Cancún residents fear police more than criminals at Christmas

Cancún, Quintana Roo — This Christmas season, the concern among part of the population of Benito Juárez is not limited to traffic agents; citizens and merchants warn about alleged abuses in various public agencies.

Recent recommendations from residents have generated the perception of “having to protect themselves from both crime and the authorities themselves.”

The most frequent accusations are concentrated in the Civil Registry, where users report irregular charges, inflated rates, payments for services without the delivery of official receipts, and even point to the issuance of false receipts.

“I paid 3,000 pesos for a procedure that should cost 500 and they didn’t give me any document,” said Luz María.

There are also allegations against the Secretariat of Citizen Security (SSC) of Benito Juárez and agents of the State Attorney General’s Office (FGE), where, according to testimonies from residents, some elements allegedly detain people under fabricated accusations with the purpose of extorting them.

According to data from the State Human Rights Commission, both corporations lead the entity in reports of abuse of authority, aggression, and even dispossession of belongings, accumulating 259 complaints from January to November of this year.

Additionally, other municipal areas such as Fiscalization, Civil Protection, Street Vending, Cofepris, and the Directorate of Ecology and Urban Development have also been pointed out for improper practices and operations considered as “hunts” for irregular sanctions.

To this problem is added the excessive increase in the prices of supplies, a situation that, according to merchants, aggravates the pressure exerted by authorities against them.

“First they sanction me for displaying merchandise on the street and then they increase the cost of products; it’s impossible to work this way,” expressed a vendor from the city’s downtown area.

In this context, municipal authorities launched last Sunday, December 14, operations with laser speed radars on roads such as Colosio Boulevard (70 km/h), Kukulcán, José López Portillo, and Bonampak, in addition to interior city streets (60 km/h) and school zones (20 km/h).

According to Mayor Ana Patricia Peralta, these operations, coordinated by the SSC and the National Guard, have a preventive character in their initial phase, without application of fines, only with warnings, and seek to reduce traffic accidents.

For his part, the head of the SSC, Jaime Padilla Barrientos, affirmed that these actions will be carried out permanently and randomly to foster a responsible traffic culture; however, numerous citizens question whether the same effort is applied to eradicate abuses in other government areas.

Luis Esquivel, former president of the Cancún Bar Association, commented that the reality is that while traffic safety measures are reinforced, the population continues to face abusive practices in essential public services, a contrast that tarnishes the December period for many.