Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Today in Extortion

A couple of new lows: a 70-year-old priest in Celaya was threatened with murder if he didn't buy protection from a local group, and 25 federal police officers in Yucatán were arrested for operating an extortion ring.

Reasons for hope: the government seems to be out in front of this a little more than usual (which is to say, they are only a couple of years late to the party). Earlier this week, federal Secretary of Public Security Genaro García Luna and his state counterparts hammered out the Integrated Strategy of Attention to the Crime of Extortion. The program, which was designed with the participation of business leaders as well, includes new hotlines, databases, provisions for more thorough investigations, and mechanisms for accountability. At the same news conference, García Luna announced a pair of new police professionalization programs, which ideally would prevent such scandals as the second mentioned above.

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