Gangland

by Jerry Langton

  The man she said was responsible for the criminal organization was Jean Succar Kuri, a Lebanese-born Mexican businessman who also has American citizenship. He moved to Cancún in the 1980s—just ahead of the tourist boom—with his 18-year-old second wife and set up a soda stand. Twenty years later, he owned four guest villas and a hotel on the strip and was worth about $30 million.

  Using victims' official statements and following Succar Kuri around (often with a hidden camera and microphone) for months, Cacho's book served as compelling evidence that Succar Kuri was indeed the ringleader of a child exploitation ring that was worth millions. It also linked Kuri to politicians like Senator Emilio Gamboa Patrón and national Social Security and Social Services Institute general director Miguel Ángel Yunes, and named another Lebanese-born Mexican businessman, a Puebla-based textile manufacturer and noted high-stakes gambler named Kamel Nacif Borge, as aiding and protecting him. No charges were ever laid against Patrón, Yunes or Borge.

  When the book came out, Nacif Borge, also known as the “El Zar de la Mezclilla” (the Czar of Denim), immediately sued Cacho for defamation. A few days later, Cacho was arrested in Cancún by Puebla state police and taken 900 miles away to the city of Puebla. They did not give her a subpoena or warrant or even a reason for her arrest. She was jailed briefly, paid a fine and was released.

  On February 14, Mexico City-based daily La Jornada published transcripts of telephone conversations between Nacif Borge and Mario Marín Torres, the governor of Puebla. In them, Nacif Borge asks “mi góber precioso” (my precious guv') if he could arrange to have Cacho arrested and then beaten in jail.

  At first, Marín Torres claimed the voice on the recording was not his and that although he knew Nacif Borges, they were not friends. Later, he admitted that it was his voice and they were close friends, but that the conversation was taken out of context.

  Cacho sued Marín Torres in Mexico's Supreme Court for bribery, influence trafficking, conspiracy to rape and abuse of authority. She lost the case 6-4, leading The New York Times to call the surprise decision “a setback for journalistic freedom in Mexico.” The United Nations Human Rights Council advised Cacho to leave the country and offered her protection and a chance to be heard in an international court. She chose, instead, to stay in Mexico and is now researching the Juárez maquillidora murders. Succar Kuri was found guilty on a number of charges and was imprisoned first in Chandler, Arizona—where he was attacked by another inmate—then later Mexico.

  Murder on the Mayan Riviera

  Organized crime, child prostitution, corrupt police and elected officials were part of the Other Mexico, and stories like Cacho's did little to dissuade North Americans from coming to the Mayan Riviera.

  In 2006, Liliana “Lily” Ianiero and Marco Facecchia were looking for a place to hold their wedding. They were from Woodbridge, Ontario, a decidedly upscale suburb of Toronto that is populated almost entirely by Italian-Canadians. As is the case with many families of Italian descent, the Ianiero-Facecchia wedding would be a lavish affair with many guests. Lily wanted it to be at an all-inclusive beach resort. Their wedding planner suggested Jamaica, but the couple thought it was too dangerous (Woodbridge is not far from some rough Toronto neighborhoods dominated by Jamaican gangs) so they decided on the Mayan Riviera. To be exact, they chose the 1,000-room Barcelo Maya Beach Resort located between Cancún and Playa del Carmen. And since safety was a concern, they were impressed that the huge complex was accessible only by one gate on one road and patroled by armed security guards 24/7. As is tradition, guests of the wedding had to make their own travel arrangements, but the bride's family paid $45,667 (Canadian) to accommodate the 16-member wedding party.

