Emir Olivares and Alonso Urrutia
La Jornada newspaper
Wednesday, October 1, 2025, p. 15
The new Telecommunications Commission will strengthen control in the sale of mobile phones chips – which today can be easily acquired – in order to avoid various crimes, particularly extortion, said President Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo.
This, he said, was established in the Law in Telecommunications, recently approved, and is part of the National Extortion Strategy.
“Now that among the new Telecommunications Commission there will be more control in the sale of chips, that is already in the law. That is, today a cell phone can be purchased without any identification; 10, 15 are bought, they can be taken to a detention center and, if there is a cell phone there, they can make extortion calls changing the chips,” he said.
In the morning of yesterday, the federal president said that her administration raises two measures to prevent extortion from prisons. One is to demand from telephone companies block the cell phone signal in the detention centers, and the other is that the purchase of chips is subject to identification, as is currently the case when a telephone plan is hired.
“When you buy a cell phone plan there is identification, because the same, when you buy a chip that has identification. That is going to lower the extortion a lot. That is for security reasons,” he emphasized.
The Chief of the Executive pointed out that the obligation to protect consumer data will fall on telephone companies, which must guarantee the protection of personal information.
“They are the ones who keep. And if it is found that this chip was involved in a crime, then, from a court order the information is requested.”
On the other hand, given the attacks that have occurred in hospitals of Culiacán, Sinaloa, the chief of the Executive guaranteed that there will be protection for patients and doctors in the capital of that state.
