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Organized crime in Mexico is centered on the transit of illegal drugs into the United States. In essence, Mexican organized crime groups are supply chain entities, competing for suppliers in Central and South America, rapid and low-friction transit routes in Mexico and across borders and consumers in the United States. Competition among the major Mexican cartels is about geography — access to and control of the most lucrative trade paths. This competition leads to wars between cartels, which can spill over into the civilian population. The cartels generally try to avoid confrontations with law enforcement and the military in Mexico and instead seek to mitigate their security risks through bribery, extortion, threats and incentives. The trafficking of illegal drugs through Mexico generates billions of dollars a year, and the Mexican cartels launder this money through construction and real estate companies, small businesses and restaurants and hotels and money exchanges. In many ways the cartels are personality-dependent — controlled by family groups and subject to rapid disintegration or disruption when the leadership is killed or imprisoned. However, leadership vacuums are filled quickly as the cartels continue working to take over lucrative drug routes.

History

Organized crime in Mexico has a long history. Outlaw gangs with limited power in northern Mexico existed as far back as the nineteenth century. Through the 1960s, the main organized criminal element along the U.S.-Mexico border involved small smuggling operations. These groups had limited reach and resources.

As the popularity of cocaine grew in the United States in the 1970s, criminal organizations began to gain much more power and influence on a national level. This rise in power accelerated in the 1980s as the United States government moved to shut down the Caribbean smuggling corridor, primarily run by Colombian drug traffickers, which had served as the primary route of drugs into the United States through the 1970s. In response to this move, drug traffickers began using Mexico as a transshipment point for U.S.-bound cocaine, as the country represented the path of least resistance to the movement of contraband. It was during this time that Mexican cartels evolved into the powerful organizations they are today.

Changes in the cartels’ standing and composition can be described most accurately as a system of shifting and adjusting alliances inside Mexico, though outside factors such as the death or arrest of a leader have also played a role in shaping the fate of individual groups.

Geography

Organized crime exists in nearly every corner of Mexico. Small local street gangs involved in a variety of crimes, including robbery, theft, extortion and kidnapping, can be found in every city. However, it is the country’s drug cartels — extended criminal organizations with a monopoly on the drug trade — that hold the real power, and these criminal organizations tend to be concentrated in specific geographic locations. Several cartels have also begun to establish logistics and criminal networks in the United States in order to facilitate the movement of contraband into and out of Mexico. Mexican cartels have not yet established a significant presence in Central or South America — the former being of only minimal value to the drug supply chain, the latter (i.e., Colombia) already under the sway of South American organized crime — relying instead on criminal groups in those areas to transport drugs to be moved through Mexico.

Mexico’s location between the world’s largest producer and the world’s largest consumer of cocaine makes it a natural transshipment point for narcotics. Mexico’s location became even more important for drug traffickers due to the U.S. government’s increased efforts to shut down air and maritime routes in the Caribbean smuggling corridor.

Within Mexico, the areas under cartel control generally correspond to routes used to ship drugs from South America to the United States and shipment channels for precursor chemicals and pirated goods from China. Whether or not a region is of strategic importance to the movement of drugs is the primary factor determining the likelihood that it will come under the control of a major cartel. Areas of cartel concentration are the area along the U.S. border; coastal port cities on the Pacific Ocean, Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean Sea; and cities and towns located on federal highways between these points. Mexico’s large cartels are not as concentrated in the remainder of the country, including Mexico City and much of the country’s central and southern interior.

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