Mexico Transferred Thousands of Hectares to Army for Maya Train, Report Says

Mexico City — Between 2023 and 2026, the Mexican federal government transferred thousands of hectares of ejido and private land to the Secretariat of National Defense (Sedena) for the development of the Maya Train, according to a report by the organization Mexico United Against Crime (MUCD).

The lands were transferred to the military through declarations of public utility and expropriation decrees published in the Official Gazette of the Federation. With these new properties, Sedena significantly expanded its real estate holdings in southeastern Mexico.

Part of the expropriated land is located in high-value areas such as the municipalities of Solidaridad, Tulum, and Playa del Carmen in Quintana Roo, where the land not only serves for railway tracks but also has potential for future commercial and tourism developments.

The report, titled The Business of Militarization: Opacity, Power, and Money, details that Sedena obtained these lands through more than 300 expropriation decrees and declarations of public utility issued in favor of the state-owned company Tren Maya S.A. de C.V. during the administrations of former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and President Claudia Sheinbaum.

The Maya Train is a megaproject consisting of an approximately 1,500-kilometer railway corridor, presented as one of the most ambitious projects of López Obrador’s term. The third edition of the MUCD report reveals that Sedena now holds properties in the five states through which the train passes: Chiapas, Tabasco, Campeche, Yucatán, and Quintana Roo.

“The acquired land not only covers the operational needs of the railway but can also generate future returns through concessions, commercial developments at stations, hotel projects, or the sale of usage rights,” the report states.

The Institutional Program of the Maya Train — one of 25 companies administered by the Armed Forces — already integrates these complementary businesses as sources of income for the 2025-2030 period.

The expropriations and public utility declarations have not been free of conflict. According to the General Legal and Contentious Coordination of the state-owned Tren Maya company, the project currently faces 51 active judicial proceedings, including amparo lawsuits and nullity trials related to expropriations, environmental impacts, and disputes over land appraisals.

Despite the litigation, the massive transfer of land continues uninterrupted. According to the report, the expropriation mechanism ensures that military assets expand “without Tren Maya S.A. de C.V. having to acquire land on the market, negotiate purchase conditions, or compete with other economic actors.”

Although the report notes that it is difficult to quantify the exact financial value of these assets — due to the complexities of valuing ejido lands and the fact that official appraisals rarely reflect market value — the conclusion is clear: the sum of these thousands of hectares makes the Maya Train’s real estate portfolio “one of the most significant non-monetary assets of all the military companies created during the López Obrador administration.”