Unreported illicit earnings are obtained by the Yucatan Ministry of Public Security (SSP) in its license plate exchange module located in the Xcumpich neighborhood, north of Mérida.
Through a network of facilitators, known as “VIP coyotes”, the citizen is extorted 1,500 pesos to obtain a quick and expeditious file and thus save months of waiting.
With this practice, the director of the SSP module, José Guzmán Salcido, manages to collect around 150 thousand pesos a day from the pockets of vehicle owners who want an “express” procedure.
PRESIDIO investigated reports from module users about extortion carried out on-site to avoid queues and waiting outside those facilities.
Currently, due to the pandemic, appointments to carry out the procedure are obtained by telephone at the number 9994000480 and are granted on deferred dates, with several months of waiting.
These days, for example, the closest appointment is agreed by telephone for the end of July or the beginning of August of the current year.
This makes citizens want to speed up their process, given the risk that the year ends and their vehicles may be detained for having expired license plates.
For this reason, they go to the module asked for some way to do it faster, and the staff that outside provides the numbers of the “VIP coyotes” to contact them.
Once the processor is contacted, he sends one of his “assistants” who is on the site to deliver the papers and money, which add up to 1,700 pesos for official law, plus the 1,500 fee that is not reported. to the state government funds.
If it is also necessary to change the owner, the cost increases from 400 to 1,500 pesos more, depending on the year and model of the vehicle.
In this way, the citizen ends up paying around 4 thousand pesos for the complete procedure, the same day. However, this amount is beyond the reach of most Yucatecan families, who barely manage to collect the 1,700 pesos they charge for new plates.
It is worth mentioning that the payment of “bite” to obtain an express token is voluntary, that is, no one is forced to hire the clandestine service, but citizens feel forced to fall into this practice due to the waiting time.
Once papers and money have been delivered, and after verifying that they are complete, the envoys enter directly into the office of the director Guzmán Salcido or the coordinator of the module, Jesús Benjamín Hernández Estrada, whose secretaries are in charge of capturing the data of the “ client”.
The assistants of the “VIP coyotes” remain in the office until a few minutes later they are called and go directly to the collection box.
It should be remembered that the SSP vehicle procedures module was closed for several months due to the pandemic and was reopened in September of last year, with this new modality for collecting illicit funds.
As it was found out, there were already more than 100 managers authorized by the state government by means of an official letter, who did the procedure for the citizen and with this, agglomerations were avoided.
Each manager attended two or three procedures a day, upon payment of 500 pesos, thus achieving a goal of about 250 daily procedures, avoiding the concentration of more people in the module.
However, when the Xchumpich module reopened in September, the coordinator called some close friends to work as “VIPs”, without having official registration, so they operate in the “dark”.
Through an investigation, PRESIDIO was able to identify nine alleged “VIP coyotes” with the names of Francisco Hoyos Figueroa, Fidel Basulto, Tony Méndez and his wife Madeleine; Iván Morales and his son Iván; Martín Martínez and Grefy Martínez, who would be the ex-wife of the legal director of the Angel Díaz module, and one more named Geovany.
These “VIPs” are allowed to serve 10 to 15 people a day each, that is, at least 90 users who would leave a minimum spill of around 150 thousand pesos that do not go through the State Secretariat of Administration and Finance.
The money, according to the investigation carried out with internal sources of the module, is divided with Guzmán Salcido, who was put in office by the head of the SSP, Luis Felipe Saidén Ojeda, more than 10 years ago, when the module of plates and licenses was in front of the Parque de la Paz.
Source: presidiomx.com
