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The wife of Sebastián Pérez (pseudonym), who disappeared in Coahuila in August 2011,
said that when she reported her husband as missing, a judicial police agent asked her how
long she had been married. When she answered 10 years, the agent told her that after ten
years her husband would no longer have been faithful to her. “He took off with [another]
woman,” the agent said. “Give up looking for him.” 124 She said officers reached this
conclusion before asking any other questions regarding where he had been before he
disappeared, and in spite of the fact several of her husband’s friends had seen him be
abducted.
Failure to Promptly Track the Victim’s Cell Phone, Bank Accounts, or Other
Immediate Traces
Cell phones, radio signals, and bank records offer a critical tool to help investigators
determine the fate of the disappeared, in particular in the immediate aftermath of
disappearances. However, Human Rights Watch found that investigators routinely waited
weeks, months, or even years before soliciting the cell phone, radio, or banking records of
victims, despite evidence that accounts continued to be used and despite persistent
requests from families to follow these leads. Investigators also consistently failed to seek
footage in a timely fashion from public or private surveillance cameras that may have
provided relevant leads. By the time officials requested such footage, it usually had been
deleted because so much time had elapsed.
In the majority of cases we documented, victims were carrying cell phones or two-way
radios (commonly referred to as Nextels in Mexico, from the name of one of the providers)
at the time of their disappearances. Often, these devices continued to receive calls, and in
some cases were answered by unidentified individuals, after victims had been abducted.
In other cases, families obtained bank records indicating that money was being withdrawn
from victims’ bank accounts at regular intervals for weeks after their disappearances. Yet
when families reported this information to authorities, they said investigators were slow to
act on it, if they acted at all. Rather, it was often victims’ families who sought cell phone
records to determine the location of phone and radio signals, as well as ATM locations of
withdrawals, which entailed overcoming significant obstacles because many companies
124 Human Rights Watch interview with the wife of Sebastián Pérez (pseudonym), Torreón, Coahuila, April 25, 2012. Pérez
was disappeared in August 2011. The identity of Pérez and his wife have been withheld out of concern for their safety.
43 HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH | FEBRUARY 2013