  The wedding party flew down together on February 18, 2006, checked in at about 10:00 p.m. and rested. The next night, they had a party with some of the guests who had also arrived. At about 11:10 p.m., just as the party was moving to a resort nightclub, Captain Morgan's, the bride's parents—59-year-old realtor Domenico “Domenic” and his 55-year-old wife Annuziatta “Nancy” Ianiero—decided to go to sleep. Nancy said she was still tired from the flight and because they had gotten lost trying to find their room in the massive resort. Domenic joked that gout he had recently developed in his left foot would keep him off the dance floor anyway. He also mentioned that after they were lost the night before, they had flagged down a friendly uniformed security guard who had driven them to their room in an electric golf cart. Before the Ianieros left, they made plans to have breakfast with the groom's parents the next day. The two women agreed to check out the resort's gym before eating.

  At 7:30 a.m. on February 22, Dora and Robert Facecchia knocked on the door of Room 4134 where the Ianieros were staying. No answer. Assuming that Domenic and Nancy had overslept, they went back to their own room and returned at 8:00. Again, there was no answer. They tried again and again, shouting through the door and calling them on their cell phone. A crowd of people, some in their group, alerted by the ruckus, gathered around them. Robert Facecchia asked a member of the housekeeping staff to let them in. When she refused, he insisted her manager do so. He complied at 8:20. Later testimony would show that the witnesses were immediately shocked by the colossal amount of blood, far too much for the carpet and the duvet thrown in front of the door to absorb. “The room was full of blood. I don't think there was anything left in them,” said a family member who arrived later.

  They saw Nancy's body first. She was face down on the bedroom floor, her throat slashed from ear to ear. She had a Hudson's Bay credit card on top of her and her purse underneath. Domenic was found face up on the bathroom floor. His throat had been sliced open as well.

  The family's screams alerted more people in neighboring rooms. Dora sent someone to tell Lily and Marco what had happened. Two women—Thunder Bay, Ontario, residents Cheryl Everall and Kimberly Kim, who were at the resort to attend a different wedding—had emerged from a room across and just down the hall from the Ianieros', and said that they had heard nothing until the commotion that had drawn them out. Other guests who arrived at the scene told the grieving family that they had heard glass breaking, crying and screaming, but didn't think it was anything that serious.

  While all of this was happening, hotel housekeepers were hurriedly mopping up blood from the scene under management's orders. Some of the onlookers recorded them doing so on cell phone video cameras. Word spread and curious onlookers crowded the scene. Hotel security told the bewildered family that what they were doing, including cleaning and not sealing the area, was standard policy.

  State police arrived at the scene 90 minutes later and acknowledged that some cleaning had been done before they arrived. They found a bloody trail from the Ianieros' room to the one across the hall that Everall and Kim had just checked out of at about 10:00 a.m. The two Canadian women had taken a taxi to the airport and flown back to Thunder Bay without incident. According to the Ianieros' son, the Quintana Roo coroner refused to examine or even remove the bodies until he was paid $7,000 to cover the costs of embalming and caskets. After he was paid, the Ianieros' remains were taken to Funerales del Caribe—which serves as a funeral home and a morgue—in Playa del Carmen in an unmarked white Chevy Tahoe SUV hearse. Just after a unit of Federales arrived on the scene, someone in hotel security sent an “all clear” message over the staff radios, and the crime scene was again inundated with staff and guests until the Federales could resecure the area. Much to the Canadians' surprise, the Mexican police did not take notes during their initial questioning instead relying on their memories.

  For days, the families sat vigil in the hallway, while their room service requests for coffee and water were denied. A clerk handed a family member the Ianieros' personal belongings, which surprised them as they thought they should have been taken as evidence.

  Noted Toronto magazine editor Scott Steele left the resort just hours before the bodies were discovered. “This was not the sort of place where you would expect something like this to happen.
It seemed pretty safe and secure to me,” he said. “It was full of fairly well-heeled North American tourists, and was a compound of sorts. There were not even outsiders on the beach.”

  He did notice a sizeable gulf between the staff and guests. “If robbery had been the motive, these are the sorts of places that locals might indeed try to target,” he said. “Despite the very high security.”

