How Is the United States Investigating the Corruption of Mexican Politicians?

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Issue Sep 09-15 2026: The Department of Justice in the United States modified their priorities in transnational corruption. In Nexos Magazine of Mexico, Norma Alicia Sánchez Castillo wrote that the new guidelines prioritize issues involving individual criminal conduct, severe corruption, American interests, national security, and connections with cartels and transnational crime organizations. These instructions differ in how Mexico investigates its own political corruption.

In a review of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, the United States looked at corruption through a strategic and national security lens. The revision resulted in the reorientation of its enforcement policies. They acquired special relevance to cases involving foreign officials who receive bribes from cartel operations and transnational criminal organizations, money laundering, front company operations, and other structures that are utilized to sustain illegal activities.

Sánchez Castillo noted that the American system operated through an activation channel in which a signal of risk can trigger a financial investigation. It can also translate into a corporate cooperation, parallel criminal and regulatory investigation, international exchange of evidence, and sanctions and remediation. These experiences demonstrated that there is not one strategy to how these cases are investigated. They are investigated through an audit, an accounting irregularity, an accusation of an employee, information given by another authority, a regulatory investigation, or even the company itself can activate the analysis of invoices, consultants, transfers, intermediaries, beneficiaries, and public contracts. By following the money, it’s possible to identify the companies, intermediaries, and officials who are involved in the corruption.

HP México is one example of cooperation by a company in its attempt to weed out corruption. As a result, HP México secured a non-prosecution agreement with the DoJ of the United States. From 2008 to 2020, this model helped American authorities impose over 5.148 billion dollars in sanctions from ten cases involving the FCPA’s application with corruption cases that involved Mexico. The model generated information, identified intermediary networks, rebuilt financial operations, and produced useful evidence for post investigations. Many aspects of this law are involved in the Bank Secrecy Act, Anti-Money Laundering Act of 2020, and the FEND Off Fentanyl Act.

Mexico does have a Sistema Nacional Anticorrupción, specialized district attorney offices, internal control offices, financial intelligence units, and a legal framework to investigate crimes and administrative offenses. However, even though they have this system, the FCPA and other legislations showed persistent difficulties in transforming foreign information into national investigations. This is not solely Mexico’s failure. The convergence in corruption, organized crime, and institutional capture requires joint examination of the anticorruption, public security, financial intelligence, and criminal prosecution policies.

In the discussion of the anti-corruption framework of Mexico, it is essential to ask if the Mexican states have the mechanisms capable of converting a clear risk signal into a timely internal action.