Recent Travel Warnings and Alerts for the Caribbean, Central and South America

Warnings
Travel Warnings are issued by the State Department to describe long-term, protracted conditions that make a country dangerous or unstable.  A Warning is issued when the U.S. Government's ability to help American citizens abroad is limited due to the closure of embassies or consulates.

• The State Department issued a travel warning for Mexico on April 12.  The warning targeted the U.S. - Mexico border where most of the drug gang violence is plaguing Mexico is occurring.
• On April 17, The State Department issued a travel warning for Haiti, saying that infrastructure in that country is still very unstable following the January 12 earthquake.
• The State Department released a warning on March 5 stating that travelers should be concerned about increased narco-violence in Colombia.

Alerts
Travel Alerts are issued to warn Americans abroad about short term threats (coups, terrorist events, anniversaries, holidays or sporting events that might attract violence, etc.)  There have been no recent State Department Alerts issued for the Caribbean, Central and South America recently.

Combatting Counterfeiting

If you are interested in anti-counterfeiting efforts, please take a look at our sister company, Brand Sentry.

Puerto Rico

Sheer and Associates has strong ties to Puerto Rico.  Tom Sheer’s wife is Puerto Rican.  So is Sean, Tom’s son and the Operations Director of Sheer and Associates.  We’ve conducted a number of investigations there and we have a good relationship with two private investigators on the island, both of them former FBI agents.  We have a working relationship with a northern Florida-based private investigator who can also work cases in Puerto Rico.  She is a former Miami-Dade police officer and is an expert in investigating insurance fraud, conducting surveillance, and general investigations.  She was raised in Puerto Rico and speaks fluent Spanish.

Puerto Rico was populated for centuries by aboriginal peoples, the island was claimed by the Spanish Crown in 1493 following Columbus’ second voyage to the Americas.  In 1898, after 400 years of colonial rule that saw the indigenous population nearly exterminated and African slave labor introduced, Puerto Rico was ceded to the US as a result of the Spanish-American War.  Puerto Ricans were granted US citizenship in 1917.  Popularly-elected governors have served since 1948.  In 1952, a constitution was enacted providing for internal self government. In plebiscites held in 1967, 1993, and 1998, voters chose not to alter the existing political status.  In addiction to a governor, Puerto Rico has a bicameral legislature.  The capital is San Juan.  Puerto Ricans also elect, by popular vote, a resident commissioner to serve a four-year term as a nonvoting representative in the US House of Representatives.  About four million people live on the island; another three-and-a-half million live on the mainland, mostly in the Tri-State Area in the northeast and in central Florida.

The CIA says Puerto Rico has one of the most dynamic economies in the Caribbean region.  A diverse industrial sector has far surpassed agriculture as the primary locus of economic activity and income.  Encouraged by duty-free access to the US and by tax incentives, US firms have invested heavily in Puerto Rico since the 1950s. US minimum wage laws apply.  Sugar production has lost out to dairy production and other livestock products as the main source of income in the agricultural sector.  Tourism has traditionally been an important source of income with estimated arrivals of more than 3.6 million tourists in 2008.  Growth fell off in 2001-03, largely due to the slowdown in the US economy, recovered in 2004-05, but declined again in 2006-08.

Street crime is a significant problem in Puerto Rico.

Puerto Rico is easily reached from the mainland by many major east coast airports.  It is also a popular cruse ship destination.

You can find out more about Puerto Rico on the CIA Factbook website... the Puerto Rican Government site... and the official Puerto Rican tourism site.

Judith Torrea's Ciudad Juárez Blog

If you read Spanish, you should check out freelance reporter Judith Torrea's blog about Ciudad Juárez.  It's called Ciudad Juárez:  En la sombra de narcotráfico, (Juarez: In the Shadow of the Narcotics Trade) and it's pretty compelling reading.

Miami Herald's Coverage of the Americas / April 15

Here's this week's regional news update from the Miami Herald Americas section:

• A Chilean businessman dies in Cuba.
• Mexico's Zetas drug gang is now in El Salvador.
• The opposition in Nicaragua slams the ruling party over Supreme Court term extensions.
• Nine die in drug gang shootings in Honduras.
• Avatar director James Cameron helps delay construction of dam that threatens the Amazon jungle in Brazil.

Arik Arad on Airport Security

Here's an interesting opinion piece on airport security by Arik Arad, a colleague of Sheer and Associates' founder, Tom Sheer.

Patrick Smith's Ask the Pilot

Please check out Patrick Smith's Ask the Pilot column on Salon.  (Salon is an online newsmagazine published in San Francisco.)  Smith, a pilot, is a good writer, with very interesting insights into the airline industry.  He's very unapologetic, passionate about his career, and above all, smart.  Smith is a keen critic of how airport security is managed in the United States and has a number of ideas of how to make it better.  His column used to appear every other week, now it is published in blog format, with shorter more frequent entries.

