Mexicans are now using social networks such as Facebook and Twitter to share information to avoid police checkpoints and breathalyzer stops. Police believe the social networking sites have also been used in the kidnapping of the relatives of businessmen and politicians by helping identify the families of a high profile individual and monitoring their daily activity.
Officials have been frustrated by citizens using twitter to alert each other of the locations of breathalyzer checkpoints, they use the name @anitaa_df to message each other and a similar tactic is now being used by drug dealers.
“Twitter is a serious problem not only to Mexican law-enforcement agencies but to any law or intelligence agencies all over the world, criminals, drug cartels and terrorist cells are getting more sophisticated in their methods of communication,” said Ghaleb Krame, Mexican security expert.
Criminal organisations have begun to use Twitter and other social networks as a method of communication, using coded terms and phrases to evade suspicion. Social networks have not only been used as communication but also to incite fear amongst communities. Reynosa, a town whose citizens have been victim of drug gang activity, was terrorized by members of a cartel spreading messages. One such message read; “The largest scheduled shootout in the history of Reynosa will be tomorrow or Sunday, send this message to people you trust that tomorrow a convoy of 60 trucks full of cartel hit men from the Michoacan Family together with members of the Gulf Cartel are coming to take the city and take everyone out alive or dead!”
A bill recently drafted by the Mexican government will allow the regulation and monitoring of the use of social networks in Mexico. Helping others break or avoid the law by sharing information is now a criminal act under the new bill. Authorities insist the bill is not aimed at the social networks themselves, only the users of them but it has been controversial in Mexico as many users have slammed it as an excuse to act as Big Brother.
The networking has been used to avoid breathalyzers as drivers do not want a drink driving ban as adriving offence in Mexico holds a strong penalty.