113 Global News Post 2
Lindsey Heben
Quintana Roo to host North American security summit from Mexico News Daily
This coming Friday on February 18th, officials from the United States, Mexico, and Canada will all meet in the Mexican state of Quintana Roo to hold a security summit. This meeting will be a collaboration of personnel from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and various local officials in Mexico. At this security summit, security officials from all three nations will have the chance to exchange intelligence, review international crime trends, and discuss strategies for fighting and preventing crime. This is the second recent summit of this nature held in Mexico, following a similar meeting in Chetumal in early February where Mexico was joined by officials from France, Canada, and Belize.
It appears that Mexico is attempting to dedicate more effort and resources to fighting their crime related issues, as shown by the two successive security summits the country has hosted. According to Quintana Roo governor Carlos Joaquín, one purpose of this upcoming summit is to identify international criminal organizations operating in Quintana Roo. According to the article, there has been an uptick in violent crime in tourist areas, including one instance where two Canadian citizens were murdered near the city of Tulum. Occurrences like this are growing increasingly common in Mexico, and other countries are stepping in to promote security and safety.
The main cause of this growing source of violence is stemming from the presence of cartel groups in Mexico, such as the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, the Sinaloa Cartel, and the Gulf Cartel. These groups have been known to work in the drug industry and are of the most powerful cartel groups in the country. This threat is compounded, however, by the other foreign criminal groups who have come to Mexico and began operating in the state of Quintana Roo as well. It has been recorded that the state saw 650 homicides just last year, prompting the US to issue warnings and travel advisories for citizens visiting the popular tourist state. This article linked to many other stories on Mexico News Daily that provided further evidence of the violence and safety concerns experienced in Quintana Roo, but reports by the Spanish publication Milenio were presented as well, where the involvement of the FBI and DEA were described in greater detail. Here there are more explanations of the crimes that have been seen around the Mexican state in question, and this lends even more credibility to the necessity of the security summit and the need for international cooperation and support.