—–Article Update as of December 2019—–
New findings from the State Department’s Office of Inspector General are putting a spotlight on the difficulties Americans can face when they get sick and need help in other countries — especially if that illness might be the result of a crime. Those difficulties range from failure to issue police reports, failure to shut down bars and restaurants in a timely manner, and even lack of access to health assistance.
—–original article below——
Those who vacation at their favorite hot spots need to be a lot more careful about what they order to drink at hotel or resort. The same popular vacation locations for families have just been found to have a huge underground alcohol ring going on for years.
Mexican regulators raided 31 hot spots in Cancun and Playa del Carmen this August as part of an effort to crack down on illegal alcohol — a black market that came into the national spotlight after a Wisconsin woman’s alcohol-linked death at a posh Mexican resort.
Regulators, who did not release the company’s name, raided not only resorts, but also nightclubs and restaurants in the area. They seized 10,000 gallons of tainted alcohol from a manufacturing company that supplies booze to those popular restaurants, nightclubs and resorts.
The raids came after the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel published a series of articles about how dozens of tourists who had visited upscale resorts in Cancun and Playa del Carmen complained of blacking out after drinking a small amount of alcohol. Some tourists, the newspaper reported, said they were assaulted and robbed after they lost consciousness.
The liquor, which might have been bootlegged, may have been “infused with grain alcohol or dangerous concentrations of methanol, cheaper alternatives to producing ethanol,” The Journal Sentinel reported.
Officials shut down operations at least two bars, including one at the resort Iberostar Paraiso Maya, located in the complex where a 20-year-old Wisconsin woman was found unconscious in a pool in January. Abbey Conner, who was on vacation with her family at the time, drowned after drinking with her brother at the resort’s lobby bar. She was declared brain dead after being flown back to Florida.
“There is obviously stuff going on that needs to be cleaned up or looked into further,” Ginny McGowan, Conner’s mother, told the Sentinel.
According to the Sentinel, Conner and her brother’s blood levels were three times over the limit that Wisconsin law considers to be impaired, even though they had only spent about two hours at the resort. A number of other people reported similar experiences to the Sentinel.
A 2017 report from Euromonitor International said up to 36% of alcohol consumed in Mexico is illegal. The alcohol seized from Kukulkan, the bar at Iberostar Paraiso Maya, was expired and unlabeled and kept in unsanitary conditions, according to the Sentinel.
In a statement, a spokesperson for the Ibersotar Hotels & Resorts said: “It is important to clarify that the closure of this one bar was the result of sanitary compliance (for instance a trash container lid missing, leak from ice machine, etc.), not related to tainted alcohol allegations. We are diligently working to resolve the issues pointed by the inspector and expect another evaluation within the next several days so that this bar’s operations can be fully restored.”
Authorities also temporarily shut down Fat Tuesday, a bar located in Cancun, and took a total of 90 gallons of alcohol from both bars.
The U.S. State Department warned travelers about potential tainted or counterfeit alcohol in Mexico in July, following the Sentinel’s investigation.
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