Business leaders in Mexico expressed dismay after armed robbers took containers full of gold and silver ore from a major port.
The group of armed assailants also nabbed boxes full of televisions from a container storage area at the port of Manzanillo, the country’s largest container port, according to media reports.
The robbery took place 2 June, though details have been slowly emerging in the Mexican press amid a war of words over rising violence in the nation.
Some 10 armed assailants entered a private freight yard near the port, subdued employees and spent several hours looking for the containers they wanted, including those carrying the partially refined gold and silver ore, according to CBS News.
They hauled the boxes away by truck.
Jose Medina Mora, the president of the Mexican Employers Confederation (Coparmex), urged the country’s navy to protect ports from such instances of organised crime.
“For business organisations, the robbery of 20 containers with gold, silver and televisions that took place in Colima this weekend is highly worrying,” he said, according to the Milenio newspaper.
“While it’s true that the navy has said that this happened in a private yard, ultimately security is the navy’s responsibility.”
But Mexico’s Navy Secretariat has fired back, insisting that the robbery took place outside of the port, where it is not responsible for security.
“Protection and security of merchandise in this type of installation are under the control of the owner of the particular location (private security),” the ministry said in La Jornada newspaper.
