Mexican Bandits Hold Up and Rob Canadian Couple - April 13, 2010

Jack and Michelle Vander Byl have spent the past seven winters living in their trailer in Mexico.  They won’t be returning.  They no longer have the trailer, or the truck that pulled it.  They were stolen by bandits who stopped the Canadian couple as they were heading back to the US border on their way home in Portland, Ontario, near Smiths Falls.

The Vander Byl’s had been in Mexico since January 5 and were traveling in tandem with their friends David and Joyce Miller. As the road they were traveling on split, the Vander Byl’s noticed three pickup trucks ahead, parked near the ditch.  When a man, dressed in a black uniform, wearing a flak jacket and carrying a machine gun, jumped out of the one of the trucks and stopped the Vander Byls, Jack assumed it was a police check.  These are common in Mexico.

He realized too late that in fact these were bandits.  When Vander Byl asked for identification, the man laughed and another man stuck his hand in the window of the truck.  Another of the sixteen or so bandits fired his gun into the air.  It took only a second for the Vander Byl’s to be yanked from the truck and within minutes the two couples found themselves standing along the side of the road as the bandits drove off with the vehicles.  The driver smiled and waved at them as they left. 

The couples believe that they were spotted by the thieves at the last campground they had stayed at.  Vander Byl said “That was the risk we were willing to take to go into Mexico - that someday this could happen. But you never dream it's going to happen to you.”  He acknowledged that certain parts of Mexico are “a war zone.”  It was understood that there was a tacit agreement between the bandits and the government that tourists would be left alone.

As bad as the initial incident was, it was about to get worse.  After two weeks of trying to get their vehicles back, and they have been found, the Vander Byls and Millers returned to Canada without them.  The government made it impossible for them to reclaim them.  In the words for Jack Vander Byl “two minutes of terrorism and twelve days of legal terrorism."

The second part of the nightmare began when they went to the federal attorney general’s office to retrieve their vehicles.  First, they were required to provide copies of the Canadian-issued ownership for the trucks and trailers.  When they supplied these, the officials then demanded a bill of sale translated into Spanish and verified and stamped by officials in Ottawa.  This process would take two weeks by mail. 

Next they were told they needed to prove that the truck and trailer were legal to have in Mexico.  That would mean a trip to their point of entry to retrieve the original documents that allowed them into the country.  

The Vander Byl’s finally gave up any hope of getting their vehicle and trailer back, and took a bus to the Canadian consulate in Monterey, where they were given emergency passports. Friends had been in touch with their MP, Justice Minister Rob Nicholson, who helped them get the passports.  They arrived back in Ottawa on April 8. 

The entire affair has been tremendously difficult on the couple.  Mr. Vander Byl said “It's been an awful nightmare. The holdup by the bandits was probably the smallest part of it.  On thinking about how much power the officials have, if you got mugged in Mexico, and had your tourist visa and passport on you at the time you were robbed, you might never get out of that country."

Meanwhile, the Foreign Affairs Department is aware of the incident. A spokeswoman for the department said “The Canadian missions in Mexico City, as well as Monterrey are working closely with local authorities to gather additional information.”

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