How have Romanians become fearsome in Mexico?
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After the case of the Romanians blocked for several days on the airport of Cancun, being banned from entering Mexico, the Mexican media also reported about the incident. The local journalists did not manage to obtain a clear reason from the Mexican authorities on their denial to accept the Romanians to Mexico, however, they reported about the criminal groups led by Romanians who have been operating in Mexico for the past years.
Less than two years ago, the Mexican Police found out, after it had got numerous alerts from the U.S., that all ATMs in the Cancun area, popular among tourists from all over the world, were controlled by a Romania-based criminal group that made huge profits from skimming money from the tourists’ bank accounts.
According to El Universal, in a letter sent on February 10, 2020, FBI asked FIU, the Mexican Financial Intelligence Unit, to cooperate with them in order to monitor the properties and the transactions made by Florian Tudor, the alleged leader of the gang, and by his partners, Adrian Constantin Tiugan and Adrian Ninel Enachescu.
FIU has found out so far that the members of the criminal group had transferred huge amounts of money to the bank accounts of their relatives, friends and of some companies, with the money also being used to purchase houses in Mexico and in other countries. FIU argued that this was the mechanism of laundering the money skimmed from the ATMs.
FBI has ended up monitoring Florian Tudor after several American citizens had reclaimed that their money had vanished from the accounts when they had spent their vacations in Mexico.
The Romanian organized crime group made transactions with at least eight companies headquartered in Mexico and Romania being involved. One of these companies was founded in 2013 by Adrian Constantin Tiugan who had APBs issued for his arrest for skimming ATMs in Italy and Vatican.
As the Mexican media reported, quoting a witness who was a former member of the group, the gang would have ended up in controlling 100 ATMs with special devices that used to copy the data of 1,000 cards every month. “We withdrew USD 200 from each card. USD 20 million withdrawn every month”, the witness recounted.
The organized crime group had branches on 3 continents and would have stolen tens of millions of USD dollars during 2014-2019. The gang was operating not only in Cancun, but also in Indonesia, India, Barbados, Paraguay, Brazil, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan.
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What your article says is that the collective discrimination, persecution, illegal arrest and mistreatment of Romanians citizen in Mexico is justified by some instances of criminal acts? Since when all the citizen of a country are guilty for individual crimes? Don’t you know that collective persecutions and mistreatment are forbidden by international laws. and only individual responsibility counts in the eyes of Law?
I am appalled how this newspaper can justify the collective mistreatment of the Romanians citizens in Mexico. Even murderers have rights to be represented by a lawyer and decent conditions in prison. Romanians had their passports confiscated which is illegal, had their phone taken away to prevent them getting help from Romanian embassy or a lawyer, and left without food and water and unsanitary condition during a pandemic, for nearly a week.
Shame on you Romanian Journal for trying to justify the abject treatment of Romanian citizens by the Mexican Border Police.
Sorry you understood that from our article, we have never mentioned in it that what happened to the Romanian tourists is justified by that, it is your misjudgement, we just presented a report of what might have triggered the decision of the Mexican authorities, starting from their suspicions regarding Romanians. That doesn’t mean we agree to that or that we endorse this conduct.
Anyway, in other extensive articles, we reported the situation of the Romanians, with all their testimonies and the positions of the Romanian authorities to condemn the mistreatment of the Romanians blocked on the Cancun airport.
https://www.romaniajournal.ro/society-people/romanians-blocked-on-the-cancun-airport-allowed-to-enter-mexico/
https://www.romaniajournal.ro/society-people/over-100-romanians-blocked-on-the-airport-in-cancun-fm-aurescu-avoid-trips-to-mexico/
I stand by my opinion that the article was wrong in every way.
I don’t care what triggered the response of Mexican authorities; what they did was a breach of international laws, of human rights, and naliotnalit based persecution. Nothing justifies the collective blaming and persecutions of all nationals of a country for some individual crimes. NOTHING
Coming from Mexico, one of the most dangerous country of the world, this “explanation” is a sick joke and evidence of poor journalism.
This article was totally uncalled.
It is your right to have any opinion you want, I also reiterate that the article does not imply anything, it presents only facts, journalists have to also report other sides of a story, even if they are dark and wrong, it doesn’t mean that we are assuming those facts. Reporting is not taking sides or approving facts. This was not an opinion article, only a report of facts.
And, of course we stand by the opinion that the conduct of the Mexican authorities was wrong, our Foreign Ministry has promptly intervened as a matter of fact and took stance in this abuse case.
I am not the only one who thinks this blame on Romanians is misplaced:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-8b2b-iVaw&list=PLKJaAZk1KYOTPmQvFUDPQlhaYISOlxsJw&index=6
So much about your objective reporting.