Mexico City installs cameras to crack down on bribery

MEXICO CITY -- La mordida -- the bite -- has been a part of Mexican life for generations -- a cozy sort of moral corrosion that lines the pockets of underpaid cops and lets citizens pay traffic fines on the spot.

Mexico City officials have spent years trying to crack down on the practice among police. Now, armed with about 170 cameras, they are switching their focus to citizens.

Starting this week, officials say, people caught trying to bribe police officers to avoid a ticket could be jailed for up to three years or fined up to $200.

Authorities have dispatched 450 uniformed and plainclothes police officers around the city to look out for "mordidas" in progress. Some reportedly are posing as shoe-shiners and parking attendants.

Police headquarters on Monday began using existing closed-circuit cameras at major intersections to watch for people settling their traffic fines on the spot -- a common practice for decades.

Hours after authorities announced the crackdown, cameras captured the image of a 22-year-old man as he chased a tow truck a half a block and then slipped two officers $10 to let him drive away with his car.

The driver and the officers were arrested by a gaggle of police several hours later -- an event that made headlines across Mexico on Tuesday.

'Not a simple matter'

On Tuesday, a half-dozen plainclothes police administrators in a stuffy, windowless room used computer controls to flick between images on a wall of 40 television screens, zooming in on some, swiveling on others.

"Now that the people know that we are searching for them, they are going to change their ideas about mordidas," said Pedro Luna Castro, the city head of traffic control who was overseeing the operation.

Asked whether police or citizens were more to blame, Luna said, "Both are to blame. Corruption is not a simple matter."

Mexico City Mayor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said Tuesday the city of 8.6 million was doing its best to fight corruption "from top to bottom."

Almost every mayor in memory has campaigned against police corruption, with modest success at best. Police have been fired by the hundreds. Thousands of others have been sent to retraining camps. For a time, only female officers were allowed to write tickets on the theory they were more honest than their male counterparts.

In the mid-1990s, sociologist Adrian Lopez Rivera attended a police academy and reported that instructors taught officers in training how best to demand bribes.

Janice Cruz, a 34-year-old orange juice vendor, said she was skeptical any changes would last.

"This city is very chaotic," she said in a low voice. "Things will go back to normal very soon. Normal means corruption."