With sentences of up to 42 years in prison, the Senate will approve the General Law to Prevent, Investigate and Punish Crimes Related to Extortion that the Chamber of Deputies endorsed last October. For the first time, the country will have a homogeneous law to punish traffickers, cartels that collect property rights, telephone extortionists who operate from prisons, and false—or authentic—police officers who demand illegal payments. The law sets sentences of 15 to 25 years and adds aggravating factors that can increase them up to 42 years.
This is not the first major legislative action against extortion since President Claudia Sheinbaum took power. In less than a year, Congress approved key pieces: the constitutional reform that empowered the Congress of the Union to issue a General Law on the matter; the approval in Deputies of that Law, which establishes ex officio persecution, defines modalities such as floor rights and prison extortion, and establishes sanctions for colluding officials.
With these actions the State promises exemplary punishments, but it remains to be seen if they will serve any purpose in a country where extortion costs 243,000 million pesos a year. According to the National Survey of Victimization and Perception of Public Security (ENVIPE) of Inegi, around 5.7 million extortions are committed annually. If each victim suffers more than one episode, there are nearly four million people affected. According to Coparmex, 45% of businesses that close in high crime regions do so due to extortion. However, prosecutors only receive a few thousand complaints each year. The black figure exceeds 95 percent. The actual probability of punishment is around 1 percent. With that level of impunity, increasing penalties is not a solution.
The geography of crime also leaves no room for optimism. Eight states concentrate two thirds of the folders: Mexico, Guanajuato, Nuevo León, CDMX, Veracruz, Jalisco, Guerrero and Michoacán. In several of them, extortion works as an alternative tax system, more efficient and feared than the SAT. Cartels collect fees in markets, bars, transportation routes, construction sites, harvests and supply chains. And while the authority discusses penalties, criminal groups adjust rates.
The reform recognizes practices that were minimized for years: bumper rides, prison extortion, groups that cause accidents to demand immediate payments. Provides sanctions for colluding servers and orders extortion to be pursued ex officio. It is necessary, but insufficient. Extortion does not persist due to lack of laws, but rather due to lack of State.
As long as police officers remain underpaid, prosecutors’ offices are overwhelmed, prisons are controlled by criminals, and local governments are subject to pressure from cartels, no 42-year sentence will change the behavior of extortionists. They do not calculate sentences: they calculate the probability of being arrested.
Even so, if the government rebuilds capabilities, professionalizes police, cleans prisons and strengthens prosecutors’ offices, extortion could recede. It won’t be fast or spectacular, but it will be possible. The new law does not stop crime, but it can be the beginning of an effective strategy.
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