Bribery? In Mexico? Out-Wrage-ous!

Redacted from EFE (via SPDNoticias):

Mexico City – 85% of bribery solicitations in Mexico are from people associated with the government, with 45 percent of requests coming from the police, according to a report issued today by United States based Trace International.

“Over 85% of all reported bribe demands in Mexico were made by people associated with the Government, including 45 percent by police, and 12 percent by various officials at the national level, according to the document released in the United States which analyzed 151 incidents reported by July 2007 to January 2010.

The report also indicates that ten percent of Mexican officials at the provincial or state level are involved in kickbacks or bribes, which also include bribes  between other employees of government agencies (6%), municipalities (4%), judges or representatives of the judiciary ( 4%), members of the Army (2%) and officials of the party in power (2%).

…

The document compiles anonymous complaints by frequency, type and purpose of the bribe demands, from throughout Mexico, which have been reported to BRIBEline.org

…

TRACE’s spokesman explained that “cash is the preferred form of payment of bribes”, 80 percent of bribe requests in Mexico are in the form of cash payments.  Five percent were for greater company participation in a project, four percent sexual demands, four percent for benefits assistance (visa processing, medical care or education), four percent for gifts, entertainment or accommodations and two percent for travel….

Of course, it would be silly to claim that bribery doesn’t exist in Mexico, or that the police aren’t likely to be more enthusiastic collectors of irregular payments than other governmental officers (for one thing, you run into a lot more police officers than other officials in your day to day life).  But really, how much stock can one put into the results of a self-reporting, anonomyous foreign website neither well-known, nor regularly accessed by Mexicans?  I know a lot about Mexico, and about Mexican websites (and U.S. websites) — or so I like to think — and this is the first time I’ve ever heard of “bribeline.com” or TRACE international.

Is one going to run over to the computer, search the web for a foreign site and input the data if you uh… um… resolved matters in a less than legal manner the day you left your license at home and got stopped for not wearing your seat-belt (speaking hypothetically … of course!)?  And, if, as TRACE mentions, a lot of bribery is made under threats of violence or other unpleasantness, can you really see the person going and reporting the incident in clinical detail on a foreign website?

And how seriously would we take studies based on these kinds of results… especially coming from a country that starts wars seemingly to support the industrial firms that “contributed” to a given President’s campaign?  Or.. that create crimes so that an entire “for profit” prison industry can soak the taxpayers and citizens?  Or that’s run by the same kind of people that advise the businesses for which bribery is standard operating practice?

TRACE International, according to their website, is basically Alexandra Wrage, the former Senior Counsel – International with Northrop Grumman Corporation.  Northrup Grumman Corporation:  fine, upstanding citizens all, I’m sure.  Prior to working for the company that right now is “currently believed by some legislators to be cheating the state [of Virginia] on an information technology contract,” and which is now complaining that it lost a bid to build some military planes because they bribed the wrong political party, and that’s not fair, she worked for MCI Corporation.

To be fair, Ms. Wrage was not one of the MCI corporate executives who “received prison terms… for their roles in a multimillion dollar scheme that demanded kickbacks from vendors trying to obtain company business.”

Besides, her business has a board of directors to oversee things.  Her, the Senior Counsel with the Upstream Special Projects Law Department of Exxon Mobil Corporation and a Washington attorney who  “represents corporations and individuals in a wide variety of civil and criminal investigations and enforcement matters, including grand jury investigations, SEC enforcement actions and Congressional inquiries”.

I suppose I could say something about removing the beam in your eye, and all that, but maybe I should just find some obscure website in some other country to talk about it.