Crime, Safety, and the Police

[Scudrucker]

Guys,

I have always wanted to visit the world famous HK club. Purchased my tickets to San Diego. I am now in two minds abut visiting as I am concerned and fear for my safety. I was planning to get room at Cascadas hotel and be in Tijuana for 2 nights.

Any advice you can give an absolute newbie.

1. Thinking of getting VIP card and taking limo across. Wanting to get in on Monday afternoon around 3 PM.

2. Not clear how to get VIP card as can't seem to purchase online.

3. Panning to cross border back to San Diego in the early afternoon so not planning any late night activities.

How does one get to and back to HK club safely.

Any help is much appreciated. I have waited two years. Should I hold off for longer until things become more stable.

Everybody has a first time. You are lucky in that you have this board and countless youtube videos and sites so that it will not seem new to you.

The vip card is not available online. It is now only good for three months so buy it at the service counter as you enter Hong Kong.

Usually I arrive early so they check my backpack, buy the vip card then ask for the drink slip and the half price lap dance. Doesn't matter if you use it, just ask for it so later you don't have to break the mood.

You arrive at three so the room should be ready.

After buying the card head upstairs to check in. Tell them your res and when they find your room use the card to get the discount.

Cascadas is less seedy than it sounds. I have made many reservations and only have received confirmation from them.

No surprise emails or customer lists ever showed up.

Use taxi is easiest right after the border. Just get in line If you are an uber that is available too.

I personally have never taken the HK shuttle but maybe others can speak to that.

Try not to get too hung up on street crime. In the daytime you are just another tourist.

Heading back to the border is just as easy.

Always a cab waiting outside the door, and the shuttle will take you if you book a time.

Have a great time.

The real danger here is to the wallet going back time after time after.

Some others far more experienced than me will chime in.

Sr.

[ScatManDoo]

Guys,

I have always wanted to visit the world famous HK club. Purchased my tickets to San Diego. I am now in two minds abut visiting as I am concerned and fear for my safety. I was planning to get room at Cascadas hotel and be in Tijuana for 2 nights.

Any advice you can give an absolute newbie.

1. Thinking of getting VIP card and taking limo across. Wanting to get in on Monday afternoon around 3 PM.

2. Not clear how to get VIP card as can't seem to purchase online.

3. Panning to cross border back to San Diego in the early afternoon so not planning any late night activities.

How does one get to and back to HK club safely.

Any help is much appreciated. I have waited two years. Should I hold off for longer until things become more stable.

Use this link to get a coupon for a free limo ride from the border:

http://hktijuana.com/assets/pdf/HK-Coupon-Ride.pdf

The coupon gives you the HK website for you to use to schedule the limo pick-up.

When you arrive, I suggest that you go into HK first before going upstairs to Cascades to check-in, even if you are carrying some luggage.

At the HK Customer Service desk you can purchase the the VIP for $50 (or in pesos at HK's in house exchange rate).

When you go upstairs to Cascades, you will want to have your VIP in-hand when you check-in (in order to get the associated discounts).

[Jackie888]

Guys,

I have always wanted to visit the world famous HK club. Purchased my tickets to San Diego. I am now in two minds abut visiting as I am concerned and fear for my safety. I was planning to get room at Cascadas hotel and be in Tijuana for 2 nights.

Any advice you can give an absolute newbie.

1. Thinking of getting VIP card and taking limo across. Wanting to get in on Monday afternoon around 3 PM.

2. Not clear how to get VIP card as can't seem to purchase online.

3. Panning to cross border back to San Diego in the early afternoon so not planning any late night activities.

How does one get to and back to HK club safely.

Any help is much appreciated. I have waited two years. Should I hold off for longer until things become more stable.

You can take either a taxi to HK and back for $5, or the HK limo for $1 if you know where they are parked. VIP cards are bought in person. They will ask for your driver's license. Monday's suck. Monday afternoon is worst. Sure you want to go Monday afternoon? Consider Wednesday instead.

