A viral national broadcast has thrust Tulum extortion allegations into public view, after local business owners described garbage and permit charges that climbed into the hundreds of thousands of pesos.
The report, aired by Azteca Noticias on June 2, 2026, centered on Walter Balam, a Tulum business owner who agreed to speak on camera. He runs a breakfast restaurant that once employed 16 people and now operates with half that staff. His account, joined by similar complaints from other operators, has turned a question about municipal billing into a wider dispute over how the local government treats the businesses that sustain the town.
The stakes are concrete. Tulum's economy depends on tourism, and the people describing these charges are the restaurateurs, club operators, and small merchants who keep residents employed through a downturn that has already produced closures and layoffs. If routine paperwork can carry unpredictable costs, the exposure extends to every small business in the municipality.
Inside the Tulum extortion allegations
Balam's case began with a bill for garbage collection at a tennis club he operates, a property with three courts. He said the charge first came to 27,000 pesos. When he asked about a comparable business of similar size, he was told its bill was 4,717 pesos.
The figure did not stay still. According to Balam, when he returned to reprint the receipt after the one-month payment window expired, the amount had risen to 135,000 pesos. He said the municipal system failed on three separate visits, and that when a receipt was finally printed, the total had reached 229,000 pesos for the same service.
It was the same service, billed three different ways.
Part of the jump, he said, came from how the property was classified. Balam said the tennis club was billed as a hardware store, a category that did not match the business. "I told them, something is wrong, or this is already personal," he recounted on air. He linked the treatment to an earlier television appearance, saying the pressure intensified after that report.
A name change that came with a half-million-peso bill
The license fee drew even sharper attention. Balam said the original operating license for his restaurant cost 14,433 pesos when it was paid in 2022. For a simple change of name on that license, he said the municipality asked for 540,000 pesos.
Cash-only demands and questions of transparency
Several business owners told Azteca Noticias that some procedures had to be paid in cash, with no option for a card or a bank transfer. Balam described being told that only cash was accepted, and questioned how anyone could be expected to produce that kind of sum in bills.
He said the practice was not limited to a single visit. According to Balam, the cash-only demand appeared in February and was still in place when the network returned in June. In footage from the report, a municipal cashier said the card terminals were under maintenance. Asked how long they had been out of service, the cashier said she could not say.
The broadcast described the insistence on cash as a practice that could raise questions under anti-corruption and tax law. Those are characterizations made in the report, not findings by any authority. No charges tied to these specific accusations have been confirmed.
Claims of retaliation and a quiet resolution
Balam said the disputed amounts changed after he posted documentation on Facebook. By his account, the garbage charge was ultimately settled at 27,000 pesos and the license matter resolved at 50,000 pesos, far below the sums he had been quoted. He also said he was pressured to take the posts down.
That sequence, the sudden reduction once a complaint became public, is the part business owners point to when they describe the system as arbitrary. Azteca Noticias reported that some operators faced closures or added administrative pressure after going public, which the affected owners view as possible retaliation.
A tourism economy already under strain
The accusations land in a town that has spent more than a year absorbing a tourism slump. Industry figures cited in regional coverage put Tulum's average hotel occupancy near 75 percent in 2025, while the summer fell to roughly 40 percent, among the weakest stretches in a decade.
Business owners across Tulum have reported partial closures and staff reductions, a pattern visible in Balam's own payroll. Fewer visitors and steady fixed costs have left smaller operators with little margin, which is why unexpected municipal bills carry such weight.
The municipal government's finances have drawn their own scrutiny this year. The city contracted a 50 million peso loan with Banorte in late 2025, presented as a measure to cover worker benefits, and the use of those funds has been questioned in public accounts and at protests demanding that state oversight bodies intervene.
What the municipal government has said
Tulum Mayor Diego Castañón Trejo leads the administration the complaints name. He has not issued a detailed public response to the specific accusations in the June broadcast.
In earlier remarks, Castañón rejected the idea that illegal charges or extortion were widespread in Tulum and described the criticism of his government as a smear campaign. He has also said that crime in the municipality fell sharply and that his administration was working to keep the confidence of businesses and visitors. The Tulum Times was not able to independently verify the individual billing figures described by Balam.
For now, the affected business owners are asking for a review of how fees are calculated and for clear, written explanations of the charges they receive. Whether state authorities or municipal officials respond with an audit, a correction, or silence will shape how much trust Tulum's business community has left to give.
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