Mexico's Drug Trafficking Organizations - Federation of American ...

Mexico’s Drug Trafficking Organizations: Source and Scope of the Violence
The current crime organization landscape is exceptionally fluid, yet several analysts are
attempting to define it. For example, in Southern Pulse’s publication Beyond 2012, Sam Logan
and James Bosworth describe the increasing multiplication of groups:
The tendency for criminal groups in Mexico is toward small and local ... as the number of
well-armed criminal groups jumps from the six significant groups we counted in 2006 ... to
over 10 in 2012 with a steady growth of new groups to bring the total to possibly over 20 by
the end of 2014. 105
Analyst Eric Olson of the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars believes the DTOs
are more accurately described as “organized crime groups” and notes that these groups are
extremely local in character while engaged in diverse criminal activity. (Many of the actors have
diversified beyond the transnational drug trade, as noted above.) Mexican political scientist
Eduardo Guerrero-Gutiérrez also describes fragmentation and has provided a very useful
typology of different DTOs (see Table 1). He defines four types: National Cartels, Toll-taker
Cartels, Regional Cartels, and Local Mafias. Guerrero identifies as many as 64 organizations
across the country in the final category. Some of these groups do not participate in drug
trafficking-related violence, but are only engaged in what he terms “mafia-ridden” violence.
Guerrero attributes the proliferation of new criminal groups to a “non-selective arrest policy” by
the Calderón government that has taken out kingpins and leaders and produced violent
competition to replace those who have been arrested or killed. 106
Table 1. Drug Trafficking Organizations Typology
CATEGORY DESCRIPTION ORGANIZATIONS
National
Cartels
“Toll
Collector”
Cartels
Cartels control or maintain presence along routes of
several drugs. They also operate important international
routes to and from Mexico. These DTOs keep control of
drug points of entry and exit in the country. However,
they are interested in expanding their control of new
points of exit along the northern border, and this is why
they currently sustain disputes with other cartels to
control these border localities. These DTOs are present
in broad areas of the country and have sought to build
upon the profits they receive from drug trafficking through
diversifying their illegal activities towards human smuggling
and oil and fuel theft.
These are the cartels whose main income comes from toll
fees received from the cartels and regional cartels that
send drug shipments through their controlled
municipalities along the northern border. Given that these
cartels are largely confined to some border municipalities,
they cannot diversify their illegal activities as actively as the
national cartels. If these cartels eventually lose control of
their respective border areas they will either intensify
their diversification efforts to other business (such as
extortion or kidnapping) or they will disappear.
Sinaloa, Los Zetas, and Gulf cartels
(although Gulf has a significantly less
important role than the other two).
Tijuana and Juárez cartels
105 Samuel Logan and James Bosworth, Beyond 2012, Southern Pulse, 2012, http://www.southernpulse.com.
106 Eduardo Guerrero-Gutiérrez, Security, Drugs, and Violence in Mexico: A Survey, 7 th North American Forum,
Washington, DC, October 2011 at http://iis-db.stanford.edu/evnts/6716/NAF_2011_EG_(Final).pdf.
Congressional Research Service 21