BajaNomad - Zeta Magazine on the Howie Lange affair

Zeta Magazine on the Howie Lange affair

Mengano - 12-7-2011 at 11:53 AM

This week's Zeta Magazine has an expose on the Howie Lange kidnapping and robbery in San Juanico last October. It's too long to just translate. Here is the Reader's Digest version.

The state attorney general's investigator says this all boils down to a battle between the former head of the Water and Sewer system, Marcos Villicaña, along with some of his local police buddies on one side, and on the other side a bunch of Americans led by Howie Lange. A week before the kidnapping there was a verbal altercation between the two that almost came to blows.

The investigator says the battle between the two groups is over the right to sell street drugs in San Juanico. The two parties to the battle have wildly different stories.

Howie Lange says he is just fed up with the constant corruption of the police. The Americans spend a lot of money promoting San Juanico as a premier surf spot, and the police just extort the Hell out of the tourists. Howie says a tourist comes for a week of surfing and gets extorted by the police 5 or 6 times during the week.

Here is a direct translated quote from the article:

Quote:

During an interview with ZETA, the foreigner Howie Lange said the fight began when the police commander, Gilberto Amador Geraldo and two policemen, Medardo Villicaña and Miguel Cano, tried to extort money from an American friend who was a customer at his gardening store, and Howie protested because he said "You can not constantly f*ck people, the police always take too much money from foreigners and have no respect for anyone."

The American said that in the 17 years he has lived in the town, he has always been the victim of extortion, and is upset that the Mexican police use their positions to harass the hundreds of surfers who come from all over the world to San Juanico to ride the world's longest wave.

"This is not possible. We spend a lot of money in promoting this community and to attract tourism to this surfing destination, it's a shame that these men, instead of guarding them and ensuring their safety, just keep asking asking for money and extorting them, that includes stopping them and collecting alleged fines of up to $ 200 for driving on the beach, saying they do not have their driver's license or have their seat belt unfastened. And all that is underhanded, because they do not issue a ticket or give proof of payment, they just take the money and that's that "he said.

The patience of Job

Dave - 12-7-2011 at 12:21 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Mengano
The American said that in the 17 years he has lived in the town, he has always been the victim of extortion, and is upset that the Mexican police use their positions to harass the hundreds of surfers who come from all over the world to San Juanico to ride the world's longest wave.

Or a masochist.

While I'm not particularly upset about the harassing of surfers :biggrin:

, how could anyone allow themselves to be extorted for 17 years?

Woooosh - 12-7-2011 at 12:45 PM

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Originally posted by Dave

Quote:

Or a masochist.

While I'm not particularly upset about the harassing of surfers :biggrin:

, how could anyone allow themselves to be extorted for 17 years?

That's easy. Because he's only been there 17 years. If he was born and raised there it would have been longer.

:rolleyes:

CaboRon - 12-8-2011 at 06:25 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Woooosh

Quote:

Originally posted by Dave

Quote:

Or a masochist.

While I'm not particularly upset about the harassing of surfers :biggrin:

, how could anyone allow themselves to be extorted for 17 years?

That's easy. Because he's only been there 17 years. If he was born and raised there it would have been longer.

:rolleyes: