I see Mexico is now exporting their crime across the globe.

http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/ ... 22714.html

Mexicans on tour of crime
Julia Medew
September 28, 2006


POLICE believe two Mexican tourists who stole $5000 from a 73-year-old man outside a city bank last week were part of an international crime syndicate targeting elderly people in Melbourne.

Senior Constable Peter Lane yesterday said Carlos Ponce and Laura Barba Nunez, in Australia on holiday visas, had worked with two other Spanish-speaking men as they pretended to wipe dirt off their victim's back while robbing him on September 20.

The theft followed five similar incidents outside city banks in May, where the same technique was used by groups of four to six Spanish-speaking people to steal a total of more than $30,000 from five victims.

Elderly people leaving banks were targeted by the thieves, who wiped their victims' clothes with tissues to distract them as they stole their cash.

Ponce, 44, a merchant from Mexico City, was arrested on Thursday last week and charged with theft and resisting police.

Ponce, who appeared in the Melbourne Magistrates Court on Tuesday, was sentenced to 42 days' jail after magistrate Jane Patrick heard he had arrived in Australia on August 15 hoping to find work to pay off a debt in his home country. He pleaded guilty to the charges and told the court through an interpreter that he was sorry for what had happened.

Yesterday, his co-accused, Barba Nunez, 36, pleaded guilty to one count of theft and was also sentenced to 42 days in prison.

Barba Nunez, who arrived in Australia on August 17 and told Immigration she was here to visit friends, wept as an interpreter told her she could not return to Mexico until she had served her sentence.

The court was told the pair followed their victim from an ANZ bank in Collins Street to the toilets of the Stock Exchange building on the corner of Collins and King streets last Wednesday.

Ponce and two other men then proceeded to wipe the man's back with tissues, telling him they were experts in removing stains. Barba Nunez waited outside.

Ponce and Barba Nunez were identified by police from video footage in the bank. They were arrested the next day at a city bookshop with nearly $5000 in cash on them.