Seeking to improve understanding, communication, and cooperation between Mexico and the United States by promoting original research, encouraging public discussion, and proposing policy options for enhancing the bilateral relationship.
11/08/2021
Source: US News
The shooting of two suspected drug dealers at a resort on Mexico’s Caribbean coast is part of a fight among about a dozen gangs to carve up the lucrative market of selling drugs to tourists and locals, an official said Friday.
The chief prosecutor of the coastal state of Quintana Roo said that two main gangs are fighting for control of Puerto Morelos, just south of Cancun. Thursday’s shooting occurred on a beach just yards from luxury hotels.
08/23/2021
Source: Mexico Daily News
A conservation area in the Bacalar region of southern Quintana Roo is under threat by a 950-home residential development, claim local citizens who have filed a complaint against the project.
Arrivée Lagon Bacalar will include condominiums, a commercial area and 400 lots for residential construction in Buenavista, a community on the shores of Lake Bacalar, also known as the lake of seven colors.
07/16/2021
Source: The New York Times
Mexico’s reputation as an alluring travel destination both before and during the pandemic has met a sobering reality: Despite growing vaccine efforts, the coronavirus is surging, especially in tourist hot spots.
Though the U.S. land border with Mexico has been closed to nonessential travel since the start of the pandemic, vacationers can fly into the country with no quarantine or testing requirements, opening the door to unvaccinated travelers who might contract the virus in Mexico and bring it back home, or for any traveler to pass it on to a Mexican citizen.
05/19/2021
Source: SFGate
In a major announcement last week, the governor of the Mexican state of Quintana Roo warned that the state had seen five straight weeks of increased COVID-19 rates following last month’s spring holidays. The dramatically rising case numbers led him to warn that Mexico’s number one tourist destination is at risk of “imminent” lockdown, according to the Associated Press.
“Rates in most of the rest of Mexico have been declining,” reported the A.P., “but Quintana Roo depends on tourism for 87% of its economic activity, and has instituted no travel bans or testing requirements.”
03/31/2021
Source: Travel & Leisure
Tourists behaving badly on vacation in Mexico have driven officials to shut one of the country’s most popular archaeological sites over the Easter holiday weekend.
According to the Associated Press, officials in Mexico plan to close Chichen Itza on the Yucatan Peninsula from April 1 through April 4 in hopes of curbing the spread of COVID-19.
“It is regrettable to see how undisciplined things have become,” Lucio Hernández Gutiérrez, acting police chief in Quintana Roo — a state that’s home to hot spots like Tulum, Cancun, and Cozumel — said, the AP reported. He pointed to tourists as the worst offenders, saying “It was truly frustrating to see hundreds of people walking around without face masks.”
03/30/2021
Source: Yahoo! News
MEXICO CITY (AP) — A Salvadoran woman who died in police custody over the weekend in a Caribbean beach resort had also suffered abuse by her companion, who has been arrested, Mexican authorities said Tuesday.
Quintana Roo state Gov. Carlos Joaquin did not specify whether the abuse allegedly suffered by Victoria Esperanza Salazar was sexual or physical.
6/6/16 Reuters
Mexico’s ruling party lost several bastions in Sunday’s regional elections to the center-right opposition, dealing a heavy blow to President Enrique Pena Nieto for failing to crack down on corruption and gang violence.
The rout will help set the tone for the next presidential election in 2018, underscoring deep discontent over graft scandals and a sluggish economy, and throwing the contest open to contenders from both the left and right.
Early results from gubernatorial races in 12 of Mexico’s 31 states on Monday showed Pena Nieto’s ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, heading for defeat in seven of them, a result far worse than most polls had forecast.
Projected losses included two oil-rich strongholds in the Gulf of Mexico, Veracruz and neighboring Tamaulipas, both of which have been plagued by gang violence for years, as well as Quintana Roo, home to Mexico’s top tourist destination Cancun. All three have been run by the PRI for over eight decades.
8/20/15 Reuters
The United States sanctioned 21 Mexican businesses and individuals on Wednesday, saying they were part of the business network of a powerful drug cartel in the country.
The 15 businesses and six people provided support and services for the Los Cuinis drug cartel, the U.S. Treasury said in a statement. The cartel was itself sanctioned by the U.S. government in April for cocaine and methamphetamine trafficking.
The businesses targeted on Wednesday include an upscale boutique hotel, two real estate firms, and a shopping center in the south-central Mexican state of Jalisco, as well as a shopping center in the southeastern state of Quintana Roo.
AFP, 6/29/2013
A US court on Friday sentenced a former Mexican governor to 11 years in prison for conspiring to launder drug money. Mario Villanueva Madrid, 65, who headed the state of Quintana Roo from 1994 to 1999, was accused of conspiring to launder millions of dollars in bribes from the Juarez drug cartel through accounts at banks in the United States and elsewhere. He pleaded guilty in August.
Initially arrested in Mexico in 2001 and later convicted there on organized crime and corruption offenses, he was extradited to the United States in May 2010. His sentencing Friday took into account the six years he already spent behind bars in his homeland, a prosecution spokesman told AFP. According to a statement from the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, Villanueva Madrid made a lucrative deal with the Juarez cartel in 1994 that ensured its cocaine shipments traveled safely through Quintana Roo. Over the next five years, he amassed millions of dollars, and by late 1995 began transferring the funds to accounts in the United States, Switzerland and elsewhere.
The Los Angeles Times, 8/3/2012
In one of the most high-profile drug prosecutions of a Mexican politician, a former state governor has pleaded guilty in a U.S. court to charges that he helped launder millions of dollars for cocaine traffickers.
The plea was entered Thursday by Mario Villanueva, former governor of state, home to the posh resort town of Cancun.
Villanueva was extradited to the United States in 2010 and could face a sentence of up to 20 years.
Mexico Institute 