Hudson, you should read up on the coming Chinese development for Puerto Morelos. It will create something like 25,000 jobs, but guess what. 99% will be for the Chinese. Many of us feel that this will change the lifestyle in Puerto Morelos for the worst. V can provide you the name and a link maybe as we were discussing it a few days ago. How this project got through the governmental approval process can only have happened in one way. Draw your own conclusion. Take photos of Puerto Morelos signs before they are changed to Chinatown Cancun. We could use a Little Italy too as there is a shortage of both Chinese and Italian quality eateries.
Interesting story of how "the bravest woman in Mexico" dealt with the threats. http://articles.cnn.com/2011-05-23/...valles-garcia-cartels-asylum-case?_s=PM:WORLD
Wow....I can just picture the Chinese mafia putting up with all this crap from the Zetas. Talk about "no mercy," ...those guys don't mess around either. I think that whoever noted the desperation on the part of the Zetas, as the reason for an increase in extortion and alternative means of income, was probably right. Buses from Central America are being hijacked and the migrants are being forced to work for the Zetas...or die. One such bus was taken last weekend, near Reynosa. I do not remember the outcome, but they are still finding bodies in mass graves from previous hijackings. So Calderon's war on the cartels IS having an effect, although one might wonder, "at what price?" It will be interesting to see what happens, starting soon, as National elections will be in a year. Will Mexico's next president be as strong a hard liner against the cartels as Calderon? This will be interesting to see. Maybe things will revert back to the way they were 2 years ago and before; mostly behind the scenes and among the cartels themselves. OR....as someone else also pointed out, things will get worse. And if they do, I will be outahere. I am retired and looking forward to my leisure years. I do not intend to be a prisoner in my own home, for fear of being kidnapped and/or killed. BTW, on the last weekend of May, I received a call at my house, from a man who said he was a Zeta.....wanted to know if I had heard of them. He was amazed and dumbfounded when I said, "no.".....I hung up the phone when he started talking about money, and never got to hear the "or else," part. Let me say that it is more than just a little unnerving when it happens to YOU. Fortunately, I made a few calls before packing my bags to leave. One friend said that his store got 8-9 calls like that a year, and they just hang up and ignore them. He went on to say that these were people in the jails with disposable cell phones, calling likely names out of the phone book.....on hopes that they might get a weaker person who might capitulate and send money. Fortunately for us in Cancun and Veracruz, both cities have a lot of wealth and so we do not stick out like a sore thumb if we happen to drive an SUV or late model pick-up truck. I stick out a little bit, because there are hardly any caucasian expats in Veracruz.....although there are a LOT of very light colored Mexicans here, who could easily pass for caucasian. My attitude now is wait and see.
This happens a lot here. They will call you up and say they have your daughter hostage, and you can hear a girl screaming in the background. It's all BS. Just say "I don't have a daughter (son, brother, sister etc)" and hang up. My husband got a call like that recently, saying they had his mom. They even knew her name (got it off the Telmex bill, I imagine). Other than that, they didn't have any info. It was some guy claiming to be an upper-level cop doing business with the Zetas, or some such nonsense. They'll try to convince you not to hang up (to prevent you from calling your loved one and realizing they're actually safe and sound). Sometimes they might try to get info from you weeks in advance, calling pretending to be Telcel or a bank or something and ask you questions about your account. They'll call you up later as the "Zetas" and use your personal information from the previous phone call to make you think they've been following you. It's best just to ignore those calls in most cases.
Dragon Mart is something, it seems to me, that deserves its own thread, just in case someone has got more they want to say about the Zetas' activities in our area. Dragon Mart | Living in Cancun & Riviera Maya Forum ___________________________ I found Gringation's comments about would be extortionists, calling and claiming to be Zetas- in something of a hoax, to be very interesting and informative. Can you imagine the legal action, a charge for "impersonating a Zeta"? With economic times hard here- and not just for the Zetas- I guess this shouldn't be too surprising; but, I'll confess to being surprised while reading her post, as I hadn't heard about this before. ___________________________
I hate, as a value-shopper (cheapskate) to admit it, but an inexpensive, cheap restaurant will send up my antennae as being unsafe. The reason: they may have refused to pay extortion to Zeta - and someday, the owners, workers, and patrons will see the awful results. So, give me the places whose prices have gone up 20%.
Having lived through the unpleasant experience of multiple extortion calls, I can tell you that even though we might know it's a fraud, it is still terrifying. They are good at what they do and many people pay which is why they continue to do it. They first identified themselves as the police asking about a report we had made (we had made no reports). They quickly changed to "this is comandante Z, we will cut off your hands and kill your wife and child if you do not make a deposit to this account immediately. We are outside your house (named our address) and watching you, do no hang up, do not call the police". The cops came and said they get reports 20-30 times a day, that it is thought to be prisoners going through the phone book randomly and seeing who bites. The calls kept coming, the one I answered said "Remember me? You called the police and now you are in trouble". I hung up immediately. If you get a call, "listen, hang up and call 088", it's the hotline for reporting extortion calls. It happened on our land line and we unplugged the phone too as they kept calling back. We ended up having to change our number and pay for a private listing. Ante la extorsión telefónica, escucha, cuelga y llama al 088 | Presidencia de la República
Great information, Cannuck! So far, no such calls, but I feel better prepared, should it happen, thanks to you!
