IT professionals, be careful of Mexican men in uniforms
It is not just thieves and conmen, Mexico-bound Indian IT workers and tourists have to be wary of the men in uniform too. Several Indian infotech and software professionals who transit through the Mexican capital on their way to their new postings in Guadalajara, Jalisco and Monterrey have been robbed and scammed by policemen in uniform as well as by scamsters at Mexico City’s Benito Juarez
International Airport (Aeropuerto Internacional Benito Juárez). There are 6,500 Indians living and working in Mexico at the moment, while the number of Indians who travel to Mexico is much higher, said N Sivan, second secretary at the embassy of India in Mexico City. About 60,000 Indians had travelled to Mexico in 2016 as more than five Indian IT firms, including the big three —Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys and Wipro — have sizeable operations in Mexico. TCS’s big campus is in Guadalajara, Wipro’s in Jalisco and Infosys’ in Monterrey.
Venkateswar, 30, a software engineer from Hyderabad came to Mexico City in October 2017 on his way to his first overseas project at Monterrey in northeastern Mexico. Shortly after disembarking from his KLM flight, he cleared customs and checked in his bags for the connecting flight, which was taking off from a different terminal. “My colleague and I were trying to figure out how to get to the domestic terminal when a couple of men in police uniform, complete with ID cards, came and asked where we came from and where we were going? When we said Monterrey, they asked if we were on the KLM flight. The moment we said yes,
● About 60,000 Indians had travelled to Mexico in 2016 as more than five Indian IT firms, including the big three have sizeable operations in Mexico.
● The Indian embassy takes note of such complaints and then raises it with Mexican authorities when the ambassador meets them.
they said that the airport train was cancelled for the day and KLM was providing free transfers. They even showed us a KLM letter saying as much. They spoke English and showed us papers that looked real so we went with them,” said
Venkateswar, who still works in Monterrey for the same multinational firm that has a large presence in India.
The trouble started now. “They put us in a cab and five minutes into the ride, the driver stopped the car and asked us for money. He threatened to delay us long enough to make us miss our flights and even hurt us if we didn’t give him money. Both Srikant, also from Hyderabad, and I were scared but said we had no money. He didn’t buy our bluff and after a few more threats, each of us ended up paying him $100 each,” Venkateswar added. He didn’t go to cops because he was scared that he might run into the same cops or their friends at the airport.
An Infosys employee from Pune on his way to Monterrey had a similar experience last year. Suryaprakash Sahoo, 32, a senior software engineer at Infosys from Bhubaneswar, who arrived in Mexico City in January this year, on his first international assignment, was scammed at the airport. “I needed directions to get to my connecting flight. I asked a security woman but she spoke Spanish which I didn’t understand. A smartly dressed man who was nearby spoke English and offered to help. He asked me to follow him, which I did. After a minute or so I sensed something wasn’t right, so I said I’d manage from here on. He didn’t listen to me and started pushing my trolley. Luckily, he took me to the train but forced me to pay him,” Sahoo said. Sahoo said he has heard of other incidents of Indians being robbed and scammed at airports in Mexico, including one involving his colleague from a different team.
There have also been incidents of tourists, Indian and other nationalities too, being robbed by armed beat policemen while conducting random checks and pat-down searches on travellers in Tulum, the popular beach holiday destination in southwestern Mexico on the Caribbean coast.
The Indian embassy takes note of such complaints and then raises it with Mexican authorities when the ambassador meets them, Sivan said. “When we get such complaints, the victims expect us to help them recover the money, which we can’t do. We let the Mexican officials know and ask them to stop the recurrence of such incidents,” he added.