But he has stories - like his brother fixed up a car nicely. There's a tax on that, and the car was simply taken, and his brother was taken to jail.

If you slosh money around in Mexico, chances are that somebody will take it upon themselves to collect it for themselves.

All this being said, Mexico itself seems to be slowly becoming less poor over time. They are, ironically, starting to have problems with people from Central and South America, both criminals an ostensibly non-criminals.