Mexico’s President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador gives his daily, morning news conference at the presidential palace, Palacio Nacional, in Mexico City, Monday, July 13, 2020. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)
OAN Newsroom
UPDATED 8:12 AM PT — Saturday, July 18, 2020
The president of Mexico announced the military will be in charge of guarding shipping ports across the country. During a speech Friday, President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador entrusted the nation’s Army and Marines to combat massive drug smuggling across borders and seaports.
The announcement came just months after the country’s customs chief resigned amid attempts to root out corruption within the department.
“Due to mismanagement, mismanagement of ports, corruption, smuggling and the influx of drugs into the national territory through these ports, is why we have made this decision,” stated the Mexican president.
Hundreds of metric tons of drugs, including methamphetamines and synthetic fentanyl, enter Mexico each day and are often bound for the United States.
Our dedicated team of @CBP officers along the California-Mexico border seized 43,000lbs of drugs in June. Let that sink in—more than 20 tons of drugs worth an estimated $92 million dollars were kept out of the hands of drug dealers, gangs & criminals. https://t.co/Su1YKWwToR pic.twitter.com/1trAcu30VN
— CBP Mark Morgan (@CBPMarkMorgan) July 14, 2020
Lopez Obrador has called the corruption problem in Mexico a “100-headed monster” and has promised “a cleansing is coming.”
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