Monday, January 24, 2011

Mexican caught in mistaken identity ordeal

As part of its strategy in combatting drug related violence Mexican authorities have sought the capture of the country’s dangerous drug gangs. At times there has been some success though a recent incident embarrassed Mexico’s law enforcement.

Last week Mexico’s federal prosecutor’s office announced that a YouTube video of one of the country's most wanted criminals was legitimate. They claimed that the images were of Fernando Sánchez Arellano and they reposted pictures of the figure on its Most Wanted website. The photos on the video were subsequently reprinted on the front pages of several Mexican newspapers. It seemed that Sánchez Arellano’s days on the lam would soon come to an end.

Yet there was a glaring problem: the photos were not of the wanted drug kingpin but instead of an industrial engineer named Raul Inda Gonzalez. He tried to clear up his identity with the Mexican police on Friday but not before briefly fleeing to San Diego “for security reasons.” The mislabeled photos were stolen from his Facebook page by his friends and made into the YouTube video in 2009.

The Mexican government has already apologized to Inda Gonzalez and removed the controversial photos from the website. In a recent news conference, however, he asked that the attorney general publicly apologize for the mistake and said that he could sue the government. His request is the least that could be done for a man caught in an unfortunate case of mistaken identity:

Video Source – Al Jazeera English via YouTube
Online Sources- Christian Science Monitor, CNN, Sify, UPI

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