Remittances to Mexico fuel corruption

The areas of Mexico receiving more monthly money from expatriates in the US are better off. Right? Maybe not.

The states that have higher levels of remittance money have more official corruption. Because… the officials receive less pressure from the resident citizens because there is plenty of money. In the states that receive less the pressure is on to do things right. For example:

… Tabasco's former chief executive Andrés Granier Melo (2006-12), who bragged in a recorded conversation that in forays to Fifth Avenue and Rodeo Drive, he had purchased 400 pairs of pants, 300 suits, 1,000 shirts, and 400 pairs of shoes — with footwear costing $650 or more. How strange that he could not account for the "disappearance" of 900 million pesos ($69.3 million) at the same time that his family's bank accounts got fatter and fatter.

Center for Immigration Studies

The article goes into great detail on the states of Mexico’s states - debt, etc. - the expensive habits of officials and the corruption of those who have been caught - so far. State and local officials are better able to hide their crimes, because the national media follow federal officials, but there is little public oversight of of the states and locales. The section just before the conclusion tells how governors and local officials control journalists through direct payments and directing advertising.

For a broader view see Mexican Emigration and a Failed State about the need for citizen self-defense groups = at CIS.