John Jay College of Criminal Justice Center on Terrorism

Please visit the Center on Terrorism website.  It's an interesting program; they offer seminars on various topics at least one Friday each month.  Here's a description of the center from its site:
"John Jay College of Criminal Justice lost 67 students and alumni in the World Trade Center disaster.  That loss, and the increased interest in terrorism on the part of concerned citizens, prompted John Jay College to create the Center on Terrorism in late 2001.  The goals of the Center are to study terrorism conceptually in ways that are familiar and appropriate for a university and to identify the practical applications of that knowledge in the search for alternative forms of human security.  Such a blend of scholarship and commitment is particularly relevant for John Jay College, the leading institution in the country in the field of criminal justice and public safety, and one of the few institutions to offer M.A. students a certificate in the critical study of terrorism."

Schneier on Security

For interesting reading on security issues, visit Bruce Schneier's website, Schneier on Security.   He describes himself as an "internationally renowned security technologist and author."   The Economist says he is a "security guru," known as a "refreshingly candid and lucid security critic and commentator."   He is currently leading a discussion on terrorist attacks and risk on his blog.

The Dominican Republic

One of the things Sheer and Associates is going to use this blog for is to take a look at the some of the areas of the world where we offer services.

We’re going to start with the Dominican Republic.  We’ve done a fair amount of work there over the last few years, most of it due diligence for Las Vegas-based gaming concerns that want to do business there.  Sheer and Associates has an investigator based in the capital, Santo Domingo.  Thomas Sheer is well acquainted with the country, having spearheaded a number of charitable projects there during his years with the Knights of Malta.

The Dominican Republic (DR) covers the eastern two-thirds of the Caribbean island of Hispaniola.  It shares the island with Haiti; Hispaniola lies roughly 70 miles west of Puerto Rico.  The Dominican Republic is the second-largest Caribbean country after Cuba by population and area.  Santo Domingo is located on the south coast of the island.  The DR is a popular tourist destination and facilities there vary according to price and location.  Spanish is the official language.  Though English is widely spoken in major cities and tourist areas, it is much less common outside these areas.  There is a large Dominican population in the United States; in the last census 1.6 million people identified themselves as Dominican.  Most immigrants from the DR to the US settle in the Northeast, with half of those living in New York City.

The State Department has issued no travel warnings for the Dominican Republic.  Click: http://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/cis/cis_1103.html for the latest on Department Travel Warnings.

The State Department does however warn about street crime there, saying it is especially a problem for tourists.  For more on crime in the DR click:  http://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/cis/cis_1103.html#crime .  The State Department also cautions visitors to the Dominican Republic against overland travel to neighboring Haiti.

For more information on the Dominican Republic, please visit the US Embassy website:  http://santodomingo.usembassy.gov/. For an interesting look at the inner workings of the embassy read the State Department’s Inspector General’s report: http://oig.state.gov/lbry/reporthighlights/54105.htm.  For tourism information visit the official Dominican tourism website: http://www.godominicanrepublic.com/.  

The Bahamas

Sheer and Associates has been doing a considerable amount of work in The Bahamas in 2009.  Since the beginning of the year we’ve worked on a number of projects there with Senior Consultant Jerry Forrester.  Jerry, a former FBI Special Agent, served for more than twenty years as Supervisor of the Bureau's Caribbean Liaison Office.  Since retiring from the FBI, he has spent more than a decade in private security and risk management, operating out of The Bahamas and Miami.  Jerry has developed a unique understanding of how different Caribbean governments operate, especially concerning judiciaries and law enforcement.  We look forward to doing more work with Jerry in the region.  Please contact us if you have any investigative, security or government relations consulting needs in The Bahamas or the Caribbean Basin at large.

According to the State Department:  “The Bahamas is a developed, English-speaking Caribbean nation composed of hundreds of islands covering a territory approximately the size of California.  Tourism and financial services comprise the two largest sectors of the economy.  Independent from the United Kingdom since 1973, The Bahamas is a Commonwealth nation with more than a century-old democratic tradition.  The capital, Nassau, is located on New Providence Island.”

The Bahamas is very close, geographically, to the US.  The distance from Fort Lauderdale, FL to Nassau is a little more than 180 miles.  However there are many islands that lie much closer to the US.  For example, the Bahamian island of Bimini is only 61 miles from Fort Lauderdale.

The State Department has issued no recent travel advisories or travel warnings for The Bahamas.  Though the department does caution visitors about the nation’s high crime rate.  Jerry Forrester agrees with the State Department’s assessment, saying that street crime in The Bahamas is at an all time high.  

For more information about The Bahamas visit the US Embassy website.  The State Department Inspector General conducted a limited scope audit of the Embassy in 2007 and published its report in 2008.

Finally, The Bahamas’ tourism site also has a good deal of useful information for anyone planning on visiting.

Miami Herald Americas Coverage / April 8

Here's the latest from the Miami Herald's America's page. 

• Landslides in Rio de Janeiro.  Two hundred feared dead.
• Rain plagues Haitian camps.
• Costa Rican president calls for a end to celibacy vows for priests.
• Asylum approvals up for Mexicans in wake of drug-related violence.