Mexico City Will Reinforce Seven Boroughs Due To Higher Crime: García Harfuch

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Mexico City’s head of police, Omar García Harfuch announced that the government will start assigning a greater number of units in and police officers to areas where crime has increased in Mexico City, naming the boroughs of Tláhuac, Cuauhtémoc and Iztapalapa as the ones with the sharpest rise in crime. 

This announcement came as part of the signing of a collaboration agreement between the National Chamber of Commerce of Mexico City (CANACO) and the Mexico City Police (SSC) which occurred on August 25, 2021. 

García Harfuch said "There are more than 100 quadrants that we are going to reinforce, in seven different boroughs. On Monday we will present them properly, but there are seven boroughs that are going to be reinforced which are: Iztapalapa, Gustavo A. Madero; Álvaro Obregón; Miguel Hidalgo; Tlalpan; Cuauhtémoc and Coyoacán.”

He explained how the specific quadrants within each borough was selected to receive reinforcements saying:  "They are the quadrants where we have the highest incidence of crime.” 

He then described what a quadrant being reinforced looks like at a practical level, saying “If there were four colleagues, there will now be eight or twelve depending [...] what the reinforcement consists of is more police units, more motorcycles in some of them, and more personnel in some cases, new personnel recently graduated from the Police University.” 

Omar García Harfuch speaking at the CANCO and SSC collaboration meeting.

The head of the aforementioned CANACO, Nathan Poplawsky Berry explained "The level of extortion by borough has grown significantly in Benito Juarez; Coyoacan; Miguel Hidalgo; Tlalpan and Cuauhtemoc.” This information comes from reports done by Mexico City’s police department. Of all those listed, Tláhuac, Cuauhtémoc and Iztapalapa have the highest rise in extortion incidents. 

Nathan Poplawsky added that “According to the [Mexico City Police] survey, 57.6% of the businessmen who admitted having been victims of extortion said they had been extorted for amounts of up to 1,000 pesos, 9% stated that the amount was between 1,000 and 5,000 pesos, 12% stated said it was between 5,000 and 10,000 pesos, and 3 percent said the amount of extortion exceeded 10,000 pesos.”

The survey also detailed that very rarely was merchandise exchanged by businesses to extortionists and that 78% of the cases reviewed showed the business paid in the form of cash. Extortion by those who claim to be from the government or any official authority, dropped from 2019 where 35% were registered to 5.2% in the second quarter of 2021.

García Harfuch, pointed out that they are paying special attention to reinforcing commercial corridors because there is a greater mobility of people and money in any areas with more businesses per square mile. 

Link to Full Size Map

Nathan Poplawsky said that much remains to be done on this issue of organized crime, "Today, the economic power of organized crime is enormous. They have put state-of-the-art technologies at their service and have a wide network of complicities. Therefore, we can only win the fight if we all unite, government and society, the media and economic agents."

Some organized crime groups thought to be operating in Mexico City include but are not limited to La Unión Tepito and their rival and the Fuerza Anti-Unión, which is reportedly funded and supplied by the Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generation.

Sources: Omar García Harfuch's Official Twitter Statement, Grupo Concrete, Milenio