Municipalities as Part of the System to Control Criminal Assets in Mexico

Within a national system of control of criminal assets, the role of municipalities is strategic. According to their constitutional faculties, munici¬palities should develop and feed databases containing relevant information that contributes to the control of the criminal patrimonial and economic structures. An analysis of primary and secondary sources of information was used to identify the databases that are generated or that should be generated by the municipalities, considering the functions and powers that the constitution, laws, and regula¬tions assign to each of the dependencies that integrate the municipal government. Although some municipal agencies keep track of their activities using databases, they do not have a structure that allows the exploitation of information. Moreo¬ver, some municipalities do not have structured public policies aimed at combating the patrimonial and economic structures of crime. Finally, municipalities are an important source of information that can contribute to law enforcement structu¬res in the development of investigations aimed at weakening the financial and patrimonial structures of crime. This article shows the importance and utility of municipalities in the combat against assets generated by crime and the need to implement public policies intended to weaken the economic and patrimonial criminal structures. Currently, there are no previous studies on this subject in the national literature.