One in ten Mexican businesses suffers petty theft

INEGI's National Survey of Business Victimization 2024 (ENVE) estimated that in 2023, 1.3 million establishments (27.2% of Mexico's businesses) were victims of some crime. The three most frequent were extortion; robbery of merchandise, cash, supplies or goods; and robo hormiga, "ant theft": small, repeated theft by customers or employees, meant to go unnoticed.

	Businesses victimized per 10,000
Extortion	1,562
Robbery of merchandise, cash, supplies or goods	1,030
Petty theft (robo hormiga)	1,002

INEGI, National Survey of Business Victimization (ENVE) 2024, prevalence rate per 10,000 businesses

The total cost of crime to businesses in 2023 was 124.3 billion pesos, 0.51% of GDP. Per business, counting losses and spending on protective measures, the average was 54,451 pesos.

Reporting rarely fixes it

The ENVE figure that made us think hardest isn't prevalence. It's this: in 90.3% of crimes against businesses there was no report, or no investigation was opened. And of those that were reported, in 59.8% of cases nothing happened or the case is still pending. Among the reasons for not reporting, the most cited was that it's a waste of time.

For a field operation, that means equipment control can't depend on what happens after the loss. It has to work before: knowing at all times who has what, so a loss is noticed the day it happens and not at the annual stock count.

Where equipment goes missing

In the field, equipment rarely disappears in one go. It's lost in handoffs: from warehouse to van, from van to customer site, from the technician who quit to the one who replaced them. Each handoff without a signature is a gap in the record, and petty theft lives in those gaps. The ENVE doesn't break losses down by type of goods, but in a maintenance operation what moves most is terminals, spare parts, meters and tools.

The decision: every handoff has two sides

In waydot, every movement of an asset is a transfer with an origin, a destination, someone handing over and someone receiving. The equipment changes custodian only when the recipient confirms, ideally by scanning the asset's barcode or QR code. If confirmation doesn't arrive, the transfer stays pending and visible.

That answers three questions at any moment: where it is (warehouse, vehicle or site), who has it (a named person, not "the crew") and what has happened to it (service, repairs, warranty and visits).

Scanning takes seconds and happens in the same app as the ticket. When installing, the scan links the equipment to the site and the ticket; when removing it, it goes back into the technician's custody until they return it to the warehouse. For bulk loads, like a van's weekly restock, the batch is recorded and the recipient confirms once.

Investigate the handoff, not the person

When an asset isn't where it should be, an investigation brings together the last custodian, recent transfers and related tickets. The question shifts from "whose fault was it?" to "in which handoff did we lose track?" That's the one that lets you fix the process, and the one that leaves an orderly file if the company decides to file a report.

Where to start

You don't need to tag everything on day one. Start with what's most expensive to replace and with the handoff that gets skipped most: almost always, returning removed equipment to the warehouse.

Sources

• INEGI, Encuesta Nacional de Victimización de Empresas (ENVE) 2024, press release 780/24 (December 10, 2024). 2023 data; amounts deflated to a 2018 base.