Organized crime sixfold “use rights fee” to businesses across Mexico

They report that this type of extortion increased from 5,000 to 30,000 pesos in a decade; the most affected sectors were mining, agriculture, hydrocarbons and textiles.

MEXICO, (December 27, 2021) .- Organized crime has made the collection of use rights a highly lucrative activity and they have gone from charging 5 thousand pesos to extorted companies in 2010, to six times that amount today, charging 30 thousand pesos on average per established business.

Kroll’s Associate Managing Director and Head of the Latin America Region, Rafael López, said that the cartels in Mexico are so well structured that everything that happens within their territories is orchestrated and coordinated, to the point of being more violent in regarding the collection of use rights in their territories.

He explained that this type of activity is, of course, classified as extortion, however, there is a more important problem that is the black figure, which is that the victims of this crime do not report for different reasons, but especially due to for fear of retaliation, “Mexico in terms of extortion is one of the countries with the highest black figure there is ”.

Rafael López explained that this criminal incidence has increased sixfold because the existing apparatus to report, follow up and punish the culprits is totally obsolete and does not work at all. According to the numbers of the Executive Secretariat, in 2019 9 thousand cases of extortion were reported; in 2020 the figure was 8,380 and as of November 2021, which is the last update, a total of 8,603 cases have been registered already.

“People, merchants, businessmen, are afraid to make complaints because at the end of the day they are not followed up, or because there is some kind of connection, criminals leave a few days later and there may be reprisals for them or their families, there is no certainty of security or legal ”, he highlighted.

He added that the states with the most reports of use rights collection are Veracruz, Quintana Roo, State of Mexico, Mexico City, Jalisco. And the states that have registered a descent in this type of crime are Nayarit, Durango, and Baja California”.

He pointed out that every peso that is extorted from a businessman is paying his percentage of Income Tax (ISR) corresponding to his tax percentage.

“It is a triple loss for entrepreneurs, because they have to pay or if they are not endangered, their families, businesses, they have to hire additional security to protect themselves, and they cannot deduct the monetary losses in the taxes that will be charged to them”, he said.

Hydrocarbons and textiles, affected

For his part, the president of the Security Commission of the Confederation of Industrial Chambers (Concamin), Refugio Muñoz, agreed that extortion and collection of land rights is a type of crime where there is a lot of black figures (they do not report it), since that they do not do it for reasons of security and intimidation.

He added that without having exact figures for this crime, the private sector is based on the issue of perception, “it is a type of crime that is on the rise, compared to 2019 this crime is on the rise. The main form of extortion is the collection of land rights, if you want to work here you have to pay, if you want to market you have to pay ”.

When questioned as to whether this type of extortion, called the collection of floor fees, moves foreign companies’ investments towards Mexico, the representative of the industrial sector said that he does threaten the arrival of more foreign companies.

In turn, the president of the National Chamber of the Textile Industry (Canaintex), Manuel Espinosa Maurer, said that his sector, in addition to smuggling and piracy, faces a growing theft of trucks with cotton per bale, wherein states such as Puebla, Hidalgo, State of Mexico, Veracruz, have noticed this crime more.