MEXICO: Police Swoop Down on Maze-like Market of Illegal Goods

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Diego Cevallos

MEXICO, Nov 18 2000 (IPS) - In an unprecedented operation, hundreds of police occupied the Tepito neighbourhood of Mexico City Friday, one of the biggest markets for contraband, pirated and stolen goods in Latin America, where looting and rioting broke out Thursday.

The police action, in which 600 police cars and 1,800 officers took part, allowed security forces to regain control over the area early Friday, said spokespersons for the Mexican government.

Although the police were unable to seize the pirated and stolen goods that they were seeking, which vanished along with the delinquents, most of the illegal trade in Tepito was brought to a halt for the first time in 40 years.

Tepito, located in the centre of Mexico City, not far from the central square and the house of government, is one of the main hubs of commerce in smuggled, counterfeit and fenced articles in Latin America, according to a study by the Mexican Intellectual Property Institute.

Trade in bootleg video cassette recordings, medicine, music, clothing, computer software, liquor, books and dozens of other pirated products generates annual earnings of around 500 million dollars in Mexico, the Institute estimates.

The Confederation of Chambers of Industry, meanwhile, says some 33 billion dollars worth of contraband goods were smuggled into Mexico from 1998 to 1999, while a large part of that total was sold in Tepito.

The impossibility of making inroads into the illegal trade carried out in Tepito is attributed by police to “sophisticated” channels of communication and networks of complicity among the 50,000 people who live in the 50-block area, where they hawk their wares night and day.

Local residents of the area retained several police officers in the maze of shops and stalls Thursday, as the police, armed with a warrant, attempted to carry out a search.

The police barely escaped lynching by the furious throng, and around 100 enraged individuals began to loot stores and destroy police cars. They set alight two trucks and forced dozens of police officers to flee the area. For more than eight hours, no one was able to enter Tepito.

The neighbourhood, which 500 years ago was home to native communities of merchants, has become notorious for its violence in recent years. Its streets and plazas have become a labyrinth of small shops, where even the police fear to tread.

Anything from trucks to drugs to the latest weapons can be purchased in Tepito, as well as all kinds of pirated, stolen or smuggled products.

In the past six months, the police have cracked down on the neighbourhood on several occasions, recovering stolen merchandise and confiscating counterfeit goods, as well as more than 500 doses of cocaine.

There are virtually no controls in Tepito, where police corruption flourishes and a perfectly organised network of crime acts with impunity, said Alejandro Martínez, president of the Confederation of the Chambers of Industries.

Thursday’s looting and violence clearly demonstrated that lawlessness reigns in Tepito, he added.

After Thursday’s rampage, just nine people were arrested, and 16 investigations of alleged criminals were opened.

Spokespersons for the city government, which is in the hands of the centre-left Party of the Democratic Revolution, said the violence could have been aggravated if the police had entered Tepito while the looting was going on.

But now, with the massive police presence, order will begin to be imposed in the area, they pledged.

However, industrialists and merchants are sceptical that those promises will be kept, since organised crime is so strong, and police corruption rife, they complain.

Tepito became “a socioeconomic laboratory for crime,” partly because “the system fuels an underground economy tightly linked to crime and drug trafficking,” said Alfonso Hernández, the president of the Centre of Research on Tepito, a group that is documenting the history of the neighbourhood.

Although the police recommend that people stay away from Tepito, and that they buy legal products in safe areas, thousands of locals and foreigners wander its labyrinth of streets every day, coming out with loads of mainly fenced, falsified or contraband — but cheap — goods.