Safety is not an issue if you go directly to and stay put at one of the big 3 clubs instead of wandering around. Police presence is very light on Monday's, so limit your curiosity.

[Captain Solo]

To Bobster65.

You sound scared, but don't have to be. Tijuana is not less safe than downtown LOS Angeles, San Francisco or New York, and far safer than downtown Baltimore and Detroit.

I am always concerned about my own safety. I traveled all over Mexico and other dangerous, war-torn parts of the world and had no problems just by maintaining a few precautions. The most violent and scariest places are Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paolo, Recife of Brazil and many places in Africa and Asia. Tijuana is murder capital only among drug dealers. You should be safe going back and forth across the border during day and night time if you walk with a bunch of other people.

You should call HK and ask for the phone number of Alberto Quinto, the VIP host. He speaks English. Negotiate a tip with him and promise him you will spend lots of money in the club and for HK's girls and he can send a guy to pick you up in San Diego and drive you to HK's front door. Go in HK and buy the VIP card at the small reception desk. You should make reservation with Cascada hotel on line beforehand. Check in showing your HK's VIP card, you will have 80% room discount on Monday and Tuesday.

On the way back the limo parks in front of the club. Tell valet parking guys you want a ride back. It usually goes immediately, taking you to PedEast. HK's smaller van will take you to PedWest. I heard HK's big limo has armored plates and bullet-proof glass. Check it out hehe.

[Long Don Silva]

Guys,

I have always wanted to visit the world famous HK club. Purchased my tickets to San Diego. I am now in two minds abut visiting as I am concerned and fear for my safety. I was planning to get room at Cascadas hotel and be in Tijuana for 2 nights.

Any advice you can give an absolute newbie.

1. Thinking of getting VIP card and taking limo across. Wanting to get in on Monday afternoon around 3 PM.

2. Not clear how to get VIP card as can't seem to purchase online.

3. Panning to cross border back to San Diego in the early afternoon so not planning any late night activities.

How does one get to and back to HK club safely.

Any help is much appreciated. I have waited two years. Should I hold off for longer until things become more stable.

You purchase the VIP card at the front desk of HK, immediately to the left upon entering the front door before the curtains. I find it more convenient to take a taxi or uber than it is to take the HK limo. Sometimes you have to wait a while for the limo and you're still expected to tip the driver so I find more value in uber or taxi. The taxis are abundant at the PedEast crossing. If you have sufficient reception on your phone, uber's a lot cheaper than taxis, at least for Americans since taxi drivers jack up the price on us.

And don't get caught up in the paranoia you'll see from one of the posters here. Something about an 80's rock band and a fancy sports car. All the regulars here, myself included, have experiences that are in many ways diametrically opposed to what he posts. Just don't be the stereotypical American expecting the rest of the world to bow at your feet. Also, always be aware of your surroundings just like you should in any other city. And last but not least, treat the putas like you would any other ladies.

[ScottHall]

Guys,

I have always wanted to visit the world famous HK club. Purchased my tickets to San Diego. I am now in two minds abut visiting as I am concerned and fear for my safety. I was planning to get room at Cascadas hotel and be in Tijuana for 2 nights.

Any advice you can give an absolute newbie.

1. Thinking of getting VIP card and taking limo across. Wanting to get in on Monday afternoon around 3 PM.

2. Not clear how to get VIP card as can't seem to purchase online.

3. Panning to cross border back to San Diego in the early afternoon so not planning any late night activities.

How does one get to and back to HK club safely.

Any help is much appreciated. I have waited two years. Should I hold off for longer until things become more stable.

If you just take the limo or cab straight to the club and straight back you should be fine. If you're worried then stay inside the club. Don't wander off anywhere. It's OK to bar hop but walk with a purpose. Night time can be intimidating, maybe do your traveling when it's light out.

[Bobster65]

Guys,

I have always wanted to visit the world famous HK club. Purchased my tickets to San Diego. I am now in two minds abut visiting as I am concerned and fear for my safety. I was planning to get room at Cascadas hotel and be in Tijuana for 2 nights.

