• CORRUPTION: Mexico’s high volumes of foreign trade along with an extensive network of compromised public officials make the eradication of corruption at Mexico’s 49 customs offices a very complex task, according to members of the private sector.
• ERADICATION: “If you want to implement measures to clean customs offices (from corruption) you would have to replace all customs personnel, make a list of users and of the people who enter each customs office”, said Javier Ortiz of Mexico’s maquiladora industry association (INDEX).
• OFFICES: Last week, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador announced the resignation of Ricardo Ahued as head of Mexico’s customs and lamented prevalent corruption. Mexico’s largest customs offices are in the border with the US: Nuevo Laredo, Ciudad Juárez and Tijuana.
• MONSTER: “Customs is a pending issue, we have not been able to clean”, President López Obrador said Friday. “It is a monster with 100 heads. They talk to me about the customs office in Manzanillo, about the customs office in Lázaro Cárdenas, about the customs office in Tijuana”.
