Playa del Carmen, Quintana Roo — The city’s Public Security Department has classified information about the number of police officers assigned to protect municipal officials, citing security concerns, for a period of five years.
Carlos Alberto Montesinos García, head of the Municipal Public Security Department, argued that releasing the data would provide no social benefit and would instead create an irreparable tactical vulnerability that directly compromises public safety in Playa del Carmen.
The classification came four days after a citizen submitted a request through the Transparency and Access to Public Information Liaison Unit. The Transparency Committee held an extraordinary session on June 26 to approve the measure.
The original request, filed on June 22, asked only for the total number of officers assigned to protect municipal officials — not the names of those officials or how many officers each one receives.
In the committee’s resolution, officials acknowledged that the requested information is held by the Municipal Public Security Department.
Montesinos stated that providing a breakdown of personnel from the mayor’s office down to municipal institutes would give criminals an exact map of police distribution, allowing them to know precisely how many officers guard each official daily. However, the request did not ask for per-official numbers.
Under previous administrations, only the mayor and the honorary president of the Municipal DIF system received police protection. Other officials, like ordinary citizens, moved about without security details.
The information has been classified for five years, meaning the same request cannot be fulfilled until after two municipal administrations have passed and the current officials are no longer in office.
