Mexico’s government continues to use faulty stats to push a false narrative that the cartel-controlled country is safe. In the most recent attempt to trick the public, Mexico’s government is claiming that one-third of the country’s more than 130,000 persons reported as missing are believed to be alive.
During one of Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum’s daily news conferences, her team presented a report on missing persons, trying to downplay a figure of more than 130,000 missing people in recent years. That figure, confirmed by Mexico’s government, has become a black eye for Sheinbaum as the growing number of points to the government not doing enough to protect the public from criminal organizations.
Various groups of activists claim that the real figure of people who have been taken by cartel gunmen is much higher, but is being kept artificially low by Mexico’s government as an attempt to downplay the levels of violence in the country.
At the root of the issue is the Mexican government’s continued attempt to use vague classifications for crime and faulty statistics to hide the true levels of violence nationwide. In the case of individuals who are taken by cartel gunmen and never heard from again, Mexico’s government typically classifies them simply as missing persons, a very vague category that includes many other cases, such as runaways and those who leave abusive relations.
By classifying them as missing and not kidnapped or another classification that included people taken by gunmen, Mexico’s government is able to largely ignore the statistic and not include it in its crime index.
In the cases of people who have been taken by cartel gunmen only to be killed and have their bodies disposed of, by classifying them as missing persons, Mexico is able to avoid having to add them to its murder statistics.
It is that figure of missing persons that Mexico’s government claims to have found signs that one-third of them are alive. In their explanation, government officials cited tax filings, vaccination records, and other bureaucratic records indicating that the individuals had been active after the date they were reported missing. The “found” individuals are then explained as cases of runaways or individuals leaving abusive relations, and not of cartel kidnapping victims.
Ildefonso Ortiz is an award-winning journalist with Breitbart News Foundation. He co-founded Breitbart News Foundation’s Cartel Chronicles project with Brandon Darby and senior Breitbart management. You can follow him on Twitter and on Facebook. He can be contacted at [email protected].
Brandon Darby is the managing director and editor-in-chief of Breitbart Texas. He co-founded Breitbart News Foundation’s Cartel Chronicles project with Ildefonso Ortiz and senior Breitbart management. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook. He can be contacted at [email protected].
Read the full article here