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Tackling crime in Mexico

Mexico is located between North and South America with coasts in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean. This strategic geography makes Mexico attractive to organized crime groups wanting to link drug producers with drug consumers using land, air and maritime trafficking routes.

The main crime challenges Mexican law enforcement faces include drug trafficking, money laundering, and trafficking in firearms, people and counterfeit goods.

With regional organized crime networks invariably operating on a global level, the role of INTERPOL’s National Central Bureau (NCB) in Mexico is crucial to safeguarding national and regional security.

INTERPOL in Mexico

The Mexican NCB is part of the International Police Affairs Agency, called AIC. It is an operational unit, meaning NCB police staff can exercise police power across the country on behalf of the national police, including the power of arrest.

By providing globally-sourced intelligence about regional crime, the NCB helps police officers across the country to detect and investigate the flow of illicit goods along trafficking routes in and around the country. It plays a central role in preventing the country and surrounding region from serving international organized crime.

The NCB has several outpost offices located throughout the country, including:

• The Mexico City International Airport INTERPOL NCB office, which checks traveler travel documents against INTEPROL databases to determine if they could be a security threat;
• The National Institute of Migration INTERPOL NCB office, which focuses on monitoring and controlling migration flows in and out of Mexico.

The NCB regularly takes part in INTERPOL-led regional and global police operations.

Law enforcement in Mexico

Law enforcement services in Mexico are shared between federal, border, traffic, state and municipal police. The two principal police forces with national remit are the uniformed police called ‘Policia Federal’ and the plainclothed criminal investigations force called ‘Policía Federal Ministerial’ (PFM).

Mexico’s Office of the General Prosecutor (Procuraduría General de la República (PGR) in Spanish), which commands the PFM, also has national remit for investigating serious crime, through its national Criminal Investigations Agency – AIC.

Mexico’s INTERPOL NCB is part of the AIC International Police Affairs and INTERPOL unit.