April 22nd, 2010Mexican Cartels Use Social Networking To Evade Authorities
A method of avoiding military raids and police checkpoints is now being used by Mexican drug cartels; they now use Facebook and twitter to share information. Police believe the social networking sites have aided the kidnapping of the relatives of businessmen and politicians by helping identify the families of a high profile individual and monitoring their daily activity.
Ordinary citizens have already angered the authorities by using twitter to alert one another of the locations of breathalyzer checkpoints using the twitter username ‘@anitaa_df’ and the site is being used in a similar manner by the drug dealers.
Drug gangs are using Twitter and other social networks as a method of communication with one another, using coded terms and phrases. Social networks have not only been used as communication but also to incite fear amongst communities. The town of Reynosa, 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!”
“Twitter is a serious problem not only to Mexican law-enforcement agencies but to any law or intelligence agencies all over the world,” says Mexican security expert Ghaleb Krame “criminals, drug cartels and terrorist cells are getting more sophisticated in their methods of communication.”
A recent bill was drafted to allow the Mexican government to closely regulate and monitor the use of social networking in Mexico. Helping others break or avoid the law by sharing information is now a criminal act under the new bill. The bill will not target the social media companies themselves only the users of the networks. The bill has been controversial in Mexico and many users have slammed the legislation as an excuse to act as Big Brother.
Many websites use SEO to gain visits and these are often the ones with the best SEO Cheshire