Mayor of Tequila, Mexico, Is Accused of Shaking Down Tequila Companies

The mayor of the city that is the birthplace of the bottled spirit is the latest official to be arrested as Mexico targets cartel-related corruption.Blue agave, grown for tequila, in Jalisco state, Mexico.Credit...Lindsay Lauckner Gundlock for The New York TimesFeb. 5, 2026, 3:25 p.m. ETThe mayor of Tequila, a city in Jalisco state, Mexico, was arrested along with three other officials accused of extorting beer and tequila companies in the state, the Mexican authorities said on Thursday.The city is considered the birthplace of bottled tequila, the distilled spirit produced by fermenting the sugary juice from roasted or steamed agave hearts.The mayor, Diego Rivera Navarro, was detained as part of the federal government’s crackdown, known as Operation Swarm, on criminal networks that allow cartels to operate with impunity by co-opting municipal officials. He is a member of Mexico’s governing party, Morena.Mr. Navarro “is known to lead a corruption network within the City Council in which public officials extort businesspeople and merchants in the municipality, in addition to diverting public funds,” the Mexican government said in a statement.The statement added that citizen complaints and information gathered by Mexico’s intelligence agency had led to the arrests. It was unclear what tequila or beer companies the officials were accused of extorting.Omar García Harfuch, Mexico’s security minister, said in a social media post on Thursday morning that three other Tequila officials had also been arrested. They include the city’s director of public safety, who commanded the municipal police force; the director of tax registry, who collected property taxes; and the director of public works, who supervised construction permits.The statement said Mr. Navarro and the other officials were also under investigation for what the authorities described as having ties to a cell of the Jalisco-new-generation-cartel" class="entity-link entity-organization" data-entity-id="15215" data-entity-type="organization">Jalisco New Generation Cartel, one of Mexico’s most powerful criminal groups.As of Thursday afternoon, charging documents had not been made public. Last year, Mr. Navarro was summoned to testify before Jalisco state prosecutors after the musical band Los Alegres del Barranco held a concert in which images of Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, the leader of the Jalisco cartel, were displayed. (The band members later had their U.S. visas pulled.)A month before the concert, Mr. Navarro issued a statement saying he would cancel the event “because we will not allow the glorification of crime.” The concert took place, anyway.“The message is clear to the people of Tequila: Stay calm,” Salvador Zamora, the secretary general of the Jalisco state government, said at a news conference on Thursday. He added that state police officers had been deployed to reinforce security. “In Tequila, governance and the rule of law will be maintained.”In December, Jalisco’s attorney general, Salvador González de los Santos, told reporters that his office was investigating an extortion complaint against Mr. Navarro and other Tequila officials filed by Grupo Cuervo, the Mexican family company of José Cuervo tequilas. The brand accounts for approximately 19 percent of global market share by volume, according to a 2023 annual report.The company accused the officials of demanding payments in exchange for allowing it to continue operations in Tequila.“We are going to investigate specifically who is involved,” Mr. González de los Santos said, “to see what were the reasons and motives behind such high payments, and whether they are legal or not. And we will be able to determine if there is any type of extortion or crime.”Hours before Grupo Cuervo filed the complaint, Mr. Navarro posted a video message on social media in which he said the company and his administration had reached an agreement.“It was really an issue regarding licenses, property taxes, operational licenses and construction licenses. And at the end of the day, we reached a point of understanding between both parties,” he said. Grupo Cuervo did not immediately respond to a request for comment.On Thursday, Mr. Zamora said the detentions had been the result of a federal investigation and not related to the local inquiries.Extortion has run rampant across Mexico, even as President Claudia Sheinbaum has promised to rein in the expansion of organized crime in the country — all while facing pressure from the White House to accept U.S. military aid to do so.In 2025, the extortion of businesses worsened in 20 of Mexico’s 32 states, according to data compiled by the Confederation of Employers of the Mexican Republic, a group representing more than 36,000 businesses of all sizes.In response, the Mexican government began Operation Swarm, an anticorruption campaign that has resulted in dozens of raids and the arrest of more than 60 current or former local officials, including mayors from different political parties.Security forces have also enforced measures like blocking telephone signals and increasing surveillance across dozens of federal and state prisons, often used as havens from where criminals can remotely orchestrate the extortion of local businesses.Last year, the Mexican authorities arrested another mayor in Jalisco state, accusing him of colluding with the Jalisco-new-generation-cartel" class="entity-link entity-organization" data-entity-id="15215" data-entity-type="organization">Jalisco New Generation Cartel to operate a recruitment and training center in a ranch where charred human remains were recovered. He remains in pretrial detention.Miriam Castillo contributed reporting.Emiliano Rodríguez Mega is a reporter and researcher for The Times based in Mexico City, covering Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean.SKIP