Sonora is positioned as the entity with the highest crime incidence rate with 13,700 cases registered per 10,000 economic units during 2023; followed by Querétaro with 11,661, Mexico City with 9,593 and San Luis Potosí with 9,405, revealed the National Company Victimization Survey (ENVE) 2024 carried out every two years by the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (Inegi).
In 2023, 2.9 million crimes were committed against economic units, which represents a rate of 6,114 crimes per 10,000 economic units, “this increase of 1.3% compared to 2021, although it is not statistically significant at the national level, evidence changes in the internal structure of the country in terms of the distribution and types of crimes,” Adrián Franco Barrios, vice president of Inegi, explained at a press conference.
In 2021, extortion was the main crime in 21 entities and by 2023 it dropped to 18; theft or assault of merchandise, money, supplies or goods went from being the main one in eight states to six; while in six others it was ant robbery; Only in the State of Mexico and Durango, the most frequent crimes were acts of corruption and computer crimes, respectively.
Although it presented a national reduction of 10%, extortion had “alarming increases in six states: Jalisco, Aguascalientes, Querétaro, Chiapas, Morelos and Sonora, where its presence in economic units increased more than 100%,” said Franco Barrios.
In contrast, 15 states managed to reduce this crime from 20 to 88%, as is the case of Durango, followed by Mexico City, Sinaloa, Puebla and Baja California. A worrying aspect is that the form of in-person extortion has doubled, which has made it “more effective.”
The black figure
The black figure is also being reconfigured with unreported crimes reaching 90.3%, with Guerrero, Oaxaca, Aguascalientes and San Luis Potosí leading the way; which is structural and is observed in lower percentages in industrialized states such as Guanajuato, Nuevo León, State of Mexico and Chihuahua, explained Dwight Dyer, general director of Government Statistics, Public Safety and Justice of Inegi.
Jalisco stands out for going from 75.8% of unreported crimes in 2021 to 92.2% in 2023, which is indicative of “that something is happening in the security and justice authorities”, since it is also where crime prevalence increased the most in economic units, said Adrián Franco.
“We have extreme cases in the black figure, Guerrero with 97.6%, practically everything that happens in Guerrero, there is no complaint, there is no record,” which is why there is no government action.
Without an investigation folder it is difficult for the authorities to act, he added.
In the Executive Secretariat of the National Public Security System, 10,337 extortion crimes were registered in 2023, the ENVE estimates 747,000 cases for the same year, “those are the extremes of the black figure, considering that the Secretariat’s figure includes people, in homes and in companies,” he stated.
Cost
The total cost as a result of insecurity and crime against economic units represented an estimated amount of 124,000 million pesos, that is, 0.51% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), which takes into account both the consequences of being victims of a illicit as investment in crime prevention.
The highest costs of crime were recorded in Nuevo León with 75,300 pesos per economic unit, followed by Sinaloa with 78,371 pesos; Nuevo León with 75,300 pesos and Chihuahua with 70,372 pesos; above the national average, which was 54,451 pesos.
As a consequence, 15% of economic units canceled investment plans or programs for being a victim or for avoiding being a victim of a crime. Also 1 in 5 units reduces their production or customer service hours.
The entities with the lowest incidence rates are Tamaulipas with 3,020 per 10,000 economic units, followed by Nayarit, Oaxaca, Veracruz and Hidalgo; They also reduced this figure compared to 2021.
