Mexico’s latest security update provides a more precise figure than the one officials presented earlier this month. Omar García Harfuch now says daily intentional homicides have fallen 49% nationwide, with May’s preliminary average far below the September 2024 baseline. The report also points to arrests, weapons seizures, lab closures, extraditions, and frozen accounts. For foreign residents, the harder part is reading the national figure without pretending it explains every state, city, or neighborhood on its own.
Mexico homicides have fallen
Mexico’s security secretary said Wednesday that the national daily average for intentional homicides has fallen 49%. The new government figure puts May’s preliminary count at 44.3 killings per day. In September 2024, the average was 86.9.
Omar García Harfuch presented the figures during President Claudia Sheinbaum’s morning conference in Mexico City. Harfush linked the decline to the federal security strategy. The measures he cited included arrests, weapons seizures, drug-lab closures, extraditions, and financial freezes against alleged criminal actors.
Harfuch cites arrests, weapons, and lab seizures
Harfuch said federal authorities have detained 54,297 people tied to criminal organizations under the current security strategy. He also reported 28,739 firearms seized, and said 78% of those weapons were illegally brought into Mexico from the United States.
Drug production was another part of the report. The secretary said 2,382 clandestine labs used for chemical drug production have been dismantled. He also cited the extradition of 92 priority targets who were held in Mexican prisons. Some cases had long-pending U.S. requests.
Financial pressure came up as well. Harfuch said the Financial Intelligence Unit has blocked bank accounts tied to 1,422 people. The reported amount involved was 4.593 billion pesos.
Defense Secretary Ricardo Trevilla gave separate figures for the Army and National Guard. Those forces, he said, have detained 42,766 alleged criminal actors and seized 22,000 firearms during the period described by the federal government.
May figure builds on April report
The new 49% figure follows a May 12 Security Cabinet update that reported a 40% decline in homicides from September 2024 to April 2026. That earlier report said the daily average fell from 86.9 to 52.5. It also said April had the lowest daily average for intentional homicide in 11 years.
Vallarta Daily previously reported the 40% drop in homicides. The April figures still showed violence concentrated in specific states. Wednesday’s update moves the government’s latest preliminary figure lower, to 44.3 daily killings in May.
Guanajuato received special attention in Harfuch’s report. He said the state’s daily homicide average fell 68.5%, from 12.7 killings per day in 2018 to a preliminary four per day in May. That comparison spans a longer period than the national September 2024 to May 2026 benchmark, so the two figures are not measuring the same window.
Sheinbaum said the reduction reflects coordination inside the Security Cabinet, meetings with governors and mayors, and stronger intelligence work. She also said the government has removed about 32,000 weapons through seizures and the Sí al Desarme program.
National data, local caution
The federal update provides residents and businesses with a broad overview of Mexico’s security strategy. Homicide averages, though, are national figures. They can hide sharp gaps between states, tourist zones, rural corridors, and urban neighborhoods.
For readers in Jalisco and Puerto Vallarta, the practical value is context. A falling national average can coexist with local alerts, missing-person cases, military deployments, or police operations. Those stories need their own data, dates, and place-specific reporting.
Harfuch’s report is one piece of that wider map. It shows how the federal government is presenting its security results in May 2026. Officials placed enforcement pressure in five areas: arrests, weapons, labs, extraditions, and money flows.
