“Sol Prendido” for Borderland Beat
Tijuana has already detected video surveillance cameras installed and used by organized crime to monitor the presence of authorities on the city’s streets, according to the Secretary of Municipal Security and Citizen Protection, José Fernando Sánchez González.
According to the official, from 2022 to date, a little over 100 organized crime video surveillance cameras have been detected, 50 in the Central Zone last year and more than 60 three weeks ago in the East Zone, the latter being detected in the middle of a search of a property in the area, inside the house there were two monitors from which it was possible to observe what the cameras installed on public poles were transmitting.
Regarding what was done with these cameras, colloquially known by criminals as “electronic spies”, Sanchez Gonzalez informed that “they were destroyed in coordination with the Mexican Army and the Attorney General’s Office, which carried out the search in the place where the monitoring center was located”, in which several drugs and vehicles were also found.
The Secretary explained that the cameras installed by criminals are not easy to detect, especially now that the citizens are installing their own, but warned that those installed on public poles are not allowed and if there are any, they could belong to criminals who seek to “watch when the authorities arrive”.
“Under some other circumstances where suddenly you see that there are cameras that are installed on public poles. And that do not meet the quality requirements in their installation. Or that they belong to some authority, questions are asked, you investigate the wiring and realize that something isn’t right. Things that are unusual aren’t as easy to detect because more businesses or homes install cameras now. Nothing happens when you install cameras inside your own home, but when you install them on a public pole you don’t have permission to do so”, he explained.
Sanchez Gonzalez invited citizens to report any camera installed on a public pole that they suspect doesn’t belong to any authority or neighbor, to report it to the anonymous tip number 089.
