Tegucigalpa Honduras. Extortion appears to be increasing in Honduras as smaller gangs fill the gap left by larger groups who are retreating from the criminal economy. At the same time, arrests for extortion are falling, indicating growing impunity for this predatory criminal activity.
Over 300,000 households reported that they paid extortion to one or more criminal groups in Honduras during 2024, according to a new report from the Association for a More Just Society (Asociación para una Sociedad más Justa – ASJ), a non-governmental organization.
The findings correspond to a national victimization rate of 11.6%, up from 9% in 2022.
This is the fourth extortion study implemented by the organization in the last two years, during which the Honduran government has enforced a state of emergency aimed at tackling the crime.
The responses of around 1,000 people surveyed have consistently shown an upward trend in the number of Honduran households paying extortion, with high rates in both urban and rural departments.
Although ASJ registered an increase in extortion in its unofficial survey, formal complaints made to the authorities fell from 942 in 2023 to 484 in the first nine months of the year, according to data from the Security Ministry.
Additionally, the number of detainees for extortion-related crimes tumbled 38% to 175 during the same period, according to Security Ministry data.
SEE ALSO: Honduras Crime Profile: Examining Criminal Groups, Security Forces, the Judicial System, and Prisons
InSight Crime Analysis
The latest data from Honduras reflect significant shifts in extortion dynamics. Although larger groups seem to be pulling back from the criminal economy, smaller gangs are taking their place as the government’s measures fail to tackle the problem.
Honduras’ largest gang, the MS13, largely stopped participating in extortion before the government imposed the state of emergency, experts say.
MS13’s move away from extortion in Honduras was first detected in 2017, after they exempted small businesses in territories under their control from making extortion payments, according to Douglas Farah, the president of IBI Consultants.
In 2020, MS13 also stopped extorting the transport sector, according to ASJ. In one community, members of the group published a list of people they had wronged, apologized, and claimed that “God had touched their hearts.”
But security experts consulted by InSight Crime suggested the shift away from extortion by MS13 was primarily driven by the gang’s increased participation in more lucrative criminal economies.
“MS13 view themselves as a cartel and want to play in the big leagues,” Farah told InSight Crime. “Stopping extortion was transformational for the group’s legitimacy in the communities they control.
They calculated they could give up the profits from extortion” in exchange for revenue from increased participation in drug distribution and trafficking networks.
However, when MS13 stopped running rackets, “two or three structures came to collect in their place,” Wilmer Calix, an urban transport leader, told InSight Crime. “These groups are new and old. But there hasn’t been an investigation into who is behind these structures.”
There are also signs that the country’s second-largest gang, Barrio 18, could be retreating from extortion in the transport sector, according to security experts consulted by InSight Crime.
Transport companies with routes crossing areas controlled by specific cliques of the gang are no longer paying the group, according to Calix, though many transport groups continue to pay extortion to Barrio 18, as do the communities under the gang’s control.
And while extortion stopped in some places, it quickly flared up in others. “Extortion is mutating,” said Calix. “It’s moving throughout the country.”
High levels of impunity mean there is little to discourage extortionists and that criminal groups had infiltrated transport groups, security forces, and judges, Calix added.
In October, Honduran prosecutors charged one of the country’s top organized crime judges, Marco Antonio Vallecillo, with extortion.
A previous case from 2020, investigated by ASJ, found the driver for an anti-extortion judge used an official state vehicle and firearm to conduct extortion in his spare time on behalf of Los Benjamins, a notorious gang in Tegucigalpa.
Pamela Ruiz, a Central America security expert, told InSight Crime that corruption within the security forces had fed widespread mistrust of police institutions, complicating the state’s response to extortion.
“There are a bunch of different actors conducting extortion,” including corrupt police officials, said Ruiz. “But you do not have solid investigations, so there remain questions regarding who exactly is behind the rackets.”
Ruiz added that while Honduras’ state of emergency gave the police discretionary powers to make arrests, the measures were ineffectual in tackling extortion because security forces lacked the investigative capacity to identify criminal groups involved in extortion or make successful prosecutions.
A 2023 investigation by ASJ came to the same conclusion. Of the 8,000 arrests announced as part of the government’s “war on extortion,” just 86 cases were prosecuted before extortion courts.
