Word: mordida
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...they never saw him again. You can sense the same mysterious half silence wherever you go; Mexicans call it Article No. 20, as in Which of the $20 is for me? Police and Customs people pay for their government jobs so they can get in on the mordida, the payoff system. Midwives in Brownsville have sold thousands of birth certificates to be used as proof of U.S. citizenship. The Arellano Felix brothers, Tijuana drug kingpins known for torturing, carving up and roasting their rivals, are paying $4 million a month in bribes in Baja California alone, just as the cost...
Lopez Portillo compounded the country's political and economic troubles by encouraging the most deadly bane of Mexico's one-party system: corruption. La mordida (literally, the bite) has always been endemic in Mexican society, but with the huge infusion of oil money, corruption mushroomed. The outgoing President, for example, created 5 million jobs in six years. But at least half of the 2 million new public positions are suspected...
...boss to his underling. The word was first used extensively to mean a bribe in connection with the money that a new sultan gave his troops. In most Spanish-speaking countries, el soborno means a payoff, but in Mexico payola is aptly described as the bite (la mordida...
...West Africa it is known as dash, in Latin America as la mordida (the bite), in Italy la bustarella (the little envelope). By whatever name, bribery and associated tactics-outright payoffs to clerks and customs inspectors, "contributions" to political parties, the hiring of government officials as "consultants" -have long been accepted in many countries as the normal, natural way to get any business done. U.S. companies operating overseas must somehow adjust to that atmosphere. But the biggest scandal in American business right now is that too many seem to have become a part...
Although marijuana and opium are technically illegal in Mexico, the Mexican government has been reluctant to beef up its unsophisticated mini-force of 40 drug agents, who are so poorly paid that they are easy prey to the Mexican ethos of mordida (the bite, or payoff). Operation Intercept may discourage the amateurs who smuggle hemp across the border on major highways. It will probably have little effect on the professionals who dominate the trade. As a knowledgeable Texas border scout points out, "There are areas out there where a small army could cross without detection...