Tourist crime victims find little hope for justice in Mexico
Blackout victims at resorts frustrated by lack of legal response
The young woman behind the desk at the police station in Playa del Carmen toggled between her cellphone and computer, Snapchatting with friends and scrolling through Facebook, as she asked the young man from Boston whether he had ever enjoyed sex.
How that was relevant, he didn’t know. He was at the police department in the small Mexican city south of Cancun to report that he had just been drugged and raped while receiving a massage at a world-renowned resort and spa.
The young man was told that the woman — Claudia, as he recalls — was a psychologist. They sat in a windowless room and after a while, she handed him some paper and told him to draw some pictures. No stick figures. As detailed as possible.
A tree. A man. A woman. A person trapped in the rain without an umbrella.
Draw your family, she said. The 29-year-old man broke down. All he wanted to do was to get home, see his family. The senseless questions and exercises were too much.
But he had to stay — had to endure a four-hour psychological test, a humiliating physical exam, then miss his flight home — if he had any hope of getting justice and stopping the perpetrator from harming anyone else. He drew the picture. Three months later, there’s no sign of justice; no indication Mexican police pursued the case. The man is back home, struggling through the emotional aftermath.
The despair and frustration he faces are familiar to dozens of vacationers who have been victim- ized at upscale, all-inclusive Mexican resorts.
After blackouts, robberies, assaults, even the death of a loved one, they have experienced indifferent — if not hostile — treatment from resort staffers, police and doctors, a USA TODAY Network investigation found.
The harm is worsened when travelers learn that catching criminals, filing a lawsuit and otherwise obtaining justice in Mexico is nearly impossible.
And the U.S. Department of
State does little or nothing to help them.
“The laws in Mexico make it very, very difficult to hold anyone accountable,” said Nancy Winkler, a Philadelphia attorney who represented a family whose 22year-old son drowned in a Mexican resort pool in 2007. “It’s a nightmare.”
For most, the trouble started when they blacked out after drinking small or moderate amounts of alcohol at resort bars. Often the blackouts happened simultaneously among couples and friends, something none had previously experienced.
Though many said they woke up hours later and found no obvious crime had been committed, others described regaining consciousness to learn they had been sexually assaulted, taken to jail, robbed, kicked out of their hotels or swindled by hospitals and ambulance companies.
Whether they drank bad alcohol, were deliberately drugged or something else — they can’t say for certain.
The government recently seized 10,000 gallons of illicit alcohol from a company that was supplying tourist hot spots around Cancun and Playa del Carmen.
In all, the Journal Sentinel has heard from more than 60 people from across the USA and Canada with similar stories in the weeks since it began investigating the death of a young Wisconsin woman on vacation in Mexico with her parents and brother. The number continues to grow.
The majority of travelers stayed in resorts around Cancun, Playa del Carmen and other beaches in Riviera Maya. Several had been to hotels just to the east in Cozumel and others on the west coast in Los Cabos and Puerto Vallarta. Many had visited Mexico multiple times. For a few, it was their first visit.
They described resort staffers who stood idle while loved ones vomited, lost consciousness and bled heavily. Hotel managers refused to help, defaulting to the same refrain: Nothing we can do. Too much alcohol. Go to the hospital — with cash.
When injured tourists turned to police, an instinctive step for many Americans, they were often stonewalled again. Resorts in Mexico don’t typically call law enforcement to the scene. Vacationers have to take complaints to the police station.
The few who did encountered further indifference: Nothing to investigate. It was an accident. You were drunk.
Travelers who went to a hospital — some gravely sick — were often met with demands for cash before being provided care.
Rick Autrey, a barber from Dallas, was pulled from a resort pool in May, pulseless and blue. While he was unconscious, his friend had to put $10,000 on his credit card to ensure Autrey would receive care.
Autrey’s wife and children flew the next day to be by his side. The hospital charged his wife tens of thousands of dollars more. In all, their bill totaled more than $50,000, including the airlift back to Texas.
“They handed her an invoice every time she passed the desk,” said Autrey, who has not been able to return to work since the injury.
