In the last 14 months alone, 12 protectees and 28 of their protectors were killed in Mexico. This makes executive protection one of the deadliest professions for both those who practice it and those who hire it. Faced with this situation, those in charge have mistakenly tried to increase the number and firepower of bodyguards, allocating bigger executive protection budgets to it. However, they’ve done so without understanding that a determined attacker will not be deterred and that in an ambush, the advantage is held by the one who sets it, not the one who defends against it.
This misguided strategy led to the unfortunate incident last week in Guerrero, Mexico, where two police chiefs were ambushed and killed, despite being guarded by up to ten armed agents with high-powered weapons. All of this is due to a misunderstanding – which results in a misinvestment.
During the EP Summit 2022 in Mexico City, the well-known director of corporate security in the banking sector, Fernando Gomez, posed a very important question to his fellow panelists at the event:
Of your total executive protection budgets, how much do you invest in measures that are implemented at the time of an attack, and how much in measures to prevent an attack?
This question is crucial as it provides the answer to all the problems Executive Protection is facing. Executive protection budgets in our profession are typically spent on agents, weaponry, equipment, vehicles, emergency responses, armouring, and training in weapons and combat. These measures consume most of the limited budgets that security managers have at their disposal.
However, if we analyse these measures, we realise that they all come into play when an attack is already happening: agents act when there’s an attack, weapons are used at the moment of aggression, the same goes for armouring and emergency response, which obviously occur in times of crisis.
Additionally, training is solely focused on response in critical situations. Some might argue that these measures are deterrents and therefore also preventative. However, in light of the mentioned facts, it’s evident that deterrence in our country is becoming less and less effective.
So, how much of the executive protection budget is allocated to measures, tools, and training aimed at preventing these events from happening?
The answer is nothing or almost nothing, and this explains the tragic results mentioned at the beginning of the article. Furthermore, in all the attacks that have occurred in the past five years in Latin America, from the attacks against Norberto Ribera and Omar García Harfuch in Mexico to the murders of Fernando Villavicencio and Agustín Intriago in Ecuador, the lack of investment in intelligence, counter-surveillance, early warning, protective logistics, and other proactive protection measures is evident. These measures of anticipated protection could have stopped these attacks before they happened, far from the victims in time and space.
For years, many in executive protection have followed the adage that “what is not seen is not worshipped,” implying that a protection system must be showy to be effective. However, there is no hard data or scientific evidence to support this concept.
On the contrary, over the past 123 years worldwide, close protection has failed practically every time it has been tested under real conditions, with tragic results. If we continue to invest solely in close protection and operations focused on reacting at the last moment, we will continue to send our people to the slaughterhouse.
Of course, I don’t mean to say that we shouldn’t invest in reactive measures because, of course, we should.
Each measure should be applied after a prior study determines its necessity. However, I want to emphasize that the investment should be balanced, covering both prevention and reaction measures to aggression.
Measures such as intelligence, counter-surveillance, and early warning are essential for preemptively neutralizing threats. These measures can be implemented in various ways, with a much smaller budget than what is required for reactive measures, and they are much more effective and secure.
The tragic state of executive protection in Mexico demands an immediate and radical change in how we understand and operate it. We must focus on measures of anticipation and early neutralization of threats, instead of passively waiting for an ambush where the chances of survival are minimal or nonexistent. Only then will we make our profession safer for both the protected and the protectors.