Nestle apologizes for Tweet about missing Mexico students

MEXICO CITY - Reuters

A banner reading "we want them alive" with portraits of 43 missing students hangs outside their Ayotzinapa Teacher Training College in Tixtla, near Chilpancingo, in the southwestern state of Guerrero, November 10, 2014. REUTERS Photo

Nestle, one of the world's top food companies, apologized on Monday for an offensive tweet about 43 missing trainee teachers apparently massacred in southwest Mexico, saying it was "unauthorized".
   
Mexico's attorney general on Friday said the students from the small town of Ayotzinapa were apparently killed, incinerated and ground up after being abducted by corrupt police in league with a local drug gang in late September.
  
Just after midnight on Sunday, a tweet published by a Mexican account dedicated to Nestle's "Crunch" brand candy bar, said "A los de Ayotzinapa les dieron Crunch", a pun on a slang Mexican expression that translates as, "They crushed those from Ayotzinapa".
   
A spokesman for Nestle Mexico said on Monday that the tweet was removed shortly after publication.
   
She said the company had initiated an investigation to find out who had sent the tweet but would not to say whether the account had been hacked.
  
On Monday, the company issued a fresh tweet that read: "Once more we offer the sincerest apology for this offensive tweet which is completely contrary to our values."
   
The apparent massacre is the toughest challenge yet to face President Enrique Pena Nieto, who took office two years ago vowing to restore order in Mexico, where about 100,000 people have died in violence linked to organized crime since 2007.