93.4% of the crimes committed in Mexico in 2025 were not reported or did not lead to a criminal investigation file, according to the National Survey of Victimization and Perception of Public Security (ENVIPE) 2026, published by the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI) on September 10, 2026.
The survey was fielded between February 16 and April 10, 2026, across 102,032 households and measures victimization during 2025. The hidden figure, also known as the dark figure of crime, remains essentially unchanged from 93.2% in 2024, according to the official report. ENVIPE is designated Information of National Interest and is fielded with national and state-level representativeness. For Mexico the effect is one of measurement: if nine out of ten crimes never reach a formal investigation, administrative records describe only the reported portion of the phenomenon. An analysis by El Financiero published on September 16, 2026 attributes to Banamex analysts the reading that the dark figure remains the main weakness of the security and justice system.
INEGI estimated 33.8 million crimes in 2025, equivalent to a rate of 34,442 per 100,000 inhabitants, with 23 million people aged 18 and over having been victims. By type of crime, fraud accounted for 24.1% of incidence, extortion 19.8%, and robbery or assault on the street or on public transport 16.4%. The dark figure reaches 98.2% for kidnapping and 97.5% for extortion. The total cost of crime and insecurity reached 267.3 billion pesos, equivalent to 1.06% of GDP, and 74% of the population aged 18 and over perceived insecurity in their state, while 60.7% identified insecurity as the country's most serious problem.
The results show that extortion grew 14.4% and fraud 9.5% compared with 2024, meaning the two crimes together account for close to 44% of national incidence. The next edition of ENVIPE, published annually, will provide the next reading of the dark figure.
This article was drafted with the assistance of artificial intelligence from verified sources and reviewed by a human editor before publication.