Mean streets of Mexico City

Lifestyle

Saturday June 14th 2008

As a foreigner living in Mexico City, Philip Suggars has some frank advice for anyone out and about on the streets

Saturday June 14th 2008

Green Volkswagen taxi cabs crowd the streets of Mexico City. Photograph: Jenny Acheson

Let me start with a confession. I love Mexico City. I also hate Mexico City. When I arrive in the Federal District of Mexico (el DF) I always feel conflicted. Half of me feels excitement at being immersed in a unique and alien culture. The other half of me feels like a rich widow stepping off the stagecoach into Dodge City.

Crime is everywhere in el DF, yet it's something that guidebooks gloss over. "Mexico City is no more dangerous than most northern European cities," says one well-known travel guide. "As long as you take the appropriate precautions you won't have any problems."

In my experience, unless the appropriate precautions include driving the Batmobile and wearing a Kevlar bodystocking, you are unlikely to find that Mexico City has much in common with Stockholm.

In a country with such extremes of wealth and poverty, foreigners are viewed by the criminal fraternity as little more than brogue-wearing cash machines. I've been robbed at gunpoint and chased down the street by a car full of youths intent on abducting me. Three of my friends have been hijacked in taxis. Two others, who went walking in the hills outside Mexico City one Sunday, were robbed by bandits brandishing toothy grins and machetes. Mugging is so common it's now referred to as "gringo tax".

Crime in Mexico City ranges from opportunistic stick-ups to the nastier gang-organised kidnaps involving high-profile business people and their families. It's not uncommon for these gangs to be run by the police or ex-police officers. In 2005 four officers from the Federal Investigation Unit were charged with kidnapping a man in Tijuana – precisely the sort of activity the unit was set up to combat.

The statistics are grim. So many kidnap victims are murdered every year that I sometimes wonder, morbidly, if the police are attempting to eradicate the problem by reducing the supply of kidnappees.

One of the first things that strike you about the traffic in Mexico City is the prevalence of bright green Volkswagen Beetle taxis (nicknamed vochos). "Oh, aren't they cute," coo tourists when they see them. The cars are cute, but I never forget that Hitler loved VW Beetles too.

Vochos have no back passenger doors. This makes it hard for passengers to exit in a hurry, but easy for unwelcome visitors to jump in. This feature is one of the reasons why taxi-hijackings, or express kidnaps, have become so popular.

While the exact details of each incident vary, I've included a step-by-step spotter's guide below:

You've drunk one too many mezcals and the long walk home through the city will crease your linen suit. You hail one of those cute vocho taxis and hop in.
The cab swerves into a dark street. Two fellows jump out of the darkness and try to open the passenger door.
The gentlemen gain entry to your vehicle. They produce handguns, which they point at your head. Often, at this point, the phrase "Now you die, gringo" is employed.
Your new friends drive you around the city. Being entrepreneurial types, they eschew tourist sites and drive you from cashpoint to cashpoint. At each, they insist that you withdraw the maximum sum.
Optional: Since you are all getting on so famously, your new pals insist that you stay with them for 24 hours, thereby adding more stops to your tour.
Optional: Being gregarious, your new best friends want to "go back to yours" to appraise your antique collection and make friends with your girlfriend.
Since you are an imperialist gringo-pig and confidant of George Bush, your impromptu guests administer a good beating, but hey, it's nothing personal.
You exit the moving taxi in a dangerous part of town. No need to worry though, your friends have guaranteed your safety by pre-removing all your valuables.

When a friend of mine, Damien, was kidnapped recently he was beaten up and his wallet, jacket and shoes were stolen. A fact that perplexed him, since at 6'5 his size 11s were unlikely to fit many Mexicans.

Suffice to say, I never complain about London cabbies.

Police and thieves

The police in Mexico are badly paid. They have to buy their own uniforms and pay for the repairs to their patrol cars. This means that many rely on bribes to top up their salaries. These mordidas (literally, "little bites") and a fondness for torture mean that the police are seen by many people as nothing more than the best-equipped of the city's gangs.

I'd like to take this opportunity to say that it isn't true... but I can't. The torture problem is so bad that a few years ago the attorney general ran an anti-torture training course for police prosecutors.

I watched the TV coverage of the event. Worthy types wagged fingers at the officers telling them that it was wrong to mutilate or burn suspects to obtain convictions. The officers looked on bemused, bored and uncomfortable, occasionally scratching at body parts. "Does it still count as torture if there are no marks?" one attendee asked.

This perception was borne out when I visited the local police station after being robbed by a gun-toting entrepreneur. My Mexican friends tried to discourage me, but I needed a police report. Only one of them, Desy, would accompany me. "Be careful what you say," I was told, "because they'll pass your details on to other gangs."

I went down to the police building and waited to report the theft. Eventually, an officer appeared and took me to a small cell. His first three questions related to the robbery. The rest related to where I worked, how much I got paid, when I got paid and which bank I used to collect my salary from. "Why do you need to know this?" Desy asked.

"Oh, are you from the embassy?" replied the officer, looking worried. "No," she said, "I'm just a friend." He looked unconvinced. "Well, I have enough for now," he said and shuffled us out. "But tell your friend to come back on his own. We need him to sign some documents before we can finish the report." I never did.

Especially if you live here, coping with the situation can be difficult, and rumours make it easy to indulge in paranoia. Some people invest in bulletproof SUVs (the only country that sells more of them than Mexico is Colombia) or private security teams (a risk, since these are often co-opted by kidnappers as well).

The only practical security method is to develop your own virtual wing mirrors: keep your eyes (and ears) open, be ready to run like hell and always carry enough cash to pay anyone who can catch you. And, failing that, never get in a taxi if the driver is wearing size 11 brogues.

• Click here to view Phil Suggars' blog.

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