Extortion in Mexico, Digi Mart USA News: Extortion in Mexico remains at elevated levels and has spread into several of the country’s economic regions. According to a report cited by the publisher, the national rate was 6.4 victims per 100,000 inhabitants between January and September 2026, a 65 percent increase compared with the same period in 2015.
The report, published by México Evalúa and based on records from the Secretariado Ejecutivo del Sistema Nacional de Seguridad Pública (SESNSP) and population projections from the Consejo Nacional de Población (Conapo), found that three strategic regions account for 85 percent of extortion victims. These are the Centro Metropolitano, the Bajío-Occidente and the Norte Industrial y Minero, which together hold 69 percent of the national population.
The report, titled “De la violencia a la pacificación: Monitoreo de la violencia delictiva en México,” documents 8,551 extortion victims nationwide during the first nine months of 2026. The national rate was 6.36 per 100,000 inhabitants, compared with 3.9 in the same period of 2015.
The trend contrasts with a decline in intentional homicide. According to the analysis, the national homicide rate fell 31.3 percent between 2025 and 2026, while extortion has not shown a sustained downward trend and remains high.
México Evalúa warns that the drop in homicides does not necessarily reflect a general improvement in security conditions, because crimes involving threats, intimidation and extraction of economic resources follow their own dynamics.
By region, the Centro Metropolitano recorded the largest number of victims, with 3,326 cases, or 38.9 percent of the national total, and a rate of 8.11 per 100,000 inhabitants. The Bajío-Occidente ranked second with 2,244 victims, 26.2 percent of the total, and a rate of 7.47, roughly unchanged from 7.53 in 2025.
The Norte Industrial y Minero recorded 1,658 victims, or 19.4 percent of the national count. This region posted the largest annual increase, with its rate rising from 4.63 in 2025 to 7.72 in 2026, an increase of 67 percent.
The Golfo y Sur-Sureste registered 925 victims, with a rate of 3.04 per 100,000 inhabitants, while the Noroeste Exportador recorded 398 cases and a rate of 3.46. In the latter region, the indicator rose 30 percent from the previous year.
The study also identified a territorial shift of the crime toward states that were not originally included among the priorities of the National Strategy Against Extortion (ENCE), implemented by the federal government in 2025. In the eight priority states, victims fell 13 percent between 2025 and 2026, while in the rest of the country they rose 30 percent, according to the data analyzed.
Six of the nine states with the highest extortion rates are not on the federal priority list: Morelos, Zacatecas, Colima, Querétaro, Baja California Sur and Tabasco. The report says this distribution shows the phenomenon is not limited to the states initially identified by authorities.
The document also highlights municipal concentration. In 2026, a total of 729 municipalities recorded at least one extortion victim, yet just 42 municipalities, fewer than 6 percent of those affected, accounted for half of the victims nationwide.
The analysis notes that incidence is not always concentrated in the main cities of each state, but also in peripheral municipalities and industrial and commercial corridors, including the Irapuato-Salamanca-Celaya axis in Guanajuato and the eastern zone of Morelos.
México Evalúa also argues that extortion is an economic problem because of its effects on productive activity, particularly in commerce, manufacturing, logistics and small and medium-sized businesses. Protection payments and other forms of recurring extraction of resources create added costs for merchants, producers and transporters, which can be passed on to the final price of goods and services.
For this reason, the organization considers combating the crime essential to protecting competitiveness and investment, especially amid the review of the Mexico-United States-Canada Agreement (T-MEC).
The report distinguishes three forms of extortion: episodic extortion, involving threats and intimidation by calls, messages or in-person contact; rentier extortion, linked to periodic payments demanded from merchants and producers; and extortion tied to territorial control, through which criminal organizations impose conditions on economic activity, mobility and markets.
Underreporting compounds these difficulties. The National Survey on Victimization and Perception of Public Security (ENVIPE), prepared by the Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Geografía (INEGI), estimates that 97.5 percent of extortion crimes are not reported or do not reach authorities through an investigation file.
This limits the true scale of the problem and complicates comparisons between states, due to differences in the recording mechanisms of state prosecutors’ offices. The organization says better data collection and uniform indicators are needed to identify the areas with the highest incidence.
Among its recommendations, México Evalúa proposes institutionalizing the National Strategy Against Extortion through published regional diagnoses, annual targets, compliance deadlines and periodic reviews of priority states and municipalities. It also proposes secure anonymous reporting mechanisms developed with business chambers and civil organizations, immediate legal assistance for victims, and links to the 089 hotline and SESNSP records.
Another measure calls for strengthening municipal police forces using resources from the 2027 Public Security Contribution Fund (FASP), particularly in the commercial and industrial corridors with the highest incidence, along with cooperation agreements between municipalities and states. Finally, the organization recommends targeting investigations at the assets and financial structures of extortion groups, by tracking unusual economic transactions and applying tools such as asset forfeiture.
México Evalúa concludes that addressing this crime requires a security policy that goes beyond measuring homicides and considers the different forms of violence affecting the population and economic activity. It also calls for greater coordination among federal, state and municipal authorities to address the specific conditions of each region.
