Mexican prosecutors duped in drug war by YouTube hoax
| Mexico City
What would you do if you suddenly saw your face pictured alongside Mexico鈥檚 most-wanted and most-feared drug traffickers?
A factory worker from the Mexican state Baja California was faced with that scenario this week after Mexico鈥檚 federal prosecutor鈥檚 office was duped into thinking his vacation photos on YouTube were of the leader of the Arellano F茅lix Cartel, also known as the Tijuana Cartel. The office said it had verified the photos before reposting them on its Most Wanted website, offering a 30 million peso ($2.5 million) reward for the man pictured.
The photos went viral on Tuesday as newspapers across the country ran them on their front pages as truth. The Monitor published a story about the photos Wednesday.
In fact, they were a hoax. The factory worker's friends had uploaded them to YouTube in 2009 with the label 鈥淧ictures of the Engineer" 鈥� a reference to cartel kingpin Fernando S谩nchez Arellano, known as 鈥渢he Engineer."
The incident has proven a sore embarrassment to the Mexican government just as it appeared to have grown savvy in using social media to fight the deadly drug war. While the drug gangs themselves have for years used YouTube and other Internet mediums to send messages to rival gangs or authorities, this week's incident appeared to underscore the government's weakness on the cyber front of the drug war.
The prosecutor鈥檚 office did not escape ridicule from the media. On Friday morning the daily Reforma newspaper ran this headline above the fold: 鈥淐yber Prank Displays [Federal Prosecutor鈥檚 Office鈥檚] 鈥業ntelligence.鈥� "
Local Baja California media report that the young man in the photos, who has remained anonymous, rushed to the police station to prove his identity. The federal prosecutor鈥檚 office on Thursday took the photos off its website, issuing a statement saying that they were wrongly attributed to Mr. S谩nchez Arellano.
鈥淔ederal Prosecutor Arturo Ch谩vez Ch谩vez ordered the security protocol to be reviewed in order to prevent this situation from being repeated,鈥� the office said in a statement.
Perhaps in the prosecutors鈥� defense, the similarity of the factory worker's pug nose, hairline, and even eyebrows to that of S谩nchez Arellano is uncanny. But as to how officials could have so erringly verified the photos remained in question.
The federal prosecutor鈥檚 press office told the Monitor earlier this week that the YouTube photos were discovered by cyber police, a division that monitors the Web for criminal activity and has expanded since President Felipe Calder贸n took office in December 2006.
As the drug war has expanded to the online world, investigators have increasingly turned to social media in investigations. This poses its own unique hazards, warns security expert Jose Ramos.
Social media may be an endless source of information, he says, though it is also filled with false leads.
