Extortion: The new government crusade against a crime that has been in the skin of Mexico

Mexico, the country of the 65 daily deaths daily, lives with another silent crime that everyone knows: extortion. Millions of people are victims of threats that force them to pay a criminal fee that affects shops and services, transport and distribution of goods, medium and large companies and, more and more, poor people who try to get ahead with a street sales stand or a humble tortillería. The fear of not complying with the required payments has been drowning hundreds of businesses without anyone daring to piar: 0.2% of extortion is barely denounced and is the crime that has grown the most in recent years. The Secretary of Security of the Republic, Omar García Harfuch, has presented a plan to combat this epidemic that offers a help from police and financial intelligence to a handful of Mexican states, including the capital, and campaigns to boost complaints. Claudia Sheinbaum enters the battle against a crime «of the local jurisdiction that no previous president wanted to speak because they run the risk of making it more public and having in return counterproductive statistics once those affected begin to denounce,» says security specialist Carlos Pérez Ricart. «It's brave,» he says. Extortion only jumps to the federal jurisdiction if it is related to organized crime, and it is, even if it is difficult to know to what extent, since there are hundreds of neighborhood criminal gangs that also operate with this practice. So that the Government of the Republic is also directly concerned. A man of the utmost confidence of the president and of enormous popularity among the citizen former. «Homicidal violence is down, but extortion, no, and that is clearly perceived by the citizen on foot. The project will succeed against this crime and in that direction the new laws of security and intelligence go,» says Pérez Ricart. But it is not the only reason. Mexico will be next year one of the three venues that will share the World Cup, together with Canada and the United States. In this event some other experts are framed against the extortion presented now. «All this reminds of the strategy that Brazil launched in its World Cup, where eight cities against the crime were shielded and it worked,» says Raúl Benítez Manaut, also a security expert. And he offers some data to square the equation: “When García Harfuch was secretary of Security in the capital, he did many joint operations with his counterpart in the State of Mexico, Rodrigo Martínez. They are good friends, and Martínez is now the man of FIFA for security in Mexico, a contract in which Harfuch has intervened, I know,” says the analyst. Donald Trump tariffs, yet without specifying in their globality, have led to a replication to the internal market. There are few meetings that the president has had with the businessmen, who have paid pineapple to her before the outside enemy. Everyone has presented and requested collaboration to carry out the Mexico Plan, aimed at strengthening the internal market and thus release the ballast that the many economic units with the United States, its main commercial partner, is destined, where the bulk of the millionaire Mexican exports is destined. On the one hand, security is offered to foreign investors to implant their companies in Mexican territory, although large companies are not the most vulnerable to this crime, but suffer and demand measures. On the other, the little Mexican entrepreneur and the smallest still entrepreneur, who do suffer from criminal extortion until suffocation, would benefit from being prevented from those who ask for a part of their profits. Organized crime attacks in shops in Villahermosa, Tabasco, in January 2025.Luis López (Cuartoscuro) extortion has risen from the hand of the great mafia capos, but also of opportunistic criminals who go free. The some drown to the field and livestock, to the supply markets and certain merchants in conflicting areas; The others shoot at almost anything, including false kidnappings that are announced by phone demanding the payment of an amount, crimes that catch the most disadvantaged population. The announcement of García Harfuch has emphasized the use of intelligence for the arrest of criminals, in the creation of local anti -expiration units, in protocols for victim care to those who paralyze their fear and have made available a telephone, 089, to receive as due to these complaints. In addition, the participation of the Financial Intelligence Unit will be reinforced, responsible for freezing bank accounts as a result of criminal practices and judicial orders will be requested to block telephone and cellular lines, many of which are handled from prisons. «The rent of cell phones in prisons is a business and the inhibitory machines do not work, because they affect the population that surrounds the prison centers, they are a failure, but those extortion are the least, they try to deceive the most inadvertent citizen,» says Manaut. In any case, this strategy to detect mobile users also has a political background that nobody escapes: it makes sense to the Telecommunications Law presented by Sheinbaum against the crime, but that has suffered strong criticisms for the alleged citizen espionage that could trigger. «The order of a judge will be needed, it is not espionage,» the president repeated on multiple occasions. The extortion suffered by millions of Mexicans will now have the strong man of the government, the one that has taken the most revenues in these first 10 months of the Presidency of Sheinbaum, offering almost daily results against the crime and the thousand crimes that discourage the country. The reduction of insecurity statistics has not come spoiled only by the impulsive requirements of Trump in its fight against drug trafficking and fentanyl, it is called to become the government brand, which needs to overcome the poor letter of presentation of its predecessor in this matter. «It becomes clear that this government wants to impose a hard hand with soft speech, without resembling Bikele, but bukellizing a little, and would be applauded by many people, no doubt,» says Benítez Manaut. Not to mention the president of El Salvador, an opposite face to the image that Sheinbaum projects, Pérez Ricart also believes that the president will be measured against the insecurity that Mexico rates, «because in other areas I think it will leave duty: the economy will hardly grow and the great promised infrastructures we will see, but the security can be the area of ​​results.»