from school.

State authorities are searching for the body of Rosa Maria Sanchez, missing since 2010 when she was 16, and that of 12-year old Itzel Castillo who disappeared in 2013, in fields close to where the others were found.

Since former President Felipe Calderon launched a military offensive on Mexico's drug cartels at the end of 2006, more than 85,000 people have died. Between 2007 and 2012, the total number of murders more than doubled, rising 112 percent.

Most victims were young men but the number of women killed shot up by more than one and a half times, 155 percent, to 2,764 in 2012, according to official data.(GNN)(Reuters)(AIP)

(Reporting by Anahi Rama, Lizbeth Diaz and Christine Murray; Editing by Ron Popeski)

10:17 pm

Mexico homebuilder Geo files for bankruptcy

Troubled Mexican homebuilder Geo (GEOB.MX) said on Thursday it has filed for bankruptcy after gaining the support of the majority of its creditors in a deal that will replace most of its debt with stock.

Geo was once Mexico's biggest homebuilder with sales of 55,485 homes in 2012, but it has struggled with a heavy debt load and slumping home sales that pushed it to stop making debt repayments last year.

Creditors Banamex, HSBC, Banorte, Santander, Inbursa and BBVA Bancomer agreed to the bankruptcy plan, Geo said in a statement on Thursday. The deal is a so-called prepackaged bankruptcy that can shorten the duration of the legal process.

In a separate statement, the company said it reached a deal with holders of more than 50 percent of its debt, including a group of investors who hold just over 27 percent of bonds due on September 25, 2014, June 30, 2020 and March 27, 2022.

Under the restructuring plan, bondholders will end up with 88 percent of the company in stock, current stockholders will be diluted to an 8 percent stake while management will hold 4 percent of stock.

The deal also includes a plan to issue 4.75 billion Mexican pesos ($358 million) in new stock in the company once the restructuring is complete.

Orlando Loera, one of Geo's advisers, said in a telephone interview that the proceedings could be finished within four to six months. He said most of the company's debt would be converted into stock with another part restructured into debt that will mature in between seven to 10 years.

The company had 13.81 billion pesos ($1.04 billion) in net debt at the end of the first quarter of 2013, with more than half in U.S. dollar bonds due in 2014, 2020 and 2022.

Geo has not reported financial statements to Mexico's stock exchange since the first quarter of 2013. Trading of its shares was suspended in July.

Geo blamed its problems on a shift in government policy over the last few years that prioritized subsidies for apartment purchases by new homebuyers, damping sales of cheap houses built by Geo and closest rivals Homex (HOMEX.MX) and Urbi (URBI.MX).

Urbi shares were also suspended after the company failed to report second-quarter results.

Shares of Homex, formerly Mexico's No.2 homebuilder, were suspended after the company said it could not report fourth-quarter results by the end of February.(GNN INT) (Reuters)

(Reporting by Gabriela Lopez and Elinor Comlay; Editing by Christopher Cushing and Matt Driskill)