The municipal government published a phone number on Thursday for anyone who wants to report police corruption in Tulum. Knowing the number is the easy part. Knowing where the complaint actually lands matters more.
Mayor Diego Castañón Trejo announced the line after a working meeting with Edgar Aguilar, the municipal public security secretary, and Jessica Orozco, the traffic director. He said eight police officers have been separated from their posts so far in 2026 for irregular conduct.
For a resident who pays rather than argue, and for a visitor who decides the flight home is worth more than the fight, the useful question is not whether the town means it. It is which office turns a complaint into a case, what has to be written down before the memory blurs, and how much of it can be done from a hotel room or from another country.
Eight removals and a phone number
Castañón Trejo framed the removals as policy rather than incident. "No vamos a permitir actos de corrupción. Cualquier servidor público que incurra en irregularidades será separado de su cargo de inmediato, porque eso no tiene cabida en esta administración," he said, according to the account published by Quintana Roo Hoy on July 30.
Aguilar said complaints received by the municipality will be forwarded to the Fiscalía General del Estado so investigation files can be opened and responsibility assigned. The number the town gave out for residents and tourists is 984 198 68 65.
The announcement follows a month of similar ones. On June 29, the mayor announced the immediate dismissal of nine municipal employees, two from the operational area of Protección Civil and seven from the Dirección de Fiscalización, after a security video circulated. He said complaints had been filed with the state prosecutor's office in those cases. A week earlier he had reported two dismissals in Fiscalización over extortion.
Extortion is prosecuted even without a formal complaint
Quintana Roo changed the legal footing on this in 2024. A reform to Article 163 of the state penal code, promoted by deputy Hugo Alday, established that extortion is pursued by the state on its own initiative and that a call to the anonymous 089 line can be enough to open an investigation file. That point was restated at a public briefing in September 2025 reported by 24 Horas Quintana Roo.
The same briefing put a number on the gap between what happens and what gets reported. Between 2016 and 2023, the impunity rate in extortion cases was cited at 96.8 percent. Over that period, the state prosecutor's office received roughly 1,000 formal complaints. The 089 line received more than 32,000 anonymous reports.
Read those two figures side by side and the shape of the problem is clear enough. People report. They report anonymously, and then they stop.
A card reader, two charges, and 1,094.50 dollars
In October 2025, tourists in Tulum were charged twice on a bank card terminal carried by municipal officers, according to reporting by UnoTV. The charges came to 273.75 dollars and 820.75 dollars, processed through a Clip terminal under an account named SSCTulum.
Aguilar Rico said at the time that no formal complaint had been filed by those affected, and that the municipal security secretariat had itself filed an extortion complaint with the state prosecutor's office, which opened an investigation file.
The victims were gone. The case had to be built without them, from a card statement and a merchant name. Anyone who has ever been stopped on the Tulum-Cobá road with a plane to catch will recognize the calculation they made.
While the officer is still in front of you
Stay in a lit, visible place, and keep the conversation in view of other people where that is possible. If the stop is a legitimate traffic matter, it ends with a written ticket, the boleta de infracción, which carries a folio number and a fine paid later at a municipal window or a bank. It does not end with cash changing hands at the roadside.
If money is being demanded in the moment and the situation feels unsafe, 911 is the immediate line. The state security secretariat has also asked people facing extortion attempts to stay calm, avoid handing over personal data, and make no transfers or deposits.
Nothing here requires an argument on the shoulder of the highway. The argument, if there is going to be one, happens later, on paper.
The details worth writing down before you drive away
Memory degrades fast, and a complaint without specifics goes nowhere. Write down or photograph the following as soon as you are clear of the stop:
- The date, the time, and the exact location, including the road or intersection.
- The patrol unit number and the license plate of the vehicle.
- The name and badge number of each officer, and how many were present.
- What was demanded, in what currency, and how the payment was requested.
- Whether a written ticket was issued, and its folio number.
- Any card charge, with the merchant name exactly as it appears on the receipt or the bank app.
- Names and contact details of any witnesses, including a taxi driver or hotel staff.
- Photos, video, or a screenshot of your phone's location history for that hour.
The October case survived because a bank statement carried a merchant name. That is the kind of detail that outlives an argument about what was said.
Where to report police corruption in Tulum
There is no single door, and the doors do different things. A municipal complaint is an administrative matter. A criminal file is something else, and only the prosecutor's office opens one.
- Municipal complaint line, 984 198 68 65. Announced July 30 for residents and tourists reporting alleged corruption or irregular conduct by public servants. Aguilar said these reports are forwarded to the state prosecutor's office.
- Fiscalía General del Estado, Tulum. The state government's own directory lists an office on the Tulum-Cobá highway at kilometer 1.5, open every day, at 984 124 0296. This is where a criminal complaint becomes a carpeta de investigación.
- Fiscalía General del Estado, Riviera Maya. Calle Zapote, Villa Mar 1, near the Arco Vial in Playa del Carmen, at 984 877 2600.
- Online complaint. The prosecutor's office runs a filing platform at enlinea.fgeqroo.gob.mx. The system issues a PDF with a Número de Atención, which is what you need to follow the file at any FGE office later.
- 089, anonymous. No name required. Operators assign a folio so the report can be tracked.
- 911 for anything happening now, and 088 for the Guardia Nacional.
- Comisión de Derechos Humanos del Estado de Quintana Roo. Free and competent over state and municipal authorities. The commission maintains an office in every municipal seat, Tulum included, listed in its public materials at Calle Alfa Sur and Neptuno Poniente in Colonia Centro, at 984 802 5548. Confirm the address before going, since municipal offices relocate.
- Fiscalía Especializada en Combate a la Corrupción. The state's dedicated anti-corruption prosecutor, with offices in Chetumal, Cancún, and Playa del Carmen, for conduct by public servants.
- denuncia.qroo.gob.mx. The state citizen complaint system, for administrative faults by public officials.
Filing in more than one place is not redundant. The human rights commission and the prosecutor's office produce different outcomes, and neither substitutes for the other.
Visitors have doors that residents do not
The state tourism secretariat runs Guest Assist, a platform and app that lists consulates and embassies, offers legal orientation, and handles complaints against tourism service providers. The 078 line covers tourist information and roadside assistance.
Consulates do not open cases and cannot intervene in a Mexican investigation, but they keep a record of what their nationals report and can refer travelers to local counsel. That record has weight over time when a pattern forms at a particular stretch of road.
The online filing platform is the part most visitors overlook. A complaint can be submitted and followed from anywhere, which means leaving the country does not have to mean dropping the matter. The Número de Atención travels with you.
What a folio number gets you
A folio is not a verdict. It is a receipt that the state now knows, and it is the document that makes silence harder to maintain later.
The human rights route ends in a recommendation rather than a sentence, and recommendations can be refused. In a case decided this year, CDHEQROO/04/2026/III, the commission found violations of the right to liberty and acts of torture by state police against three Colombian nationals detained in Playa del Carmen in 2024. The corporation did not accept the charges at the time and argued the detainees had resisted a police search. The finding still exists, in writing, with a file number.
The municipality has not said how many of this year's eight removals were turned into criminal files, or how many of those remain open. Until that number is public, the part of the process a resident or a visitor actually controls is the first one, and it begins with writing down a patrol number.
This guide describes public reporting channels and does not constitute legal advice.
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