A shootout between the Nezahualcóyotl police and armed men has left two injured in the parking lot of Terminal 2 of the Benito Juárez International Airport in Mexico City (AICM). The confrontation took place in the early hours of this Wednesday after a pursuit by the agents of the vehicle to the parking lot of the terminal. “Inside, Nezahualcóyotl municipal police personnel confronted the driver and two companions of said car with firearms, two of them being injured,” the airport said in a statement. Although the causes of the shooting have not yet been clarified, the two policemen have been made available to the judicial authorities.
A little over a month ago, the AICM came under the full control of the Secretary of the Navy. As part of the public security strategy of the Government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the entire operation of the airport would depend on a military body. The objective of the measure was to combat the growing insecurity of Benito Juárez airport, which had become one of the weak points for the trafficking of drugs, people and other illegal goods. In 2021, for example, EL PAÍS was able to document a human trafficking network in the AICM linked to a criminal group.
This Wednesday it was “Navy personnel, AICM security and Mexico City auxiliary police” who provided medical support to the injured and security in the area, according to the airport, which ensures that “there was no impact or security risk to any user”. “Actions like these ratify the commitment of Semar and the AICM to ensure the safety of users,” ends the brief document.
It was in February 2022 when the first 1,500 elements of the navy arrived to guard the busiest airport in the country, which received more than 46 million people last year. “The Navy is already in charge of airport surveillance control, it has done a very good job, I think many are already noticing it: there is no theft of suitcases, as was the case before, and care is taken that contraband does not enter, that it does not drugs enter as well. We are preventing it from reaching the extreme of when the airport was controlled by drug trafficking,” López Obrador said in June to announce the decree that transferred control from the Ministry of Infrastructure, Communications and Transportation to Semar.
Source: El Pais