ONE COUPLE’S STORY
The plan was for Heidi Sorrem to take a shower first. That way she could dry her long, blond hair and get ready while her husband, Corey, showered. The two had been on the beach and at the Valentin Imperial Riviera Maya resort pool for a couple of hours and were getting dressed for dinner.
It was September. They were in Mexico for the first time, celebrating their 10th wedding anniversary, excited for a few days away from their Greenfield, Wis., home and thankful that their parents had offered to care for their two young sons.
Down at the swim-up bar, they had ordered frozen fruity drinks followed by “Mexican Flag ” shots suggested by the bartender. The shot had tasted terrible, but the bartender had spent time trying to layer the colors — green, white and red.
They chatted with an older couple visiting from Texas. The woman wore a big hat. Everyone was eager for a Michael Jackson impersonator scheduled for later in the evening. The Texas couple suggested they all do a shot together. It was an all-inclusive resort; the drinks were free.
Soon after, the Sorrems, both 35 at the time, headed back to their room.
The next thing Corey remembers is waking up on the couch. He found Heidi on the bathroom floor.
“I’m like, ‘What are you doing? Why aren’t you in the shower? I thought we were going to dinner?’ ” he said.
Then nothing. He doesn’t remember her response, or even if she responded. He blacked out again.
When he woke up — not sure how much later — the bathroom was empty. Heidi was gone.
‘NOBODY GETS CONVICTED’
Impunity. That’s the pervading factor that experts say plagues the Mexican judicial system, year after year.
“Nobody gets convicted for anything,” said Clare Ribando Seelke, a specialist in Latin American affairs with the Congressional Research Service. “The rule of law is not really there.”
As many as 92% of crimes go unreported and uninvestigated in Mexico, according to a victims survey in 2015 by the Instituto Nacional de Estadistica y Geografia. The main reason: lack of trust in the authorities. Of those crimes that are reported, fewer than 5% result in convictions, according to a study by the Center of Studies on Impunity and Justice at Universidad de Las Americas, published in 2015.
Essentially, that means about 99% of crimes go unpunished. Mexico ranks second-highest in the world on the Global Impunity Index, just behind the Philippines, according to a report from the same university in 2016.
Drug trafficking, organized crime and other lawlessness reign. This year, nearly 14,000 people have been killed, more than 130 in Cancun. The government has been unable to protect Mexican journalists, meaning less oversight and accountability that comes with public awareness. Four journalists have been killed this year in retaliation for their work, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. Murders of two more are under investigation.
Impunity and the chaos it fosters is of such importance — not just to Mexico but the United States — that the U.S. Congress authorized spending $1.6 billion over the past decade, in part, to support an overhaul of Mexico’s law enforcement and judicial systems.
The new judicial system took effect — at least on paper — in mid-2016 but hasn’t been widely embraced or implemented, according to a report in June by the Congressional Research Service.
Many police officers aren’t trained as investigators; evidence collection skills and forensic analysis capabilities are lacking; torture, bribery and forced confessions are commonplace.
Aimed at improving transparency and curtailing corruption, torture and other human rights abuses, the new system replaced Mexico’s long-standing closeddoor system with one closer to that used in the USA.
Changing mind-sets and ending entrenched practices of police, prosecutors, defense lawyers and judges are no small tasks. It could take more than a decade to see significant change.
Much is at stake when it comes to tourism and the perception among travelers that their vacation destination is safe. Tourism accounts for more than 8% of Mexico’s gross domestic product. The $20 billion industry directly employs more than 4 million workers, according to the latest figures from the World Travel & Tourism Council.
TOP TRAVEL DESTINATION
Mexico is the top international travel destination for Americans attracted by archaeological ruins, romantic beaches and vibrant nightlife.
Cancun, Los Cabos and Puerto Vallarta are favorites among tourists, drawing in nearly 10 million international visitors in 2016. The vast majority stayed in the nation’s 200 all-inclusive resorts.
Relatively inexpensive and convenient for Americans, offering the promise of sophistication and safety, the all-inclusives are especially alluring. Many vacationers spend their entire stays inside the walls of the resorts, feeling as if they have the protections of home, not realizing their constitutional rights don’t cross the border, should they need them.