Any advice you can give an absolute newbie.

1. Thinking of getting VIP card and taking limo across. Wanting to get in on Monday afternoon around 3 PM.

2. Not clear how to get VIP card as can't seem to purchase online.

3. Panning to cross border back to San Diego in the early afternoon so not planning any late night activities.

How does one get to and back to HK club safely.

Any help is much appreciated. I have waited two years. Should I hold off for longer until things become more stable.

[Travv]

Before I get in a taxi, I ask the hotel staff if the taxi is safe or have the hotel call you a taxi. Kudo to Captain Solo for posting this alert.

Also, migrants could easily wind up dead in Detroit or Chicago from a drive by shooting or dead from dating dudes in Los Angeles. One guy there is notorious for dating black male prostitutes who wind up dead afterwards. . . Sex and drug parties gone sour. This is likely what happened in Tijuana, tweekers on Cristal desperate for a fix and imagining that broke migrant kids could pay for their next hit of meth, then killing them when the money for drugs didn't show up.

Gangs with ties to cartels and drugs sales lured the 3 migrant boys to a house in Tijuana with promise of sex and money. They then kidnapped, tortured and murdered 2 to extort money. The bodies were dumped near Calle Quintana Roo, near the Telefonica Gastro Park. If gangs even extort money from the poorest migrants, they will probably soon target gringos, whose families would pay hundreds thousands for their release. Gangs may just murder victims rather than risking being identified in prosecution..

[Captain Solo]

Gangs with ties to cartels and drugs sales lured the 3 migrant boys to a house in Tijuana with promise of sex and money. They then kidnapped, tortured and murdered 2 to extort money. The bodies were dumped near Calle Quintana Roo, near the Telefonica Gastro Park. If gangs even extort money from the poorest migrants, they will probably soon target gringos, whose families would pay hundreds thousands for their release. Gangs may just murder victims rather than risking being identified in prosecution.

To avoid the same horrible fate, the bros are urged to maintain low profiles in Mexico, don't flaunt their wealth, don't overpay and overtip girls and meseros, don't make themselves look like lucrative targets for kipnap and extortion, don't go places with unknown people, don't ride in unknown taxis, UBER is safer, be very careful where they go and whom they deal with.

Noobs and visitors from out of town are encouraged to contact Hong Kong's VIP host and Cascada's concierge, Alberto Quinto, to get the best service and security.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.

Mexico Tricked, abducted and killed: the last day of two child migrants in Mexico.

The deaths show the vulnerability of migrants forced to 'remain in Mexico' under new US policy for asylum seekers.

Ed Vulliamy in Tijuana.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...xico-us-asylum

On a Saturday afternoon in December, three Honduran boys walked out through the gates of the blue stucco YMCA shelter for unaccompanied child migrants in Tijuana, and turned past the gas station next door on to Cuauhtémoc Boulevard for a walk.

Their destination was a sports centre-turned-migrant camp to visit people they'the met travelling north with a caravan of other Central Americans.

Two of them never returned: the bodies of Jasson Ricardo Acuña Polanco and Jorge Alexander Ruiz Duban, 16 and 17, were found the following morning; three people were arrested for their murder.

The boys were tricked, abducted, tortured and killed; the survivor escaped with wounds to his throat from attempted strangulation and remains acutely traumatised.

The horrific murder brings into brutal focus the vulnerability of migrants forced to "remain in Mexico" under the new US policy for asylum seekers.

On a recent visit to Tijuana, Unicef's deputy representative in Mexico, Pressia Arifin Cabo said that migrant children must be protected from danger – on both sides of the border. "Migration is not a crime, and many of these adolescents are travelling alone, unsure of what to do," she said.

The Guardian has traced the Honduran boys' final days, on the basis of the surviving child's account – we'll call him Lázaro – as told to staff at the shelter and the Tijuana district attorney, José Alberto Álavarez.

