MEXICO CITY (AP).— The National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI) acknowledged that last year it had to pay cartels to enter certain cities to carry out the census.
Some analysts say drug cartels target drug cartel workers, polling firms and marketing researchers in some parts of Mexico for a number of reasons.
The deputy director of INEGI’s Economic and Agricultural Censuses, 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 many different strategies, from, in some cases, paying to enter. Maybe paying small figures, but paying to enter,” said the director, explaining that they also resort to hiring personnel who live in those areas that are known for the residents and by “those who could be committing crime.”
“A very important one is to hire personnel from the area, who know very well the people of the locality or of the area that is being censused, and who is also known to those people, and who is known to those who may be incurring in issues crime,” he said.
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 Mexican government, but enjoys almost total autonomy to ensure that statistics are not tampered with by politicians.
Security analyst David Saucedo said that drug cartels and gangs are indeed targeting INEGI workers, as well as collaborators from survey and marketing companies in some parts of Mexico.
“There are cases where organized crime groups extort and ask pollsters and supervisors for money to let them conduct surveys. In this case it is a simple and plain extortion crime,” Saucedo said.
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.
In places like the troubled states of Michoacán and Guerrero, drug cartels may want to influence poll results to boost the candidacies of politicians who are allied with them, analysts say. Some parties in Mexico use polls to choose their candidates in internal processes.
“If (the cartels) detect pollsters taking up questionnaires, they take them up and force them to survey members of the drug trafficker’s social support base so that the results favor the candidates of their choice,” Saucedo said.
There is growing concern in the country that the authorities have abandoned some areas that are now under the control of drug gangs.
Federal authorities acknowledged this month that a demonstration of hundreds of people in Chilpancingo, Guerrero, was organized by the Los Ardillos drug gang, and that the mobilization was aimed at forcing the government to release two leaders of the group who were being held on charges of possession of drugs and weapons.
In the neighboring state of Michoacán, residents recently acknowledged that almost all basic products in their region cost between 30% and 50% more because drug cartels controlled distribution, and that the situation was known to authorities.
Dealers told the AP that the high prices were due to “taxes” collected by a local drug cartel, or by ownership of distribution points run by drug traffickers.
It has long become a dangerous practice for strangers to enter towns and start asking questions.
In 2015, a mob killed and burned two pollsters conducting a survey on tortilla consumption in a small town southeast of Mexico City.
In 2016, three men working for a polling company were rescued from a mob who brutally beat them in the state of Tabasco.
