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By Héctor de Mauleón
The building from which drugs are distributed at Condesa neighborhood clubs is located on 12 Benjamin Hill, near the taco restaurants El Califa and El Farolito, in Mexico City.
Armed hawks that report unusual movements by radio stand on the roof of the building. At the door, a woman and two or three other mean-looking men accompanied by Pit Bull dogs control the street.
A blanket hung on the front of the building indicates that it is protected by the Asamblea de Barrios.
They arrived one night five years ago. They stormed the building and evicted the tenants of the 16 departments in the building (which had spent years paying frozen rents). A story published in La Jornada said that the new owners warned that "any complaints should be addressed to René Bejarano and Dolores Padierna."
Shortly after they started charging "fees" to neighbors, valet parkings and the vendors of the street market installed every Tuesday.
The neighbors were forced to pay 350 pesos per week for “parking right”. Drivers received a "proof of payment" with the photograph of the Che Guevara in return. Those who refused to pay suffered scratches, broken windows and mirrors, flat tires and were even attacked, as the valet parkings of El Califa and El Farolito can testify.
When parking meters were installed in the area, the inhabitants of the building demanded 40 places for them. A leader threatened ecoParq workers to close the nearest main street and blurted: "Inside the building there are 50 people ready to fight if that is what you want.”
Two photographers of EL UNIVERSAL that took photos of the parking meters on Benjamin Hill were attacked by a group of individuals from the building that asked them “what the hell they were photographing”. And the motorcycle used by the journalists was vandalized.
In 2014 neighbors started complaining about autoparts thefts, vehicles blocking the way, people drinking on the street, attacks against teenagers and police cars “collecting their fee”. A neighbor says that vans and suspicious cars are seen at night.
No one did anything about it, neither Mexico City government, nor the authorities of Cuauhtémoc district. Neighbors complained, talked to the media. But the official response was silence.
In December 2015 a man was shot in the eye and died minutes later at a hospital. Agents reported that they saw a suspicious convoy of a Lobo truck, a Suburban and a Beetle and that they chased him until Condesa neighborhood, where they were attacked and responded to the aggression. The drivers of the convoy crashed the cars and hid inside the building.
Expert opinions and recordings of the surveillance cameras showed that public security officers escorted the convoy and probably killed the driver of the Lobo truck in order to steal 90 envelopes with cocaine from him.
The driver was called Iván and lived in the building, whose residents confronted authorities with rockets, stones and pipes. After the skirmish they hang a banner reading: "Mancera, tie your dogs."
"And I think he tied them" said a neighbor, because a year has gone by and everything remains the same: autoparts theft, assaults, aggressions against teenagers, vehicles blocking streets… and suspicious trucks and armored vehicles late at night.
"Be careful," said a man when I asked him questions about the building. "They say they belong to the gang Los Bichos, Los Lobos, but we all know they are members of Unión Tepito".
The banner hanging from the building says Asamblea de Barrios. Someone must have an answer to this mystery.
