Admiral Says Local Police Cameras Spied on Military

(Acapulco, AN 16 June) In a luncheon address to Grupo ACA, a prominent local civic group, Admiral Sergio Javier Lara Montellano, commander of the VIII Naval Region based in Acapulco, said that city police cameras connected to a nearby Emergency Response Center had been surreptitiously installed in the military zone and were aimed at various points inside the military installation. He affirmed that information on movements of the military thus obtained was leaked to organized crime groups. “We determined that the city police had placed spy cameras in our facilities,” he confirmed. “The information was disseminated to crime groups by taxi drivers who serve as informants and by corrupt police in both the traffic police and in crime prevention,” he said. The admiral then explained that the Navy has taken over the Emergency Response Center and has corrected the spying into military areas. “As you know, that control point has been attacked several times. It was raked with gunfire on one occasion, and several transit police were killed. That’s why we took it over.” He added that not all police officers are considered to have allied themselves with organized crime groups, but it is evident that information in the hands of the municipal police quickly makes its way to drug lords. Information about Naval movements is useful to smugglers attempting to load and unload drugs along the coast undetected.

In a question session the Admiral was asked why the Navy is also taking over beach patrols in the Diamond Zone. He said that the coastline is within the jurisdiction of the Army and Navy, and that most drug distribution in that area is accomplished by people on ATV’s, going up and down the beaches. The admiral said that the initiative against organized crime was to constrain and contain the competing groups, each day reducing the areas in which they can operate. “We are winning that struggle,” he said.