Family of Cancun Mayor Presses Legal Battle to Seize Fishermen’s Land

Cancun, Quintana Roo — The family of Cancun Mayor Ana Patricia Peralta is pressing a legal offensive to take control of a property that a fishing cooperative has occupied for nearly three decades, raising questions about the use of political power for private gain.

At the center of the dispute is Operadora New Life, S.A. de C.V. (ONL), a company owned by the mayor’s family. ONL is seeking to evict the Kukulcan Tourism Services Cooperative from the land where its members run a restaurant. The cooperative has held the property since 1990 and obtained a formal concession from the federal environmental agency SEMARNAT in 2011.

In 2012, a year after the cooperative received its concession, another family company — De la Peña Vara y Asociados (DPVA) — obtained a separate concession that, due to what officials described as an administrative error, overlapped the cooperative’s land. DPVA later transferred its rights to ONL in 2021.

In 2023, ONL filed a criminal complaint for “dispossession” against the cooperative members, even though the fishermen had occupied the site two decades before the family’s company. After three years of litigation, the State Prosecutor’s Office ruled on April 28 that there were no grounds to prosecute, citing the cooperative’s legitimate possession, lack of evidence that ONL ever physically occupied the land, and the statute of limitations.

“It’s harassment. During the investigation, we noticed unusual pressure from municipal authorities on the Prosecutor’s Office to criminalize a case where no crime exists, especially since the facts are time-barred,” said René Tercero, the cooperative’s attorney.

Rather than accept the ruling, Patricia de la Peña — the mayor’s mother and ONL’s legal representative — appealed the decision. A hearing is scheduled for May 12 before Judge Teresa Isabel López Aguilar, where the family will seek to overturn the no-prosecution order.

The case has become a political liability for Peralta, who is campaigning for governor. Critics say the legal battle contradicts her message of social justice and reveals a pattern of using the judicial system to benefit family business interests at the expense of working-class families.