  Quintana Roo Attorney General Bello Melchor Rodriguez y Carillo told Mexican media that robbery was clearly not a motive for the killing because the Ianieros were still wearing their jewelry and had travelers' checks in their possession. He said that the primary suspects were two Canadians, noting that there was a trail of bloody footprints headed to their room. The Mexican authorities released two names, but due to the language barrier and poor record-keeping at the resort, they were misspelled and it was not clear if the names were of men or women.

  • • •

  Everall and Kim saw names similar to theirs mentioned in media accounts and reported to police. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) did extensive background checks on both women and found nothing out of the ordinary or remotely incriminating about them. Kim, a psychology student who worked part-time at a hospice, and Everall, a medical student who has since opened a family practice, didn't look like any kind of professional killers. The Thunder Bay police interviewed both of them, and 20 others who attended the wedding. Everall and Kim were not sure if they would be arrested or extradited to Mexico. “We're both mothers of small children,” said Everall. “We've been involved in our communities, in all ways, and I think for myself—and Kim can speak for herself—but the thought of being taken away from my children, I can't even imagine it. It's my worst nightmare.”

  On February 24, Melchor Rodriguez y Carillo announced that he had the names and photos of two suspects and was searching for a third. He did not explain how he had obtained the names or photos—although other tourists at the Barcelo Maya reported that armed security guards were constantly taking pictures of guests—and said that media attention was compromising his investigation. He also said that the murders appeared to be assassinations, that the murderers were likely professionals and that it was likely that the Ianieros had enemies in organized crime in Canada.

  The reaction in Canada—particularly in Toronto's fiercely pro-Canadian, often overwrought mainstream media—was huge. Pointing out that the murders were actually sloppy and that if the blood trail was anything more than the footprints of the housekeeper who began to clean up the blood before police arrived, as the family claimed it was, the hit was anything but professional. “Having their throats slashed does not mean it was a professional hit,” said Mark Mendelson, a former Toronto homicide detective and now the owner of a private investigation firm. “There are a lot of spontaneous murders and crimes of passion where people have their throats cut. Most professional hits are done with guns. If they're professional, they must be brand new at it, because they haven't covered their tracks very well.” The local papers carried lots of personal stories, focusing on what a delightful couple the Ianieros were and how they told each other “I love you” at least once a day.

  But while the mainstream media thought the Mexican claim that the Ianieros had powerful enemies in Canada absurd, many others disagreed via social media ranging from Facebook and Twitter to independent blogs, forums and comments on online news stories (virtually all of which were later deleted by the major newspapers and TV stations). They noted that the Ianieros were a well-off family of Italian extraction who lived in Woodbridge, home to many members and alleged members of Canada's Mafia. They also pointed out that during the Quebec Biker War of the 1990s, at least three assassinations were carried out in Mexico because it was easier to get police to cooperate and have evidence “lost” there. No link between the Ianieros and organized crime was ever found, but the idea persists among many Canadians.

  On the February 25, Melchor Rodriguez y Carillo backtracked on his earlier comments, telling the Canadian Press wire service that there was no evidence of organized crime involvement in the murders. A spokesman for the Quintana Roo state police promised a news conference in which the investigators would reveal the names and photos of the three Canadian suspects. When it didn't happen, he promised another for the following day. It didn't happen either.

  • • •

  Dr. Bonita Porter, Ontario's deputy chief coroner, who had been asked by Ottawa to handle the case, had her own doubts about how effectively the Mexicans had conducted their investigation. “We have jurisdiction to issue a warrant to seize the bodies because the information that we have is that the deaths occurred from suspicious circumstances,” she said. “Depending on what was done to the bodies in Mexico, what type of autopsy was done, whether the bodies are embalmed—those are the kinds of things that would make some of the testing difficult.”

  Her colleague, Toronto West regional supervising coroner Dr. David Evans agreed. ‘ “Obviously, if you're looking for trace evidence, whether it's hair, fibers, DNA under the fingernails—all sorts of things—we'd have no idea what their protocol is for doing homicide autopsies,” he said.

