(Recasts first paragraph, adds Pan American Silver comments,background)May 28
(Reuters) - Pan American Silver Corp becamethe latest company to curtail operations in Mexico due to risingviolence and crime, saying on Monday it has faced securityincidents along the roads used to transport personnel andmaterials to its Dolores mine.
The Vancouver-headquartered company said it will maintainpersonnel at its open-pit Dolores silver mine in the borderstate of Chihuahua at levels necessary for site security andreduced operating activities.
"We have been monitoring the situation, and with the recentincidents that have occurred along the access roads, we havedetermined the prudent course of action is to suspend personnelmovements to and from the mine until the roads are safe for ouremployees," Michael Steinmann, the mining company's presidentand chief executive, said in a statement.
Shares in Pan American Silver, one of the world's biggestsilver producers, were down more than 5 percent in Mondaymorning trade.Pan American Silver's announcement follows decisions byseveral other firms to scale back Mexican operations in recentweeks as a wave of gang violence and organized crime drivesmurders to record highs.
Coca-Cola Femsa , the world's largest Coke bottler,indefinitely shut down its 160-employee distribution center inCiudad Altamirano in southwestern Guerrero state inMarch. Train and truck freight thefts have soared too as criminalsemploy ever more sophisticated methods to terrorize the nation'snetwork of railway lines and highways.
Some truckers now hirearmed escorts to travel alongside them, as robberies doubled in2017 to nearly 3,000.
Last week, miner and infrastructure firm Grupo Mexico saidseven freight train derailments, between the key commercial portof Veracruz and central Mexico, were due to "sabotage" and wouldcost the company 312 million pesos ($16 million). Chihuahua's long border with Texas and New Mexico is aprimary entry point for drug smugglers entering the UnitedStates.
(Reporting by Anthony EspositoEditing by James Dalgleish)
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