Caught On Cam: UK Envoy To Mexico Removed After Pointing Gun At Local Employee

The British ambassador to Mexico Jon Benjamin was removed from his post earlier this year after he pointed an assault rifle at an embassy employee who was a local employee, according to a report by the Guardian. The removal came after the footage went viral on social media.

The Financial Times said in a report that the incident happened when Jon Benjamin was on an official trip to Durango and Sinaloa – two Mexican states where organised crime groups run freely. Seated inside a car, Benjamin is seen looking down the gun’s sights at a colleague, who is visibly uncomfortable with the conduct, as seen in the widely shared video.

The gun belonged to a member of the security personnel who was accompanying the diplomat. The errant security official was also sacked. The incident happened in April.

“In a context of daily killings in Mexico by drug dealers, he dares to joke,” an anonymous account said in the post accompanying the video shared on X.

Benjamin, 61, is no longer listed as the ambassador on the UK government website, the Guardian said in its report.

“We are aware of this incident and have taken appropriate action. Where internal issues do arise, the FCDO has robust HR processes to address them,” the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) said in a statement to the Financial Times.

Benjamin’s career spanned for almost four decades and was posted in Chile, Turkey, Ghana, Indonesia and the US. He was designated the UK ambassador to Mexico in 2021.

For the past six years, Mexico has experienced over 30,000 homicides annually, one of the highest rates in Latin America, as organised crime groups battle for control over territories and businesses nationwide.

Diplomatic relations between the UK and Mexico, Latin America’s second-largest economy, have tended to be cordial and uncontroversial. They have been negotiating a new free trade agreement since 2022.

Mexico’s drug cartels and gangs appear to be playing a wider role than before in Sunday’s elections that will determine the presidency, nine governorships and about 19,000 mayorships and other local posts.

The country’s powerful drug cartels have long staged targeted assassinations of mayoral and other local candidates who threaten their control. Gangs in Mexico depend on controlling local police chiefs, and taking a share of municipal budgets; national politics appear to interest them less.

But in the runup to Sunday’s vote, gangs have increasingly taken to spraying whole campaign rallies with gunfire, burning ballots or preventing the setting up of polling stations, and even putting up banners seeking to influence voters.

(with inputs from the Associated Press)