SIX OUT OF TEN COMPANIES AFFECTED BY CRIME IN MEXICO

On July 29, the American Chamber of Commerce of Mexico (https://amcham.org.mx/sondeoseguridad2024/) presented its tenth survey on business security, in which 6 out of 10 of the businessmen who responded to the survey indicated that their business operations are affected by crime.

That 60% of the companies affiliated with the American Chamber of Commerce of Mexico have to face crime on a daily basis is bad news for the country, since as has been seen in recent days in Tamaulipas, where the leader of the businessmen in Matamoros was murdered a day after reporting that the city's criminal groups were increasing the extortion rates on businesses; both the federal, state and municipal governments cannot or do not want to face the problem.

In the survey, companies stated that the crimes they face are assault or robbery with violence against their employees (52%); attacks on transportation in the supply chain (49%) and extortion (45%).

In Mexico, out of every 100 crimes, only 6 are reported to the corresponding authorities; and out of every 100 reported crimes, only 14 are resolved.

According to the National Institute of Statistics and Geography, around 1.7 million economic units in the country have had to implement measures to protect against crime, which implies a cost to the country's economy equivalent to 4% of the Gross Domestic Product, that is, 52 billion dollars.

Thanks to this investment by the companies themselves, the number of companies that consider themselves safer than last year increased from 17% to 39%. And given that most companies consider continuing to invest in the issue of security, by 2025, 43% consider that they will be safer than this year.

The point here is that it must be the companies themselves that allocate more and more resources to protect their staff, their operations, their facilities, their products and services, while authorities at all levels ignore the problem.

In fact, after the murder of the leader of the businessmen in Matamoros, Julio Almanza, who denounced the extortion of Oxxo convenience stores, the Tamaulipas government suggested to the holding company that owns the chain of stores, FEMSA, that it should hire private security for its stores, given that the government cannot commit to protecting them from robbery and extortion.

There is no greater proof of the incompetence, weakness and complicity of state and municipal governments than this type of response by authorities whose main function is the protection of the life, security and property of citizens.

Unfortunately, the new government of Claudia Sheinbaum, who will take office as the new president on October 1, has not proposed any new public policy that can correct the serious failures and complicity with organized crime that characterized the government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador, so it will continue to be the citizens, communities and companies that organize to defend themselves from the power and presence of organized crime and common crime throughout the country.