Overview
- Mexico’s Chamber of Deputies approved the General Law to Prevent, Investigate and Sanction Extortion, accepted Senate revisions, and sent the decree to the Executive for promulgation.
- The measure unifies the extortion offense across all 32 states, requires ex officio investigation without a named complainant, and mandates specialized, certified investigative units in federal and state prosecutor’s offices.
- Sanctions include a 15–25 year baseline and fines, rising to a maximum of 42 years under aggravating factors such as involvement of public officials or violent schemes like derecho de piso.
- The approved text, as reported by Milenio, bars early release, commutation, or sentence reduction for those convicted under the law.
- Peru’s Interior Minister Vicente Tiburcio proposed Penal Code changes to criminalize preparatory acts—initial contact, demands, threats, or negotiation—create penalties for leaking reserved investigative information with permanent removal from office, and increase penalties for resistance to authority to five to eight years.