"They had been with us two or three weeks", said Uriel González, who runs four YMCA shelters for unaccompanied child migrants along the border. "They left the casa by themselves, and one of two women started talking to them".

According to González, the woman lured them to a white-gated house near the city centre with the promise of sex and money. Eventually, "she took them to a house and they were not allowed to leave. That's when they realised they'the been kidnapped".

According to Álvarez, the initial motive appears to have been theft, but when it became clear the boys didn't have any cash the kidnappers decided to extort money from their relatives captives – and then started to torture them.

The Hondurans were tied to chairs undressed and tortured with scissors.

Two of the boys were murdered – one choked on a stick, the other strangled – but somehow Lázaro escaped and found his way back to the shelter, González said.

The bodies of Acuña and Ruiz were dumped the same night near a school nearby.

A woman who lives nearby recalled: "There was a commotion. People said: there are bodies over the road! I saw them covered with a blanket. The police arrived, lights and noise, and took them away".

Officers later took a statement from Lázaro and then asked him to recreate the route of his abduction, said Álvarez. "And, unbelievably, there was the same girl, walking the same street, doing the same thing – two days later. She told us where the house was, and there we found one man who took us to the other guy. ".

The woman and two men were arrested and charged with abduction and murder.

Because the victims were from the migrant caravan, the killings have drawn rare attention in Tijuana – where such deaths usually fail to turn a head.

Local human rights activists have linked the double murder to a growing hostility towards Central Americans that has grown in Tijuana since the migrant caravans first arrived last year.

"It's hard not to think that a climate of xenophobia promoted by the state's own institutions is not a breeding ground for this type of action", said the president of the Baja California State Commission for Human Rights, Melba Adriana Olvera Rodríguez, citing what she called inflammatory language by municipal leaders.

Prosecutor Álvarez insists the deaths reflect the spiraling violence which has afflicted Tijuana: 2,502 were killed in the city last year – a rate of 126 per 100,000 inhabitants.

"These were small-time drug dealers working the street, themselves intoxicated. These terrible murders illustrate the social decomposition we see in Tijuana," he said.

Both men arrested have records of drug dealing, and admitted low-level connections with cartels.

Migrants flee violence only to find more in Tijuana – Mexico's murder capital.

"At the root of this are drugs", says Álvarez, "but most of the murders now are by petty drug-dealers; people fighting for turf for the domestic market in methamphetamine.

"This case has attracted attention because the victims were from the caravan. If they had not been, no one would know about this – they would probably be just two more murder victims in Tijuana. ".

Weeks after the murders, the YMCA shelter is still in shock; most of the youngsters here remember the victims well.

"They were the same as us, who came here hungry and thirsty," says one boy, José. "We came for lack of work and because gangs back home threaten you with death to get money even if it's just a few pennies. ".

González fears for the safety of the surviving boy. "The kidnappers threatened to kill him if he spoke. He just wants to get the hell out of Mexico, but cannot until they have closed the case," he said.

Local authorities say Lázaro will have to testify, but after that there is no guarantee the boy will be granted asylum in the US.

The corner on Calle Quintana Roo where the bodies were dumped, two-and-a-half blocks away.

On Monday 17 December, two Californian congress members, Nanette Barragáand and Jimmy Gómez, came to Tijuana, to join a protest against US authorities' refusal to allow asylum seekers to make their claim, as is their right under US and international law.

After waiting all night at the crossing, they finally accompanied 20 migrants through, including 8 minors. There were supposed to have been nine – also on the list was Lázaro.

"he should be in the United States now, processing his asylum claim" said González. "Instead he is here, traumatised, waiting for his chance to come, living this nightmare".

[Captain Solo]

It happens quite often in most third world countries. Foreigners invest capital and their lives into developing businesses, only to be robbed and lose them to locals.

In the cases of Nikki's bar and the Strip club on Revo, both businesses just disappeared. Nobody took them over.

