Security & Strategic Review - August 2013 (ISSN 1741-4202)

President Enrique Peña Nieto has trumpeted the fact that the number of homicide cases has fallen significantly in his first eight months in office, and has attributed this to greater cooperation between federal and state authorities and improved intelligence. However, a  leading private tally of ‘executions’ shows that this year the decline that began in April lost steam in the ensuing two months and turned into a sharp increase in July. Official data also show another major crime, kidnapping, rising to its highest level in a decade.