EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – Tariffs are not the only concern for American companies doing business in Mexico these days.

An increasing number of U.S. subsidiaries and their Mexican partners are living with the threat of extortion, hijacking of trucks and attempts by criminals to coerce employees into tolerating illicit activities including drug trafficking, a new report states.

That activity south of the border could intensify if the governments of Mexico and the United States put such pressure on cartels that they feel it’s no longer cost-effective to stay away from American interests.

“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 1 in 8 of its members stated organized crime had “taken partial control of sales, distribution and/or pricing of their goods,” Associated Press reported.

“(The number) of firms operating in Mexico impacted by organized crime and violence in some way is a relative 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.

The most common targets are truck drivers, but executives in charge of vendor networks and supplies also are being targeted by organized crime.

Organized crime groups’ hounding of multinational companies is concentrated in heavily industrialized Nuevo Leon across the border from South Texas, in the Mexico City metropolitan area and in the cartel battlefield of Guanajuato, according to Global Guardian.

“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.”

Some border manufacturers may be experiencing similar situations but it’s hard to quantify how many because employees who live in Mexico often are reluctant to report threats for fear of retaliation from criminals, he 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.

This may put some American firms between a rock and a hard place because the U.S. government recently designated the largest Mexican cartels 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 international security firm has been advising clients in Mexico to ensure their financial compliance and to consider adding a security manager to their operations to regularly go over the books and root out potential cartel infiltration.