Tulum, Quintana Roo: 450 Federal Forces Deployed To Stabilize Security

"Sol Prendido" for Borderland Beat”

Video translation is as follows:

Female Newscaster: We’re also seeing for example, in Quintana Roo after the murder of two foreign tourists, that approximately 450 soldiers have arrived in Tulum. To take charge of the public security of that tourist paradise. That today is under siege by no more and no less than five criminal groups.

Where they have not been attacked and where, unlike the local authorities, it’s an every day occurrence. 

Female Reporter: 450 soldiers, sailors, and elements of the National Guard arrived this Wednesday in the municipality of Tulum, Quintana Roo to reinforce security.

This arrival takes place one week after the confrontation between criminal groups that left a balance of two murdered foreign tourists. And three more wounded. The events occurred on the night of Wednesday, October 20, at the La Malquerida establishment. Which is located on Calle Centauro.

The State Prosecutor's Office reconstructed the events. The place currently remains cordoned off and the street closed. While José ‘L’ the only suspect detained in this case tested positive for sodium rhodizonate. Which shows that he fired one of the firearms.

Violence in Tulum intensified in 2018. According to the Secretary of Public Security of Quintana Roo, five criminal organizations operate in Tulum. The Los Pelones Cartel, Los Bonfil, Jalisco New Generation Cartel, La Barredora, and the Los Zetas of the Vieja Escuela.

In the last three years, the number of investigative folders opened for intentional homicide increased 109 percent compared to a year earlier. And for 2020 there was an increase of 44.1 percent.

This was not the only crime that escalated. Burglary of a habitat, armed robbery against citizens, family violence, extortion, dispossession, and drug trafficking are on the rise.

At the beginning of October, hitmen murdered a 6-month-old baby and her father in Akumal. And days later a 16-year-old girl was injured in a neighboring community when assailants shot at the facade of her wooden house.

Bibiana Belsasso