Quintana Roo Boosts Security for World Cup Visitors

Quintana Roo, Mexico — To safeguard the integrity and economy of visitors arriving in Quintana Roo for the upcoming World Cup, the State Secretariat of Citizen Security (SSC) announced the implementation of a special surveillance and prevention strategy.

Julio César Gómez Torres, head of the SSC, emphasized that the priority is to consolidate the state as a safe destination, focusing particular efforts on combating fraud crimes affecting the tourism sector.

“We are working with service providers in general, hoteliers, travel package sales agencies, to monitor the issue of tourist packages, the teams that will arrive, and security in hotels,” said Torres.

In this regard, the secretary explained that the Cyber Police maintain continuous digital patrols to identify the sale of fraudulent services and deactivate them as soon as possible. Therefore, a meeting with the business sector is scheduled to strengthen coordinated surveillance.

He reported that, as part of ordinary intelligence work, between 80 and 100 pages related to irregular activities are deactivated every Monday, an achievement reached thanks to joint blocking with tourism service providers.

“Through monitoring we can identify these situations more quickly, but if we do it with the help of different service providers it is much more effective, and with this establish a link with the cyber police who have the authority to deactivate or take down any fraudulent page identified within minutes,” specified Torres Gómez.

This prevention scheme is part of permanent work that will intensify before and during the sporting event, although authorities confirmed that, so far, no apocryphal sites specifically linked to the World Cup have been detected.

Nevertheless, the secretary recalled the importance of remaining alert: “Let’s remember that there have been cases of well-known companies where fraudulent pages have sold packages at some point in their name, and we have prevented this type of case.”

Finally, the head of the SSC warned that events of international stature represent an opportunity for economic flow, but also for organized crime.

Quintana Roo is expected to receive one million visitors, due to connectivity with Cancún International Airport.