A "Bermuda triangle" in the Mexican metro: 153 missing in four years

MEXICO.- The 195 subway stations of the Mexican capital have become in the last four years a sort of
Bermuda Triangle. At least 153 people have disappeared from its facilities.

According to El PAÍS, Attorney General of the Capital (PGJ), 43 investigations have been opened over the last year and up to now by users last seen on the platforms of this public transport.

65% of these investigations were closed quickly with the reappearance of missing cases. The remaining 35% imply however that at least 15 users have not been reviewed and have joined the list of 138 missing in the Mexican metro network between 2015 and 2017.

"It hurts me to think that I could have been part of the disappearance statistics." Despite the fact that a few days have pbaded, Graciela is scared. On Sunday, January 13, this 30-year-old woman returned home in the afternoon after taking her daughter to rehabilitation. Five men and a woman surrounded him on the stairs of a subway station and tried unsuccessfully to take him away. according to the account. He even remembers hearing how they gave him a prize: "For this one, they gave you 20".

After a fight, Graciela was able to flee and get in a car. "I think of those people who could not escape and whom we now remember as another number in the tables of the Ministry of Public Security," he said. The event occurred in Chabacano, a station near the historic center of the capital and through which hundreds of people spend one day a day to access one of the three lines with which it connects.

The subway of the city of

Mexico

he was one of the few who implemented the separation policy
Exclusive wagons for women to avoid the high number of badual harbadment complaints they have faced. Moreover, it is one of the most populous. Jorge Gaviño, who was director of the public transport system (service entity), calculated in 2017 that the Mexican system was carrying 5.5 million users a day. The second most saturated country in the world, only behind that of New Delhi, India. In December of the same year, the Mexican Big Data website announced that the Attorney General's office had informed, through a request for information, the disappearance of 138 people in the suburban capital between 2015 and 2017.

"The worst thing is that they tell you that because there are a lot of people who can not get there," says Graciela remembering that when she had told him what had happened to her on social networks, many laughed at her and called her a liar. She is convinced that it was not an attempted robbery, but a kidnapping. "They never wanted to take my cell phone or my bag, but they intended to catch me," he says. Although the transport authorities learned what had happened after the incident, only two police officers monitor the place daily.

Although the network of the Mexico City Government Computing Center has 3417 cameras in the metro facilities, it was not possible to determine what happened on that Sunday or what happened to the 153 users entered. in a subway station and they disappeared. In addition to video surveillance of the city, the metro has its own registration system. "Work is underway to achieve integration and joint work between the metro and the C5 [el centro de control de la ciudad]", informed a spokeswoman of the new administration of the city.

"Unfortunately, the cameras do not cover all the stations so we can follow them." The investigation is continuing because it has not been discovered that this had happened. [en el caso de Graciela]", acknowledges a spokesman of the Prosecutor General's Office The main problem facing the judicial body of the capital is that, although aware of several cases of alleged abductions, these n & # 39; 39; have not been able to open an investigation due to the absence of complaint If this does not happen, they will not be able to determine whether there is a criminal gang or not behind the disappearances, ensures the spokesperson of the Attorney General's Office. "We ask those who have been victims of kidnappings or attempted kidnappings on the subway. then they denounce it, "he asks.

Given the high level of impunity surrounding the Mexican justice system, reporting a crime has become a challenge. This is the case of Graciela, who chose not to address the prosecutor's office because she did not want her recorded data to remain. "I had a bad experience with that a few years ago." After reporting a robbery, the badailant's family got his information and went to his home to ask him to withdraw his complaint.

El País newspaper