Mexican Corporations Complain Of Rampant Extortion In Letter To President Enrique Pena Nieto

Extortion is on the rise in Mexico since President Enrique Peña Nieto took office. Now three of the country's biggest corporations have put their names to a letter addressed to its president which complains of the toll the practice has exacted on public infrastructure projects of which they're a part. Firms ICA, Carso and Cemex said in the letter that organized crime groups in Mexico City, Guadalajara, Oaxaca and Acapulco frequently demand monthly payments from them in their subcontracting work. Carso is owned by Carlos Slim, the world's richest man, while Cemex is owned by billionaire Lorenzo Zambrano.

Reforma, which has obtained a copy of the letter, reported that it described how members of organized crime groups exercise control over the contracts of public works projects and threaten titleholders and businesses in order to extract quotas from them, often in the form of monthly payments. It says the construction-material transportation syndicate itself has been penetrated by the groups , and warns that the extortion money which they're forced to pay to be able to work "are felt in increments in the cost of the original estimates, making it unviable to proceed with them and putting in risk the fiscal integrity of many of those involved in the works".

InsightCrime notes that the American Chamber of Commerce said in May that out of 531 CEOs of US firms doing business in Mexico, 36 percent said they had faced an extortion attempt in 2012 - double the percentage in 2011, when 18 percent said they'd been the subject of one. Meanwhile, 24 percent of them said that their installations in the country had been trespassed upon, up from 14 percent. In May of 2012, multiple installations of the snack manufacturer Sabritas were attacked in the states of Michoacan and Guanajuato by members of the drug cartel the Knights Templar, after which authorities leaked information indicating that they were in reprisal for having not paid some $3,900 per month in extortion fees.

The letter from the three firms names Acabús - a rapid-transit bus with its own lane which is being constructed in the metropolitan area of Acapulco - and the Acatunel - a tunnel which would serve as an alternative to a highway between two main parts of the city - as examples of projects over which organized crime exercises serious influence. "O.C. (organized crime) now has control over the Acabús and Acatunel projects," it reads. Earlier this month, Mexico's National Public Security System reported that extortions had risen 17.8 percent in the past year, while kidnappings went up 27.5 percent.

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