Quintana Roo's health department removed its top health inspector in Tulum on Wednesday, two days after a Milenio investigation reported extortion complaints from business owners across the municipality.
Emigdio Morales Mezquita, who ran the service window of the Sanitary Risk Protection Coordination for the Central Zone, was separated from his post by the Secretaría de Salud de Quintana Roo, known as Sesa. The department was explicit that this is not a punishment. It called the move a preventive administrative measure meant to let investigators work without interference, and said the presumption of innocence applies to Morales Mezquita throughout.
For the restaurants, hotels, and small shops that say they have been paying inspectors for years, the removal is the first time a state institution has publicly conceded that something in Tulum's sanitary inspection system may be broken.
How the Tulum health inspector extortion claims reached the state
The case surfaced publicly on July 13, when Milenio published testimony from business owners and visitors in Tulum. The owners described inspections that functioned less as regulatory visits than as collection rounds, and they identified Morales Mezquita as the official who coordinated them. According to figures the outlet reported, the practice reached roughly half of the municipality's businesses, and the complaints stretch back at least three years.
Two days later, Sesa issued its statement. The department said its Directorate of Sanitary Risk Protection keeps close coordination with the Federal Commission for the Protection against Sanitary Risks, or Cofepris, and with other competent authorities to investigate any complaint immediately. It said sanitary oversight in Quintana Roo continues as normal, and it restated a zero tolerance policy toward conduct that breaks the law.
What the statement did not say was whether anyone had filed a criminal complaint.
A federal agency with no office in the municipality
The detail that gives the accusations their sharpest edge came from Cofepris itself. Days before the removal, the federal commission clarified that it has no delegation in Tulum and pushed the extortion cases back toward the state authority, the Dirección de Protección contra Riesgos Sanitarios.
That clarification matters because business owners consistently described the inspectors who visited them as Cofepris personnel. If the federal agency has no presence in the municipality, then anyone conducting inspections in its name was not who they said they were. Councilman Eugenio Barbachano, who heads the Tulum council's Anti-Corruption Commission, has demanded that Morales Mezquita face prosecution for usurpation of functions, a criminal offense under Mexican law.
Morales Mezquita's name appears in Quintana Roo government documents and official bulletins going back to 2023, listed as head of the DPRIS window in Tulum. In that role he took part in sanitary inspection operations, including the removal of vape vending machines, and in campaigns encouraging residents to report health emergencies. Milenio reported that the only record it located tying him to Cofepris was a certificate confirming he completed a 2023 training course on the state's ethics code and anti-corruption system.
What owners describe paying, and why almost nobody files a complaint
The mechanics, as business owners have described them to regional outlets, follow a pattern. Inspectors arrive and search hard for a violation. Once one is documented, the fine becomes negotiable. Noticaribe reported testimony placing the amounts between 20,000 and 50,000 pesos, with an alternative offered on the spot. Pay a large sum to resolve the paperwork legally, or pay a smaller amount every month and be left alone.
"Every year in my restaurants they have taken thousands of pesos in bribes, and it wasn't even Cofepris," one entrepreneur told local media after learning of the removal. The person spoke anonymously, as nearly every business owner in this story has, citing fear of reprisal.
That fear is the reason the scheme, if the accusations hold, could run for years without a paper trail. Barbachano told Milenio that the way these operations work rarely leaves evidence behind, because threats of closure end in cash arrangements made off the books. He has asked victims to come forward and file formal complaints so investigators have something to build on.
A councilman accuses the state health secretary of sitting on the complaints
Barbachano has aimed his sharpest criticism not at the removed official but at the man above him. In statements to The Tulum Times, the councilman accused state Health Secretary Flavio Carlos Rosado of covering up the situation, saying he had brought private sector complaints to the secretary repeatedly over a period of years.
"Far from helping and finding solutions, Flavio told us he would take our complaints to the proper authorities, something that never happened," Barbachano said. He described the operation as an active fraud in broad daylight of a magnitude rarely seen, and said the response should not stop at Morales Mezquita. He is calling for Rosado's removal on grounds of institutional negligence.
Rosado has not responded publicly to the accusation. The Tulum Times sought comment from the Secretaría de Salud regarding Barbachano's claims and will publish the department's position if it responds. Rosado remains in his post, and the statement announcing the removal was issued by the department he leads.
No criminal case has been announced
As of Thursday, neither Sesa nor the Fiscalía General del Estado had confirmed that a criminal investigation is open against Morales Mezquita, and no charges have been filed publicly. He has not made any public statement, and he retains the presumption of innocence that the health department itself invoked.
The next signals will be concrete ones. Whether the state files a complaint of its own. Whether any of the business owners who spoke anonymously to reporters are willing to attach their names to a formal denuncia. And whether the inspection window in Tulum reopens under a different name doing the same work.
If health inspectors have pressured your business in Tulum, do you believe filing a formal complaint would change anything? Join the conversation and share your perspective with us on