There are no detainees, not a single bullet was fired and it took attackers at least eight hours to remove the goods. The biggest heist in the history of Manzanillo, Mexico’s main trading port, feels like the plot of a crime novel. Authorities have confirmed that twenty cargo containers containing gold, silver and electronic equipment disappeared without a trace after an armed commando broke into a transport company. “This is unprecedented, there was no robbery of this kind,” confirmed Gustavo Adrián Joya, spokesman for the government security of Colima, on Monday. The case was exposed in the Mexican press this weekend, almost seven days after the events happened, before the Office of the Attorney General (FGR), the State Ministry, the Minister of the Navy or any other government institution issued an official statement about what happened.
A squad of more than a dozen gunmen broke into the Alonso Mireles Maneuvering company in the early hours of June 5 and gagged the guards guarding the maneuvering yard, a large area where containers are handled before they enter port come in reconstructions of the press and data confirmed by the authorities in a press conference. The attackers took it easy. According to the officer, they opened several containers, selecting only those they wanted to take and leaving the rest intact. “They were very selective about the type of goods stolen, especially precious metals,” Joya said. The theft required the use of cranes, forklifts and trucks to remove the goods. “They had the logistics,” added the spokesman.
The press and the general public quickly labeled the robbery the “robbery of the century” or compared it to television series such as La casa de papel. In addition to the spectacular nature of the attack, the robbery also provoked criticism of the government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador and its decision to militarize port security under the argument of fighting organized crime. The decision, made in mid-2020, was not without controversy and forced the then Minister of Communications and Transport, Javier Jiménez Espriú, to resign from the cabinet. Manzanillo on the Mexican Pacific is the country’s primary gateway to the Asian market, with China being the main point of origin and destination for port operations. Drug cartels have fought for control of the port, where they offload precursors for synthetic drugs made in Mexico and sold primarily in the United States. However, no group has been accused of theft.
The authorities have not denied the journalistic versions of the robbery, but have stressed that it was not committed inside the port facilities, in response to the question of how looting of this magnitude could have taken place without the security forces realizing the bill. “Apparently there was a raid on a container yard, but such facilities are not part of the port area,” a spokesman for the Navy Minister told the newspaper. “Actually, what has been said, when it happened, happened outside on a private patio where individuals store their goods until they enter the port area for shipment on a ship or vice versa,” he added.
In the same vein, Joya, who represents several state and federal companies that coordinate security in the state, has insisted the responsibility for protecting the goods rests with the company. “They didn’t have the infrastructure that a place of this type needs,” the spokesman said. The official said several investigative files were initiated by prosecutors and their colleagues at FGR, but he also denied local authorities responsibility, arguing it was a federal crime. Federal prosecutors have not spoken publicly. Horacio Duarte, National Customs Manager, was spotted last Sunday at a proselytization action by Morena, López Obrador’s party, but he hasn’t commented on his social networks either.
The state spokesman said robberies around the port of Manzanillo “are not as common as it seems” and that thefts usually happen when the products are in transit on the road, particularly through Jalisco, stronghold of the Jalisco Nueva Generación cartel of the same name . . . Colima, ruled by Morena since last year, has claimed in recent years that high crime rates per capita are a result of the presence of criminal organizations in neighboring states of Michoacán and Jalisco, and a small population of little more than 730,000 people. “I don’t have the data,” Joya said of the quantity of goods stolen in another of the unknowns surrounding the case.
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