The changes to the Federal Penal Code were approved unanimously by the deputies and without any discussion. Now the Senate has the minutes on the table and must approve it to finalize the reform.
Currently, anyone who commits this crime receives minimum penalties: from three months to five years in prison and fines of 50 to 500 pesos.
Instead, what was approved is that the person responsible for committing that crime would receive a sentence of six to 10 years in prison and 500 to 2,000 Measurement and Update Units (UMA).
If the daily value of the UMA in 2025 is considered, the approved fine will be from 56,570 to 226,280 UMAS this year and would grow in subsequent years.
This penalty “will increase by up to half when: it is committed against older adults, people with disabilities and/or people in vulnerable situations,” it is also proposed.
In addition, it is expected to be of equal severity and therefore with more penalties when the crime is committed by a public servant.
If the victim belongs to a vulnerable sector or the participation of a government official or employees is corroborated, the person or persons responsible will be subject to up to 15 years in prison.
The reform was proposed by deputies from Morena, the Labor Party (PT) and the National Action Party (PAN), who defined the concept of dispossession “as the illegal deprivation of possession of property through violence, threats, deception or abuse of trust.”
Emilio Ulloa, from Morena and one of the proponents, explained that, from 2015 to 2019, the number of investigation folders for dispossession increased 36%, “going from 20,281 to 27,
597 cases nationwide”, which reveals the urgency of legislating.
“For example, in the State of Mexico, more than 42,000 cases of dispossession were recorded from 2015 to 2025. And the municipalities most affected by this behavior in the metropolitan area, for example, are Nezahualcóyotl, Ecatepec, Chimalhuacán, Los Reyes, Valle de Chalco, Chalco, Tecámac, among others.
“These data show us that the right to property is being violated and that Mexican families today live in fear of losing what they built with so much work,” he recalled.
Furthermore, he showed that “the penalty for this crime is an insult to the citizens,” since the maximum is five years and 500 pesos.
For this reason, he proposed that the prison sentence and financial fine increase, “and more so for the public servants involved,” since he considered that the increase in this crime is due “to the complicity of public servants, organized with criminal groups and delinquents.”