Respectable business and government officials are always looking for opportunities to squeeze people for mordida. I am not surprised that government officials took large bribes from El Chapo an dother cartels.

Knew a guy years ago who owned a Tijuana factory making cardboard boxes for TVs from Maquiladora plants. He said he was always getting visits from different Mexican government agencies for "inspections" and then having to pay "mordida". When he got fed up with the payoffs and some of the locals heard him yelling about it in his office, he got a call at lunch that he was about to be arrested and held til he paid off some other people. . . He left immediately for San Diego and abandoned the cardboard factory. Something similar probably went down here. . . The businesses now have a new local owner who is friends with the local power structure. I've run into guys thinking they will open a business locally. Unless you have the right connections, you may have difficulties, once a local figures out how to run your business for you. Then you are no longer needed.

[Travv]

Knew a guy years ago who owned a Tijuana factory making cardboard boxes for TVs from Maquiladora plants. He said he was always getting visits from different Mexican government agencies for "inspections" and then having to pay "mordida". When he got fed up with the payoffs and some of the locals heard him yelling about it in his office, he got a call at lunch that he was about to be arrested and held til he paid off some other people. . . He left immediately for San Diego and abandoned the cardboard factory. Something similar probably went down here. . . The businesses now have a new local owner who is friends with the local power structure. I've run into guys thinking they will open a business locally. Unless you have the right connections, you may have difficulties, once a local figures out how to run your business for you. Then you are no longer needed.

What happened to Backpage's owners in the US shook up a lot of people who involves in prostitution in different ways to make profit.

The law in most states in Mexico make it illegal to profit from prostitutes. Guys who operate the web sites and man the phones to send girls to hotels for sex could be convicted if local governments decide to press the issue.

So far Mexicans seem immune to prosecution, but a few of those prosecuted and convicted that I heard of, were all foreigners:

1. Black guy who ran escort service in Playas and Rosaroto Beach.

2. Larry, black BBQ chef in SD, owner of Nikky's bar on Tijuana's Calle 1, arrested brought to CDMX for prosecution for trafficking and prostitution, fate unknown.

3. The Jewish Dad and son, owner of a strip club on Revo, arrested and prosecuted for trafficking bestiality etc.

[Captain Solo]

What happened to Backpage's owners in the US shook up a lot of people who involves in prostitution in different ways to make profit.

The law in most states in Mexico make it illegal to profit from prostitutes. Guys who operate the web sites and man the phones to send girls to hotels for sex could be convicted if local governments decide to press the issue.

So far Mexicans seem immune to prosecution, but a few of those prosecuted and convicted that I heard of, were all foreigners:

1. Black guy who ran escort service in Playas and Rosaroto Beach.

2. Larry, black BBQ chef in SD, owner of Nikky's bar on Tijuana's Calle 1, arrested brought to CDMX for prosecution for trafficking and prostitution, fate unknown.

3. The Jewish Dad and son, owner of a strip club on Revo, arrested and prosecuted for trafficking bestiality etc.

[Hargow20]

If the various police agencies work together than it could help improve the crime situation. The military already patrols the streets in the Zona so it is hard to see how that will help much in the Zona. But to have any serious impact the federal govt must first root out the police corruption. I will be convinced the police are serious when the drug dealers that sell in the open are gone. The police may see this as a opportunity to shake more people down so I use more caution.

Link to article from "The San Diego Union Tribune" https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com...131-story.html.

[ClamSlammer]

...and they jammed him with speaking to girl for sex...hey can and will arrest for doing this hobby in other areas if someone doesn't like you...

They "jammed" him? Where do you come up with these terms? What does "jammed" mean? Sounds like something I do to a slice of toast. And no, they can't arrest you for soliciting prostitution. It is legal in Mexico. If you look scared and gullible enough, the policia may say it's illegal and threaten you with jail unless you pay a "fine. " But they can't follow through on that threat because it's not illegal.

[StRobert]

Link to article from "The San Diego Union Tribune" https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com...131-story.html.