Insecurity halted investment at 14.5% of Mexican businesses
Original reporting: UDGTV
What happened
An INEGI survey covered by UDGTV estimated that crime and insecurity cost Mexican businesses 115.1 billion pesos in 2025. Extortion was the most frequent offense, with about 91% of incidents taking place by phone.
Reporting and context
Insecurity led 14.5% of Mexican businesses to cancel investments in 2025, according to a survey by Mexico’s National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI) covered by UDGTV. The institute estimated the cost of crime and insecurity to businesses at 115.1 billion pesos, equivalent to 0.46% of Mexico’s gross domestic product.
UDGTV reported that the share of businesses that canceled investments was highest in Tabasco, at 32.1%, followed by Morelos at 27.4% and Puebla at 23.9%. Nationwide, 19.2% of establishments cut back on or stopped using cash, 17.6% reduced production or sales hours and 5.7% dropped distribution routes. The survey counted changes made in response to crimes as well as steps taken to prevent them.
Extortion was the most frequent offense, with an estimated 787,000 incidents in 2025. About 716,000, or 91%, took place by phone. INEGI estimated that businesses experienced three million crimes overall. The number of establishments affected rose from 1.3 million in 2023 to 1.4 million in 2025, even as their share of all businesses fell from 27.2% to 25.9%.
Only 9.9% of crimes were reported to authorities, and 8.2% of all offenses led to a formal investigation, according to UDGTV’s account of the survey. In a separate measure of how businesses viewed security from March through May 2026, 71.2% of establishments considered their state unsafe and 54.8% considered transporting goods by road unsafe.