The Acapulco Magnet

How else would shell-shocked family members describe their loved one than as a loving, caring person who was concerned with the well-being of others. A vigorous entrepreneur, a man of ideas, an innovator, a creative intelligence who strove to make the world a better place. A man of vision he may have been, stimulated by what he saw as a potential new market he was anxious to be involved with. In Mexico, where he had pursued earlier business ventures.

But something went dreadfully awry on this particular business trip. His local contacts, his business smarts and his plans all somehow failed him. He had had intimations of danger through a changing crime climate during his previous trips, and relayed to his family a concern that he might conceivably be in danger, and had intentions to protect himself.

Little bits and pieces of intelligence are slowly emerging.

He was engaged in that part of Mexico famous for being impacted by the drug cartels that are fast creating a charnel house of gruesome murders. Not only rival gang members being targeted, but innocent people having nothing to do with the drug trade; government officials, municipal authorities, policing agents, members of the national armed forces. This country has begun to dissolve into a state of anarchic dangerous disorder.

And this is where Daniel Dion was attempting to further his ambitions for a new business; making handbags out of recycled materials. And, in the process, employing quite a few people in Mexico. Prison labour, in fact. He would be unable, by law, to import those goods into countries like Canada, which will not accept prisoner-manufactured goods; it is illegal, unlawful, proscribed. Perhaps it is also unequivocally immoral to employ prison labour?

Now it also emerges that this loving family man has an extensive prison record, with dozens of charges laid against him, from drug possession for the purpose of exporting, possession for the purpose of trafficking and carrying a concealed weapon, as well as break-and-enter convictions. He was sentenced for his criminal activities on a number of occasions, spending relatively brief periods of time incarcerated in punishment.

That any person, yet another Canadian, has been murdered in Mexico is a serious and sad matter. Canadians represent, partly through their relative proximity, a huge tourism market, one that Mexico values and would do much to protect and expand. The dangers inherent in travelling to the country are steadily increasing, yet the lure of the romantic and exotic ambiance continues to attract Canadians.

Whatever the circumstances, it is a pity that yet another Canadian has met his untimely end in a friendly country that is a tourist magnet, yet one which in which civil order is quickly disintegrating because of drug addictions, vast sums of money to be made, and unsuccessful interdiction leading to increasingly dangerous gangs considering their socially-harmful activities untouchable.

Another kind of terror stalks the land.