This is how life is in basically every Central and South American city, in my experience.

As soon as a family has some relatively small amount of wealth they will spend it on ultra-secure apartment buildings, tall walls around their house, razor-wire walls and fences, full coverage security cameras and intruder detection, etc.

I saw jarring signs of that when I visited Mexico City in 2003 - I stayed with a business partner who lived in a walled community guarded by private guards openly carrying submachine guns. Can only imagine that the security has been dialed up a few notches by now.

(The source of my confusion: I interpreted "overseas" in a quite literal way - I'm from Europe.)

Did you visit one of the armored car dealerships in Polanco? They are badass.

I did not. I think random violent carjackings had just started happening at scale. The guy who hosted me was getting a bit worried.