Pay To Play
It’s all about the money, right. Some people gotta have it; they can’t live without it. Hardly anything in this world can operate without money. So, the cartels and crooks gotta have their slice of the largest economic pies on the planet.
What is this drumbeat all about?
U.S. Companies and their Mexican counterparts operating in Mexico are trying their best to fend off burgeoning tariffs handed down by President Donald Trump. That’s money, right? But they also find themselves facing the stark reality of extortion threats, hijacking of transportation and high-risk attempts by criminals to coerce law-abiding employees into tolerating illegal activities, including drug trafficking, according to a newly released media report. Money just drives some people crazy as a clown.
Mexican cartels control important economic sectors and activities in the following:
- Bajío region, which includes pertinent portions of Queretaro, and Guanajuato, including
- Aguascalientes, San Luis Potosí, Jalisco, and Michoacán, as well as vast portions of the Mexico-United States border. Multinational corporations continue to have very large manufacturing operations in these same regions which can easily become fertile grounds for extortion and theft by Mexico organized crime criminals.
Against the backdrop of massive extortion of U.S. companies in Mexico by known gangs and cartel members, President Donald Trump has declared Mexico Drug Cartels as Foreign Terrorist Organizations.
Criminal activity near the southern border may get worse if the Mexican government and the U.S. keep applying pressure on cartels to deter them from pushing American-based companies into utter chaos over persistent threats of extortion.
“We are hostages to extortion demands, we are hostages of criminal groups,” businessman Julio Almanza said in one of his last interviews before an assassin shot and killed him. “Charging extortion payments has practically become the national sport in Tamaulipas.” Within a few hours after making his bold statement, Alamanz lost his life for talking publicly about organized crime cartels and street gangs in Mexico.
The problem came to a head when the Femsa corporation, which operates Oxxo, Mexico’s largest chain of convenience stores, announced last year that it was closing all of its 191 stores and seven gas stations in another border city, Nuevo Laredo, because of gang problems.
Mexican Cartel Threats
“Cartel extortion of Mexican businesses has expanded in both scope and the size of their targets, portending a possible future for American firms,” according to the 2025 Worldwide Threat Assessment report from Virginia-based security firm Global Guardian. “Absent a substantial change in Mexico’s security landscape, extortion will pose an increasing threat to Western firms operating in Mexico.”
A 2024 survey by the American Chamber of Commerce in Mexico reported one in eight of its members stated organized crime had “taken partial control of sales, distribution and/or pricing of their goods,” the Associated Press reported.
“The number of firms operating in Mexico impacted by organized crime and violence in some way is a relatively high number,” said Michael Ballard, director of intelligence for Global Guardian. “Central Mexico is a manufacturing hub for the export of cars, appliances, heavy machinery … They are concerned about carjacking of those shipments, theft of goods and black-market reselling.”
“There are concerns about infiltration by members of organized crime either in the form of actual employees or coercion” of executives, Ballard said.
The following top U.S. based companies operate in Mexico:
(1) General Motors (5) Intel
(2) Big Commerce (6) Honeywell
(3) Arrow Commerce (7) Ford Motor Company
(4) Lyft
(Newsnation TV report how cartels extort U.S. Companies in Mexico: Cartels targeting US firms in Mexico for theft, extortion)
Jalisco New Generation Cartel Members Pose As U.S. Treasury Officials
According to CBS News, the U.S. imposed sanctions on a group of Mexican accountants and firms allegedly linked to a timeshare fraud ring run by the Jalisco New Generation drug cartel in a multi-million dollar scheme targeting Americans.
In November, U.S. authorities said the cartel was so bold in operating timeshare frauds that the gang’s operators posed as U.S. Treasury Department officials.
The scam was described by the department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, or OFAC. The agency has been chasing fraudsters using call centers controlled by the Jalisco drug cartel to promote fake offers to buy Americans’ timeshare properties. So far, the cartels have scammed at least 600 Americans out of about $40 million, officials said.
Cartels Utilizing Shipments Destined for U.S. To Stash Fentanyl
Truck drivers are frequently targeted by organized crime along with executives responsible for managing vendor networks and supplies. Global Guardian reports that organized crime groups primarily focus their activities on multinational companies in heavily industrialized Nuevo Leon, which is located near South Texas, as well as in the Mexico City metropolitan area and the conflict-ridden region of Guanajuato.
“We’ve also seen in some cases that some cartels have forced their way in through threat of violence and coercion into piggybacking onto these companies’ distribution networks to transport their drugs or human trafficking or whatever the case may be,” Ballard said. “They basically hide cocaine, heroin, meth, fentanyl in shipments that have been precleared by (U.S. Customs). It’s an easy way to get their product across the border.”
Certain border manufacturers may be encountering comparable situations. Yet, it remains challenging to determine the extent of this issue due to the reluctance of employees residing in Mexico to report threats, primarily out of concerns for potential backlash from criminal players, Ballard further said.
“It’s a very tricky situation … We’ve all seen the photos and videos of some of the horrible things cartels have done to rivals, informants, whatever the case may be,” Ballard added.
American Companies Operating in Mexico Wedged Between A Rock and Hard Place
All the cartel’s criminal activities may put some American firms between a rock and a hard place because the U.S. government, as stated, recently designated the largest Mexican cartels, like Tren de Aragua, as foreign terrorist organizations. That means anyone aiding and abetting their activities is subject to criminal prosecution, in addition to fines.
“It is a bigger deal than money laundering or accepting (illicit) money,” he said.
The global security consultancy has been providing recommendations to its clients in Mexico regarding the importance of maintaining financial compliance and has suggested the hiring of a security manager within their operations. The security manager would be responsible for conducting routine audits of financial records in order to detect and prevent any potential infiltration by criminal organizations.
Texas-based NewsBlaze Senior Reporter C.Walker can be reached at newsjournalist360@gmail.com
