hey everybody Qroo Paul here welcome to the channel when linda and i moved to mexico back in
2015 my plan at that time was to spend some time lounging on the white sand beaches of the riviera
maya and then eventually start my own micro brewery i took a course on the subject like how to
set one up and manage one i located the equipment i would need in mexico worked out the costs and i
even started looking for a location but as i spent more and more time in mexico learning the culture
following the news more closely and chatting with business owners about their experiences running
a business in mexico my desire to start my own business started to wane until it was finally gone
all together what changed my mind was not all the bureaucracy permits and paperwork that go
into establishing a business in mexico which by the way seem unnecessarily arduous when
compared to many other countries like the us anyway that's another subject nor was it the
stories of corrupt government officials who would only process paperwork expeditiously if they
received a monetary incentive to do so those are not the things that maybe change my mind
actually the thing that maybe changed my mind and completely abandoned my plan
is something called derecho de piso which the literal translation would be right of floor
and that doesn't really make any sense but so what is derecho de piso well the term can have a couple
of different meanings but in the way i'm using it it means the ongoing extortion of a business this
is pretty common in mexico and if the business refuses to pay the directio de piso the result
can be that the business is shot up or burned down or the person refusing to pay may even be killed
here are some examples from the news to show you what i'm talking about
these buses were burned in cancun because the business did not pay the derecho de piso
the owner of this tire shop in guanajuato was killed for not paying the derecho de piso
a chicken vendor in plato carmen killed for not paying three people killed in mexico city for
not paying the derecho de piso and three more killed in a separate incident in the state of
mexico for not paying the richo de piso you know whenever the topic of organized crime or cartels
in mexico comes up in social media groups the standard response that you're likely to hear
is that you're not going to have a problem from these groups if you don't get involved
in their world and they're usually talking about dope sales and for the most part that's a pretty
accurate statement but when it comes to the practice of piso just owning and operating a
business in mexico can put you in their crosshairs because well this is one of their businesses too
whenever i do a video or article about crime and safety in mexico inevitably someone from medieva
some expat there will comment that the city is super safe and whatever i'm talking about
is not likely to occur there with those folks in mind here are a couple of articles showing
that even businesses in merida are not immune to this in this particular article the business
owners actually accuse government workers of assisting the cartel in collecting the derecho
de piso that's interesting and here's another article from merida from just four days ago
now you folks on the other coast are not immune to this either here's an article where the catholic
bishop in la paz is speaking about the problem of the rich of the piso in that area during his
sermon you see the fact is that the practice of extorting businesses is not isolated to certain
areas of mexico we're seeing it absolutely everywhere and all indications are that it's
on the rise even once an arrest is made like this group of extortionists who are operating in tulum
it doesn't seem to matter because another group just takes their place as a result of the problem
with director de piso many businesses would rather close than continue to pay in 2021 alone
it's estimated over 300 businesses closed in the state of quintana roo due to this problem take a
look at this pick of a business the sign says close due to insecurity they are extorting me
i could go on and on showing you more examples but you know what i think you get the idea
if you want to research this on your own just type derecho de piso in the search bar in google
and you're going to find a mountain of reading material to keep you busy i just want to clarify
that not every business in mexico is being extorted many are not but enough of them are
that i'm no longer interested in starting my own over the years i've spoken with dozens of business
owners who have had this happen to them some of them had been in business for a while without
any problems and then one day the criminals came around with their hand out asking for that payment
for the rich of the piso an exterminator that we used to use in mexico is a good example of that
everything was fine and then it wasn't and he got threats on him and his family if he didn't pay and
he just decided to actually flee the state and start his business over somewhere else you know
occasionally someone accuses me in the comments section on youtube of being overly positive about
mexico and ignoring the negative aspects of the country i don't think that's going to happen today
but actually when i see that i know that that person has not watched enough of my videos i can
tell you that i am very pro mexico i think it's a wonderful country and a great place to retire
but like any place in the world there are negatives and this is definitely one of them
i do address both positives and negatives of the country in my videos because i want people to
have as much information as possible so they can determine if mexico is right for them personally
as a couple of retirees from the states it is definitely the right place for linda and me
well that's it for today i hope you found the video informative if you did if you
just give it a thumbs up i appreciate it and until next time hasta la proxima