Andrea Becerril and Georgina Saldierna
La Jornada Newspaper
Thursday, November 20, 2025, p. 4
The Senate unanimously approved last night the General Law to Prevent, Investigate and Punish Crimes Related to Extortion, a new legal framework that standardizes the criminal offense throughout the country, toughens sanctions for criminals and officials, protects victims and imposes precise rules to prevent cell phones and other electronic devices from being used in prisons.
The opinion, approved with 110 votes in favor and zero against, was returned to the Chamber of Deputies, with 21 changes to 15 articles plus the inclusion of a transitional one.
The document was discussed yesterday in an afternoon session in which the president of the Legislative Studies Commission, Enrique Inzunza, highlighted that “extortion not only affects assets, (but) strips people of their tranquility, dignity and sense of community.”
Hence, he highlighted, the reform “gives the institutions of the Mexican State and within them the Senate of the Republic, the opportunity to demonstrate, without ambiguity, that Mexico will not tolerate this crime in any of its forms.”
In turn, the president of the Justice Commission, Javier Corral, said: “There is no doubt, today a better instrument is consolidated at the service of the Mexican people, to close all the loopholes for extortionists and limit the impunity of this lacerating crime, the third with the highest incidence in the country.”
He explained that the basic criminal offense established by the deputies was changed because, “maintaining the penalty from six years to 15 years would open the doors for people punished for that conduct to be able to request early release, taking advantage of the retroactive application to their benefit.” For that reason, “we consider increasing the minimum penalty to 15 years and the maximum to 25 years.”
A uniform legal framework is established that allows the crime of extortion to be effectively combated throughout the national territory, by configuring a definition that integrates all the elements of the criminal offense in light of the evolution of this illicit conduct, Inzunza stressed.
The 25-year sentence will be increased according to the damage caused and can reach up to 42 years if the extortion is carried out by an imprisoned criminal, violence is used, a member of organized crime participates and in cases of the so-called bumper and debtmount.
Digital extortion lasts up to 37 years, as established in article 14, the wording of which was modified yesterday, through a reservation presented by Morena senator Ignacio Mier, to change the expression “use of media” to “use of devices, services or platforms and any other electronic means.”
Mier explained that “platforms and telecommunications are the most direct means to extort with impunity, impersonate and even a criminal can commit the crime from his cell.”
Deadline to inhibit calls
Therefore, the rehabilitation centers will have a period of six months, after the law is enacted, to establish the procedures and technologies for inhibiting entry and exit of cell phone calls, radio communications, voice, data or image transmission.
In addition, there will be a prison sentence of six to 12 years for inmates who are found with a cell phone or other electronic devices in prisons. The same sanction will be applied to officials and other personnel of prison centers that allow their entry.
Another change that the senators made to the minutes was to establish 10 to 20 years in prison for Public Ministry officials, police officers, and prison employees who do not report extortion crimes. In San Lázaro it had dropped from five to 12 years.
The opposition voted in favor of the law, although in the discussion PAN and PRI members maintained that the legislation is late and warned that there is no specific budget to implement it.
