2023-07-28 20:26:02
MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico’s statistics institute acknowledged that last year it had to pay gangs to enter certain cities to conduct the census. And some analysts say, in this regard, that drug cartels target drug cartel workers, polling companies and marketing researchers in some parts of Mexico for numerous reasons.
The deputy director of Economic and Agricultural Censuses of the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI), Susana Pérez, declared yesterday before a commission of the Chamber of Deputies that agency employees were forced to hire criminals to conduct some census interviews. , and that one of the officials was kidnapped while trying to conduct interviews.
Pérez affirmed that the problem was worse in the rural areas of the country, and that INEGI had to use various methods to be able to operate in those regions.
“There are various strategies, from in some cases paying to enter,” said the director, explaining that they also resort to hiring personnel who live in those areas who are known by the residents and by “those who might be committing crime.”
In central and northern Mexico, where violence is troubled by turf wars over drug trafficking and migration, census workers found abandoned farming communities with no one to survey.
INEGI is funded by the government, but enjoys almost total autonomy to ensure that statistics are not tampered with by politicians.
Security analyst David Saucedo said Friday that drug cartels and gangs are indeed targeting INEGI workers, as well as collaborators with polling and marketing companies in some parts of Mexico.
“There are cases where organized crime groups extort money from pollsters and supervisors to let them conduct surveys. In this case, it is a simple and plain extortion crime,” said Saucedo.
Other factors make going door-to-door asking questions even more dangerous work, the analyst said. “Sometimes the cartels harass pollsters by confusing them with members of other criminal groups, because rival groups disguise themselves as government brigade members or pollsters to do intelligence work in areas under enemy control,” he added.
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