“From the Mexican perspective, they can’t even find 43 students who disappeared, were tortured and killed,” said Ribando Seelke, who co-authored the report in June to Congress, which was titled “U.S.-Mexican Security Cooperation: The Mérida Initiative and Beyond.”
“They have people hacked to bits every day and nobody cares,” Seelke said.
Earl Anthony Wayne, a U.S. ambassador to Mexico under President Obama, said the system has failed the majority of the Mexican population — and it’s no different for visitors.
“The justice system is the justice system, for everybody,” said Wayne with the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington. “There isn’t a separate system for Americans and Europeans ... and the whole law enforcement system is strained.”
The U.S. Department of State does not track how many people are injured in foreign countries every year. The agency’s data show that 75 U.S. citizens were killed in Mexico in 2016 and that 39 Americans drowned. Beyond that, details are sparse.
The agency can’t say how many citizens have called to report being drugged, assaulted or robbed. It can’t say how many citizens pursue legal action as a result of being harmed. Nor does the agency track complaints about hospital care or costs.
If it did, it might have detected the problems and sounded an alarm.
It wasn’t until after the Journal Sentinel investigation that the State Department added language to its website warning travelers about problems with alcohol at Mexican resorts, but even that isn’t easy to find.
Workers at the U.S. consulate offices in Mexico have little ability to help U.S. citizens who have been victims of crimes. The workers cannot advocate on behalf of the citizens. They cannot translate the language. They cannot offer legal advice or help investigate a situation.
“We cannot investigate. Period,” said Uzma Javed, an officer with the department’s Office of Overseas Citizens Services. “We don’t have the jurisdiction ... We are very limited in what we can and cannot do.”
The one thing they can do for victims of crimes is help them contact local authorities and accompany them to the police department or hospital if asked.
Hospiten, a private hospital chain that contracts with Iberostar Hotels & Resorts and other resorts in the area, said the company treated more than 24,000 people from all countries in its five emergency departments in Mexico last year, the vast majority in Cancun and Riviera Maya.
Hospiten officials acknowledged in a written statement that when a patient arrives, “administrative procedures are initiated to guarantee the necessary financial resources” for treatment.
There’s nothing that officers with the U.S. consulate can do about the way hospitals conduct business and treat U.S. citizens, Javed said.
“It’s not like in the U.S. where you go into the ER, and they bill you later,” Javed said.
PAY $5,000
When Heidi Sorrem was found outside the hotel, she had a head injury, and her bottom teeth had been knocked loose. Her elbow was sprained, and her arm wouldn’t extend.
The insides of her upper thighs were bruised and raw, almost like a burn. Her buttocks were scrapped and bruised, but there was no physical evidence of sexual assault.
Doctors in Mexico told Corey Sorrem that his wife just needed stitches — 11 of them on the back of her head. They said a scan had shown her brain was fine.
And they told him he would need to pay $5,000.
When the Sorrems returned to the USA, doctors discovered Heidi had a fractured skull and bruising on her brain.
They told her family it was a miracle she survived the flight home. They said her head wound appeared to be from blunt force trauma, rather than from a threestory fall.
Heidi’s sister, Lauralie Benidt said the incident has put a strain on the whole family as they’ve tried to make sense of what happened.
Benidt said her sister’s personality is different.
She and their parents found it hard to believe that neither Corey nor Heidi could remember anything that happened.
Benidt said she is ashamed to admit that they secretly wondered whether Corey could have harmed Heidi.
“Your heart is so broken, you go to dark places,” she said. “You desperately want answers.”
But they had never seen him have a temper or get drunk. He was a family man who was very protective of Heidi and the kids. The couple had worked hard to save up for the trip.
“He’s an amazing dad and amazing husband to my sister,” she said.
They couldn’t picture it. It didn’t make sense. But neither did anything else.
Until they heard the stories of other couples who had blacked out simultaneously in Mexico after two or three drinks and woken with broken bones and other injuries.