Mexico Among The World's Most Corrupt Nations In 2014 Report

With allegations of corruption in government, politics, business and banking emerging throughout the year, corruption was one of the most pervasive issues in Mexico in 2014. It came as no surprise, therefore, that the country scored worse than previously in the year-end corruption perceptions report by Transparency International released December 3rd. With a score of 35 on a scale of 0 (highly corrupt) to 100 (very clean), Mexico ranked 103 among 175 countries in the group’s Corruption Perceptions Index, which ranks countries and territories based on how corrupt their public sector is perceived to be. The best-ranked country is Denmark and the worst is Somalia. Among the 31 countries of the Americas addressed in the survey, ten ranked lower than Mexico: Argentina, Ecuador, Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, Nicaragua, Paraguay, Haiti and Venezuela. Canada ranked highest and Venezuela lowest. Mexico is also ranked the most corrupt among the OECD countries.
In 2014, several events contributed to Mexico’s drop in the public sector corruption perception index. The most dramatic was the abduction of 43 poor students by corrupt policemen in Iguala, a small town in Guerrero 120 miles from Mexico City. In late September, Mexican federal authorities said that the students were killed and burned in a ditch for many hours. The bodies were so badly charred that only the DNA of one student has been positively identified.

The case of the 43 missing students has triggered massive demonstrations throughout Mexico where people are protesting the killings and the depth that corruption has penetrated into the government, which the tragic incident exposed.
For their direct involvement in these killings, Iguala’s former mayor, José Luis Abarca, and his wife, María de los Ángeles Pineda, both members of the PRD leftist opposition party, top the list of Mexicans perceived as most corrupt in 2014.
According to Mexican authorities, Abarca ordered the police to attack the students because he feared they were going to disrupt a political event designed to promote a bid by his wife to replace him as mayor in 2015. Both were arrested charged with masterminding the abduction and killings of the students.
Known as Lady Iguala, the mayor’s wife and her brothers, two of whom were executed by rival gangs, were part of the top leadership of Guerreros Unidos, the criminal gang the students were handed over to by the corrupt policemen before they were killed. Abarca and his wife reportedly used their position of power to amass a personal fortune estimated in the millions of dollars.  Abarca is currently being kept in a maximum security jail. Authorities said the couple has refused to answer questions.