Organized Crime Extortion Surges Across Mexican Businesses \ Newslooks \ Washington DC \ Mary Sidiqi \ Evening Edition \ Extortion is crippling small businesses in Mexico, with owners facing threats, armed robberies, and demands for weekly payments. A Mexico City shopkeeper closed his decades-old family store after years of escalating violence and no police protection. National extortion cases are rising, with most never reported.
Quick Looks
- Extortion demands forced a historic men’s store in Mexico City to shut down
- Criminal groups demand weekly payments under threat of violence
- Mexico lost over $1.3 billion to extortion in 2023, says Coparmex
- Extortion reports in Mexico City nearly doubled in early 2025
- National reporting remains low; 97% of cases go unreported
- Cartels like Sinaloa and CJNG treat extortion as organized business
- President Sheinbaum unveils national strategy to combat extortion
- Affected business owners face fear, silence, and systemic impunity
Deep Look
What began with a phone call turned into a years-long nightmare that ultimately destroyed a family business nearly 90 years old. In Mexico City’s historic downtown, the owner of a men’s clothing shop inherited from his grandfather in 1936 received a chilling demand:
“I need you to put together 10,000 pesos ($500) for me weekly, or else we’ll have to do something.”
At first, he hung up. Then, he ignored the calls. But when another one came, he decided to confront the voice on the other end. “I won’t pay,” he said. The amount would have swallowed half his store’s daily income. The voice responded with menace: “Well, prepare to face the consequences.”
And so began years of intimidation, threats, physical visits by thugs, and violent robberies that would eventually force the store to close for good in December 2023 — the same way many other small businesses across Mexico have folded under the crushing weight of extortion.
The shopkeeper, who asked for anonymity out of fear for his safety, shared how this criminal pressure slowly eroded not only his livelihood but also his sense of security and faith in authorities.
“When I closed I felt very sad,” he said. “And then it made me so mad to think that I could still go on, but because of fear I couldn’t. You work your whole life for them to destroy it.”
An Expanding Criminal Business Model
Extortion in Mexico is not new, but its rapid escalation and normalization have turned it into one of the country’s most dangerous economic threats — especially for small and family-owned businesses.
While some larger companies have enough margin or influence to absorb extortion as a “cost of doing business,” small business owners — often without political protection or institutional support — are left vulnerable and alone.
According to Coparmex, the Mexican Employers’ Association, businesses lost over $1.3 billion to extortion in 2023. And the trend is worsening: national extortion cases rose 10% in Q1 of 2025, even as other major crime categories declined.
In Mexico City, reported cases nearly doubled in the first five months of 2025, rising from 249 to 498 compared to the same period in 2024. It’s the highest rate in six years, per federal crime data.
Fear and Silence: A Systemic Breakdown
What makes extortion especially insidious is how underreported it is. The National Institute for Statistics and Geography (INEGI) estimates that 97% of extortion cases went unreported in 2023. Victims often stay silent due to a toxic combination of fear, trauma, and a widespread lack of trust in law enforcement.
This pattern played out in the case of the men’s clothing store owner. After receiving his first threat in 2019, he stopped answering the shop’s phone for eight months. But the threats eventually returned — followed by men physically arriving at the store. By 2021, demands for protection money became weekly.
Acting on legal advice, the owner began managing the store remotely. Still, violence persisted. During one armed robbery, employees were held at gunpoint, tied up, and locked in the bathroom.
When the owner finally went to authorities, he was told to provide proof — but because the threats were always verbal, he had none. The case went nowhere. No arrests. No investigation. No protection.
Organized Crime’s Expanding Footprint
Security analysts say Mexico’s most powerful cartels, including the Sinaloa Cartel and the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), have formally incorporated extortion into their operations. These groups are no longer just drug trafficking syndicates — they’re diversified criminal enterprises.
“Extortion has become one of the divisions of their criminal portfolios,” said security analyst David Saucedo.
The model is highly scalable. Once cartels establish dominance in an area, smaller criminal groups and lone extortionists piggyback on that fear, impersonating cartel affiliates to shake down business owners.
In most cases, victims don’t even know who’s behind the calls. But the uncertainty makes it worse. A demand may come from a local thug or a cartel hitman — there’s no way to tell, and no room to take chances.
One business owner in the area was reportedly killed for refusing to pay. That case, combined with escalating threats, was the final straw for the men’s shop owner.
Government Response and New Legislation
In response to the growing crisis, President Claudia Sheinbaum announced a national anti-extortion strategy this week. Among its key components:
- A nationwide anonymous reporting hotline
- Authority to cancel phone numbers used in extortion attempts
- Creation of local anti-extortion units
- Involvement of Mexico’s Financial Intelligence Unit to freeze bank accounts linked to extortion activity
These efforts come after Sheinbaum pledged in July to push for new legislation granting federal authorities stronger legal tools to pursue and prosecute extortionists.
Mexico City’s police chief, Pablo Vásquez Camacho, acknowledged the scope of the problem and the reporting gap:
“We can’t solve something that we’re not even seeing or that isn’t being reported,” Vásquez told AP.
Meanwhile, the Mexico City Chamber of Commerce, led by Vicente Gutiérrez Camposeco, has sounded the alarm, saying extortion has “become entrenched” — not only in rural areas or cartel strongholds, but in the very heart of the capital.
A Legacy Lost
Few stories capture the personal toll of this crisis more than that of Daniel Bernardi, whose family has operated a popsicle shop in the historic center for 85 years. His outlook is bleak:
“There isn’t much to do,” he said. “You pay when you have to pay.”
For the men’s clothing store owner, that decision never sat right. He resisted for years — absorbing financial losses, protecting his staff, keeping quiet. But in the end, the cost of safety was too high. He closed the store in December 2023, watching as antique furniture and decades of family legacy were hauled out, piece by piece.
“I could have gone on,” he said bitterly. “But because of fear, I couldn’t.”
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