During her morning conference this Tuesday at the National Palace, the President of Mexico, Claudia Sheinbaum, denied that the drop in remittances sent from the United States is related to money laundering operations, in addition to highlighting that any suspicious case will be investigated without criminalizing migrants.
“We have no indication that this has to do with any money laundering issue, nothing,” he said after being asked about unidentified amounts within the total flow of remittances.
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The Mexican leader defended that around 15 million Mexicans “regularly” send remittances from the United States to Mexico, which, he said, It is a deeply rooted practice based on family ties.
“It has a lot to do with solidarity, with mutual support, with not abandoning each other,” he stated.
However, he said that The Mexican Government maintains permanent coordination with international financial authorities to investigate any illicit issue that is related to the sending of money.
“The FIU (Financial Investigation Unit) investigates whether there is any issue of money laundering and there is a lot of relationship with OFAC, with FinCEN, which are the institutions of the United States to see if in any case it is presumed that there is some type of money laundering,” he noted.
In that sense, he insisted that if there were signs of money laundering, it would have to be “attended and attacked.”
Sheinbaum defends the migrant community
Sheinbaum stressed that Mexican migrants cannot be generalized or stigmatized.
“That is not why we are going to criminalize all those who send remittances. (…) If there are any criminals who use this channel to launder money, then it has to be investigated and punished. But remittances to our country cannot be explained by an illegal matter.”
He also recalled that Mexican migration to the United States has decreased in recent years, while the arrival of migrants of other nationalities who cross through Mexico has increased and explained part of the flows towards the north.
Likewise, he specified that during the pandemic there was less income because many Mexicans could not work, but In 2022, 2023 and 2024, remittances will increase and in 2025, they are at levels like those they had in 2022 and 2023.
“Not all months are the same, because a lot depends on the work our countrymen do there. By the way, they say, the Bank of Mexico continues to fall, but in reality it increased in the last month, a little, but it increased,” he stated.
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He insisted that if there is Any criminal who uses remittances to launder money must be investigated and punished“but you cannot explain the remittances to our country with an illegal matter,” he said.
Mexico has had eleven years of annual increases in remittances, after ending 2024 with a record of 64,745 million dollarsbut last March it ended a streak of 46 months with consecutive growth, after the first days of the second term of US President Donald Trump.
Just on Monday, the Bank of Mexico reported a drop of 5.1% in the first ten months of 2025 and has been going through seven months with a downward trend.
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