World

Mexico Trying To Launch Game-Changing DNA Database

REUTERS/Jorge Dan Lopez

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JP Carroll National Security & Foreign Affairs Reporter
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The Mexico State governor wants all Mexican states to hand over DNA samples of disappeared people and migrants to the federal government to create a national database.

Gov. Eruviel Ávila Villegas told Mexican daily El Universal Monday the decision to create this database was his initiative along with advice from the National Council of Public Security. The database will be known as the National Genetic Network, or GENMEX. The idea is to create an easily accessible database for  government entities and non-governmental organizations

Ávila Villegas will present the model legislation before the National Conference of Governors (Congao) which is meeting at the end of March. Avila Villegas is going to ask fellow governors to back his proposal for the creation of a national DNA database, and showed El Universal a message he sent to fellow governors in February asking privately for their support.

El Universal reports “officials from the Marines, National Defense and Public Security, as well as the Red Cross and the Mexico Attorney General’s Office” are cooperating to make the proposal a reality. The Mexico Attorney General’s Office currently has 28,000 DNA samples from various investigations, a sharp uptick from the 5,000 it had in 2012.

If the database and accompanying website are created, it would be valid to use its evidence during oral arguments as an accompaniment to expert witness testimony. Such a database would be revolutionary for Mexican law enforcement fighting various drug cartels.

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