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