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Peru and Mexico Move Extortion Crackdowns Into High Gear

Committee review now focuses on unified enforcement systems to curb prison-led extortion and cut off criminal financing.

Overview

  • Peru’s Congress held a joint session where Interior, Transport and Economy ministers and the interim attorney general presented Bill 12723/2025-CR targeting extortion and contract killings in the transport sector, with leaders aiming to send a report to the full chamber before November.
  • The Transport Ministry backed the bill’s three pillars—prevention, rapid response and rehabilitation—highlighting route certification, integrated surveillance, alternate routes in critical zones and a contingency fund, while urging MEF coordination to secure funding.
  • Justice Minister Walter Martínez urged creation of a National System to coordinate police and prosecutors, proposed specialized units and victim support, and called for an inmate voice database managed by INPE to identify extortion networks operating from prisons.
  • Mexico’s Chamber of Deputies formally received President Claudia Sheinbaum’s initiative for a General Law on Extortion, which would unify the offense nationwide, set prison terms of 6 to 15 years, allow anonymous complaints via 089 and pursue cases ex officio with harmonized federal and state rules.
  • The Mexican proposal details numerous aggravating factors such as cobro de piso, offenses against candidates, migrants and minors, and crimes by public officials, and it addresses prison-based schemes by mandating signal blocking and penalizing the introduction of electronic devices.