The report, "Up to Date: The Numbers Speak," from the Belisario Domínguez Institute (Instituto Belisario Domínguez - IBD) of Mexico's Senate found that 47 criminal groups are involved in human trafficking in Mexico, primarily in Mexico City and 17 other states. According to the report, 45.4 percent of trafficking victims in Mexico are captured by people they know, 49.1 percent by unknown assailants and 5.5 percent by organized crime groups.

Criminal networks have also increased their use of technology, primarily the internet, for recruitment, as a result of which the engagement of minors by this criminal industry is also growing. Increasingly, minors are being used as lookouts, smuggling mules, hitmen or kidnappers in Mexico's northern states and marginalized suburban areas east of Mexico City, said the report. 

Among the zones with the highest frequency of trafficking cases were Tijuana and Mexicali (Baja California); Nogales (Sonora); Ciudad Juárez (Chihuahua), Nuevo Laredo and Matamoros (Tamaulipas), Cancún (Quintana Roo), Tapachula (Chiapas), Acapulco (Guerrero), Mexico City, Tlaxcala, Puerto Vallarta (Jalisco), Los Cabos (Baja California Sur), Veracruz and Oaxaca, according to the report.

Human trafficking in Mexico, the report found, counts on collaboration between political and business powers with organized crime groups. According to the report, criminal groups can pay between 25,000 and 80,000 pesos (between $1,300 and $4,400) to police agencies to freeze investigations, and 800,000 pesos (around $44,000) to municipal authorities to stop enforcement operations. 

The report also notes that statistics and information on human trafficking in Mexico are still scarce and not organized or catalogued effectively. Read more