  A significant amount of pressure from Canadian media had put stress on Melchor Rodriguez y Carillo. “There won't be any more press conferences until I finish my investigation; I have made the decision and I don't have to justify anything to you,” he angrily told a reporter from Toronto-based National Post. “You, the Canadians, are the ones who came to kill other Canadians—that much is clear.”

  On February 28, Everall and Kim held a news conference with their lawyer, Lee Baig, in which they denied involvement. “They are, at this point, in a controlled panic state,” he said. “They are very worried.” He blamed their implication in the crime on “poor investigation” and pointed out that his clients did not even know the victims. “I think that the Mexican authorities are concerned about the reputation of Cancún being a safe tourist destination,” Baig said. “I'm worried that they are trying to deflect the reality of the situation and simply say it was Canadians—if that is the case, they've surely got the wrong targets.”

  Despite the inconsistencies in the Mexican authorities' announcements and the doubts of the coroners, on March 2 the RCMP told the Ianieros and the Canadian public to be patient and let the Mexicans do their jobs. “We have full confidence in the Mexican police,” said Raf Souccar, assistant commissioner of the RCMP. “I've got no reason to be concerned about the way the investigation is unfolding.” When asked by a reporter if he was worried about potential problems arising from the time between the discovery of the bodies and the arrival of police, he responded, “Crime scenes are never uncontaminated.” One vital piece of evidence, a cardboard coaster that had some local phone numbers written on its back, was severely compromised. Instead of putting it in an evidence bag, the coaster was glued face-up to the outside of the file folder containing evidence documents. The glue obscured the phone numbers, which were never recovered.

  Later that day, Melchor Rodriguez y Carillo told the press that an examination of the bodies indicated that the killer or killers had extensive medical knowledge, something that would back his still vague claim that Everall and/or Kim were involved. At the same news conference, his top deputy, Manuel Sarmiento Silva, announced that all of the hotel employees had been cleared of suspicion. Canadian public security minister Stockwell Day told the media that the Mexicans' story changed “almost by the hour,” and that “this thing is taking on bizarre proportions.”

  On the following day, Luis Ernesto Derbez Bautista, Mexico's secretary of foreign affairs, announced that the Mexican government had asked the RCMP and York Regional Police through Interpol to take part in the investigation. He said that the move was being taken as a result of a request by Canada's prime minister, Stephen Harper. Two RCMP homicide detectives flew to Cancún.

  Twelve days after they had died, more than 700 mourners attended the Ianieros' funeral at St Clare of Assisi in Woodbridge on March 6. The
event was closely watched by York police, who videotaped mourners and their license plates. “I have already spoken with the family. They are quite anxious to relay any information they may have that would assist in the investigation,” York police inspector Les Young said. “They are very concerned about rumors and innuendoes.” The couple's niece, Roseanne Ianiero, delivered a eulogy attendees described as “stirring” and lashed out at the Mexican authorities, who had intimated that Domenic and Nancy had been involved in organized crime.

  • • •

  On the same day, Periodico Quequi, a Quintana Roo newspaper, revealed that police were now hunting four Barcelo Maya employees—two security guards and two housekeepers—as prime suspects. None of the four had shown up for work since February 20, the day the Ianieros were discovered.

  In an interview with a Canadian news outlet on March 9, Melchor Rodriguez y Carillo said that Everall and Kim had never been suspects in the case and that he had only wanted to question them. He also said that the Mexican media reports that the four hotel employees were suspects was false, just speculation based on rumor, and that reports that the crime scene had been compromised were “lies.” Baig said his clients were happy to hear from Melchor Rodriguez y Carillo that they were no longer suspects, but wouldn't feel any relief until they heard it from Canadian authorities. He also claimed that although the Canadian media had speculated that the Mexicans had botched the investigation, the Canadian authorities did not share that opinion. “The Canadian authorities are happy with us, and have verified all the work we've done,” Bello Melchor Rodriguez y Carrillo said. “They have said the tests and evidence we've collected will be very useful for the work they need to do in Canada.”