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mexliving

May 21, 2010, 8:53 PM

Post #1 of 10 (11703 views)

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hwy 200 to p.v. fake checkpoint..

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i dont like to be the one to post negative things on the forum, but i do this as a service to all of us on this site.... on may 19th at night, there was a report of 40 to 60 armed and uniformed men on highway 200 to p.v. for 2 hours............. they stopped cars at will and took peoples wallets/wathes/cell phones and picked what vehicles to take with them....

victims arrived at local police department around 1 am... so i am guessing it happened between 8pm and 11pm

be carefull everyone......

norteño

May 21, 2010, 10:23 PM

Post #2 of 10 (11688 views)

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Re: [mexliving] hwy 200 to p.v. fake checkpoint..

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Translation from today's La Jornada out of Mexico City:

http://www.jornada.unam.mx/...amp;article=035n4est

Some 70 subjects dressed in black, with bulletproof vests and ski masks, set up a checkpoint in the pre-dawn hours of Wednesday on the Tepic-Puerto Vallarta highway near the community of Las Mesillas in the municipality of Compostela, Nayarit and relieved some 15 people, most of them tourists, of their vehicles.The unknown subjects, armed with submachine guns, stationed cars with emergency lights and began to intercept luxury vehicles, whose occupants they robbed of their belongings. In trying to evade the checkpoint Lishen Ixshel Alcaraz was shot in the left shoulder but is in stable condition.

Edited to make live link.

(This post was edited by esperanza on May 22, 2010, 9:49 AM)

mazatman

May 22, 2010, 4:45 PM

Post #3 of 10 (11581 views)

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Re: [mexliving] hwy 200 to p.v. fake checkpoint..

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Here's a follow-up to the fake roadblock hijackings and robberies.

The Governor of Nayarit praises coordinated efforts of the military and the state police in recovering 14 of the 20 hijacked vehicles.

http://www.nayarit.gob.mx/notes.asp?id=21437

(This post was edited by mazatman on May 22, 2010, 7:34 PM)

Guavagto

May 22, 2010, 5:57 PM

Post #4 of 10 (11559 views)

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Re: [mazatman] hwy 200 to p.v. fake checkpoint..

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Could this be moved to "Traveling Mexico"? It is important since many people drive this route.

sioux4noff

May 23, 2010, 7:54 AM

Post #5 of 10 (11475 views)

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Re: [mexliving] hwy 200 to p.v. fake checkpoint..

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Reports of the number of vehicles taken, and the number of armed attackers seems to be growing by the day. As do the reports of how many of those people were tourists.
It did happen, there were armed gunmen, and cars were taken. Probably at least a few of the folks were tourists. But they could have been Mexican tourists, too. Some of the cars have been recovered.
Let's not get into the exaggeration game here.

Manuel Dexterity

May 23, 2010, 8:09 AM

Post #6 of 10 (11469 views)

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Re: [sioux4noff] hwy 200 to p.v. fake checkpoint..

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Could have been Mexican tourists? The chances for that at this time of the year are pretty good, wouldn't you think, since the snowbirds are long gone?

sioux4noff

May 23, 2010, 8:21 AM

Post #7 of 10 (11462 views)

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Re: [Manuel Dexterity] hwy 200 to p.v. fake checkpoint..

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There are still a fair number of snow birds around. And really, at the time it happened, middle of the night, middle of the week, is not really a time when a lot of tourists of any kind would have been traveling that road.

(This post was edited by sioux4noff on May 23, 2010, 8:22 AM)

arbon

May 23, 2010, 11:37 AM

Post #8 of 10 (11413 views)

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Re: [sioux4noff] hwy 200 to p.v. fake checkpoint..

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Most of the snow has melted from the valleys, so they could be rain birds or Sun birds.

(or dreamers wanting a new car from a Mexican Insurance Company in another lifetime)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

norteño

May 24, 2010, 7:59 PM

Post #9 of 10 (11256 views)

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Re: [arbon] hwy 200 to p.v. fake checkpoint..

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There is a good article in El Occidental at the link below about these "falsos retenes" (false checkpoints) on the Puerto Vallarta-Guadalajara highway. Apparently they have all been within the state of Nayarit so far--sometimes within the municipality of Compostela and sometimes very near the outskirts of Puerto Vallarta. They check ID's and take money, jewelry, electronic devices and pickups or SUV's--reportedly fifteen vehicles in the last-reported case--and are described as acting with impunity. They seem to prefer stealing Yukon, Hilux and Honda CRV vehicles. It does not say just how many times they have set up checkpoints but it is clear from the article that it is more than has been reported in the news or that authorities admit (it says the incident in which the woman was shot Wednesday is "one of the last reports", without elaborating). This has been the only case of injury reported so far. According to officials victims have been from Guadalajara, León and Nogales.

They are described as being hooded, with bullet-proof vests and speaking in code but sometimes revealing a "border" accent. The checkpoints are set up at night, usually during the week but sometimes on weekends. The 35-year-old woman who was shot was coming from Guadalajara in a vehicle that accelerated when the driver realized it was a "falso retén". The subjects scolded her after shooting into the vehicle and told her they were only after the vehicles--and that they already had 15--but stole their vehicle from them and 70,000 pesos of merchandise they had just bought.

She was brought wounded back to near Compostela where she and her companion were left on the side of the highway where some 30 other victims were collected, and a trucker gave her a ride to a private hospital in Puerto Vallarta. Another news story says that police later found seven of what they said were nine vehicles stolen in this incident abandoned on a highway.

http://www.oem.com.mx/eloccidental/notas/n1644912.htm

sioux4noff

May 24, 2010, 11:25 PM

Post #10 of 10 (11228 views)

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Re: [norteño] hwy 200 to p.v. fake checkpoint..

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My husband has friends in both the municipal and state Proteccion Civil delegations and they have not spoken of any other of the fake checkpoints in this area (we live in the municipality of Bahia de Banderas, Nayarit, just north of Puerto Vallarta). They seem to be pretty well up on these types of things, so I think they would have said something if others had been nearby. If for no other reason than they sometimes warn us about where "the bad boys" have been active so we can avoid the area.