Mexico’s rsupervisor of airports and ports is suspected of facilitating drug trafficking

Deputy Director of Airports Supervision Juan Manuel Hernández Palafox has been linked to organized crime groups and facilitating the passage of drug shipments through Mexico City’s International Airport, as well as airports in Cancún, Guadalajara and Tijuana, Proceso reported. New documents allege that criminal organizations from Colombia, Peru and Venezuela send cocaine and heroin shipments to the designated Mexican airports.

In 2009, Hernández Palafox, then commander of Mexico’s federal police, was prosecuted on organized crime charges, after a video emerged exposing alleged relationships between himself and various other public officials and the Gulf Cartel. He was officially exonerated in 2010.
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador handpicked Hernández Palafox for his latest role, in which he has been operating under “absolute protection” from his immediate boss, Ángel González Ramírez, the head of the regional security division of Mexico’s federal police.

Authorities didn’t appear to have any interest in investigating allegations against Hernández Palafox, which they were reportedly aware of, until details of the leaked documents were made public. Hernández Palafox has now been removed from his position and Mexico’s Secretariat of Security and Citizen Protection confirmed an investigation into his activities is underway. Mexico’s head of customs once described all airports in the country as sewers with drugs, arms and illicit cash constantly moving through them. In just the first three months of 2019, an estimated two tons of cocaine and several kilograms of heroin have passed through Mexico City’s international airport alone, according to Proceso.

President López Obrador announced a plan to clean up corruption at the country’s airports. However, this approach is focused on eliminating extortion, and neither acknowledges the extent of the corruption engulfing Mexico’s terminals that facilitate such drug trafficking activities, nor suggests viable solutions to tackle it.

This post is based on a report in InSight Crime. Sources are also Proceso reports here and here...