On June 19, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (SRE) suffered the theft of 6,177 blank passport books destined for consular offices in Yucatán, Quintana Roo, Tabasco, Tlaxcala, and Veracruz that were ready to be filled with data on new applicants. According to the report, the events occurred in an armed attack on the Mexico-Veracruz highway.
Thus, criminals who traffic in humans could use them by filling them with information from people who do not meet the requirements to access these international identification books.
For this reason, the Mexican Foreign Ministry requested the support of the institutions of each of the entities to stop the distribution of passport books.
The information was revealed by an internal statement issued by the General Directorate of Consular Services of the SRE, in which the staff was asked to be attentive in case the pages of the stolen passport books were presented, to retain them, and to notify the appropriate authorities.
First, the message warned about the theft of 6,311 passport books, but it was later clarified that 134 of them had pages omitted, that is, they were never sent.
The Mexican Foreign Ministry recognized that the attack occurred on the Mexico-Veracruz highway when a group of armed men intercepted the truck that was transporting the documentation that was destined for the SRE delegations in the states of Yucatán, Tabasco, Tlaxcala, Veracruz, and Quintana Roo.
To prevent the misuse of these documents, the SRE proceeded to cancel the passport folio and sent a notification to the national and international authorities.
The SRE sent the report of the theft of these passports in an armed attack to the international Interpol so that they are alert since criminal groups could misuse these documents.
The complaint for the theft was filed with the Attorney General’s Office (FGR) and the National Migration Institute (INM).
The report was also sent to all Mexican embassies and consulates abroad, as well as public notaries, financial systems, and immigration institutions of other nations. In 2021, similar thefts of passport books that were addressed to offices in the United States and China were reported.
TYT Newsroom
