Cuban escape through Mexico fraught with peril

Washington Post:

The bodies of three people suspected of smuggling Cubans to the United States through Mexico were found gagged and blindfolded Friday in a natural sinkhole near Cancun.

The killings were the latest in a series of incidents related to the smuggling of Cubans into Mexico, where authorities have observed a marked increase in such attempts in recent months. At least four people linked to smuggling allegations have been killed this week in Cancun, which is 150 miles from Cuba and a popular landing spot for boats sneaking Cubans into the country.

Police were led to the three most recent victims -- Jesús Aguilar, Edwin Park and a woman whose name was not given, all of whom were Mexican -- by red arrows painted on a highway leading to the sinkhole, known as a "cenote." Three days earlier, police had found the bullet-riddled body of Luis Lázaro Lara Morejon, a Cuban American suspected of smuggling, on a roadside near Cancun. The woman found Friday was Lázaro Lara's girlfriend.

"We believe these people were executed by those who are part of a Cuban American mafia," Bello Melchor Rodríguez, attorney general of Quintana Roo state, told the Associated Press. "They probably hired people to execute them. We don't know if the Cuban Americans themselves killed them."

The surge in Cubans being smuggled through the Yucatan Peninsula has piqued the Cuban government, which is quietly pressing Mexico to do more to stop the smugglers.

Eight people, including six Cuban Americans, were arrested this month and accused of smuggling Cubans through Cancun. And on Thursday, Mexico's navy intercepted 37 Cubans in a boat foundering with engine troubles off the coast of Cancun. The interception was one of the largest recorded in the area, but analysts do not believe it is an indication that Mexico will become more aggressive in combating smuggling groups.

"This is not a priority for our country's government," Victor Clark, an immigration expert based in Tijuana, said in an interview. "Moreover, Mexicans have historical sympathies for Cubans. Cubans can probably find more support and solidarity here than Guatemalan and Salvadoran migrants."

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I guess these Cubans did not get a chance to see Sicko and do not realize they are running away from a paradise of socialized medicine. Refugees from tyranny take terrible chances and the exodus from Castro's socialist "paradise" are no exception. they are going to Mexico becasue of increased patrolling around the Florida coast and the US enforcement of a we foot policy which returns them to Cuba if caught on the water. by getting to Mexico, they can attempt to infiltrate across the southern border and with "dry feet" they will not be sent back.