Mexico’s Drug Trafficking Organizations:
Source and Scope of the Rising Violence
June S. Beittel
Analyst in Latin American Affairs
June 8, 2012
Congressional Research Service
7-5700
www.crs.gov
R41576
CRS Report for Congress
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epared for Members and Committees of Congress

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Mexico’s Drug Trafficking Organizations: Source and Scope of the Rising Violence

Summary
Violence has been an inherent feature of the trade in illicit drugs, but the violence generated by
Mexico’s drug trafficking organizations (DTOs) in recent years has been unprecedented and
remarkably brutal. The tactics—including mass killings such as the widely reported massacres of
young people and migrants, the use of torture and dismemberment, and the phenomena of car
bombs—have led some analysts to speculate whether the violence has been transformed into
something new, perhaps requiring a different set of policy responses. According to government
and other data, the best estimates are that there have been slightly more than 50,000 homicides
related to organized crime from December 2006 through December 2011.
It has also been suggested that the targets of the drug trafficking-related violence in Mexico have
changed. In 2010, several politicians were murdered, including a leading gubernatorial candidate
in Tamaulipas and 15 mayors. While fewer local officials were killed in 2011, there is concern
that political violence could spike in 2012 in advance of presidential and congressional elections
slated for July. Over the past few years, Mexico has come to be regarded as one of the most
dangerous countries for journalists, with 10 reported killings in 2010 and another eight in 2011.
In December 2006, Mexico’s newly inaugurated President Felipe Calderón launched an
aggressive campaign against the DTOs—an initiative that has defined his administration—that
has been met with a violent response from the DTOs. Of the seven most significant DTOs
operating during the first five years of the Calderón Administration, the government successfully
removed key leaders from each of them, through arrests or by death in arrest efforts. However,
these efforts add to the dynamic of change—consolidation or fragmentation, succession struggles
and new competition—that generate more conflict and violence. The DTOs fragmented and
increasingly diversified into other criminal activities, now posing a multi-faceted organized
criminal challenge to governance in Mexico.
U.S. citizens have also been victims of the security crisis in Mexico. In March 2010, three
individuals connected to the U.S. consulate in Ciudad Juárez, two of them U.S. citizens, were
killed by a gang working for one of the major DTOs operating in that city. In February 2011, two
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents were shot, one fatally, allegedly by Los
Zetas, one of Mexico’s most violent DTOs. In the U.S. Congress, these events have raised
concerns about the stability of a strategic partner and neighbor. Congress is also concerned about
the possibility of “spillover” violence along the U.S. border and further inland. The 112th
Congress has held several hearings on DTO violence, the efforts by the Calderón government to
address the situation, and implications of the violence for the United States. Members have
maintained close oversight of U.S.-Mexico security cooperation and related bilateral issues.
This report provides background on drug trafficking in Mexico: it identifies the major DTOs; how
the organized crime “landscape” has been altered by fragmentation; and analyzes the context,
scope, and scale of the violence. It examines current trends of the violence, analyzes prospects for
curbing violence in the future, and compares it with violence in Colombia. For background on
U.S. policy responses to the security crisis in Mexico, see CRS Report R41349, U.S.-Mexican
Security Cooperation: The Mérida Initiative and Beyond. For a discussion of the problem of
violence “spilling over” into the United States, see CRS Report R41075, Southwest Border
Violence: Issues in Identifying and Measuring Spillover Violence. For general background on
Mexico, see CRS Report RL32724, Mexico: Issues for Congress.
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Mexico’s Drug Trafficking Organizations: Source and Scope of the Rising Violence

Contents
Introduction...................................................................................................................................... 1
Mexico’s Strategy...................................................................................................................... 3
Congressional Concerns ............................................................................................................ 4
Background on Drug Trafficking in Mexico ................................................................................... 5
Mexico’s Major Drug Trafficking Organizations ............................................................................ 8
DTO Fragmentation, Competition, and Diversification .......................................................... 16
Characteristics of the Increased Violence ...................................................................................... 20
Casualty Estimates in Context and for Special Populations.................................................... 21
Locations of the Violence and Its Impact on Tourism and Business ....................................... 26
Mexico’s Antidrug Strategy and Reaction ..................................................................................... 30
Trends and Outlook........................................................................................................................ 33

Figures
Figure 1. Map of DTO Areas of Dominant Influence in Mexico by DEA .................................... 12
Figure 2. Organized Crime-Related Killings (2007-2011) ............................................................ 24
Figure 3. Organized Crime-Related Killings in Mexico in 2011 by State..................................... 25
Figure 4. Journalists and Mayors Assassinated in Mexico, 1999-2011 ......................................... 26

Tables
Table 1. Drug Trafficking Organizations Typology ....................................................................... 19

Appendixes
Appendix. Comparing Mexico and Colombia............................................................................... 41

Contacts
Author Contact Information........................................................................................................... 43

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Mexico’s Drug Trafficking Organizations: Source and Scope of the Rising Violence

Introduction
The brutal drug trafficking-related violence in Mexico has been dramatized graphically by
beheadings, public hanging of corpses, killing of innocent bystanders, car bombs, torture, and
assassination of numerous journalists and government officials. Beyond the litany of these brazen
crimes, the violence has also spread deeper into Mexico’s interior over the course of 2011.
Organized crime groups have fragmented and diversified their crime activities, turning to
extortion, kidnapping, auto theft, human smuggling, resource theft and other illicit enterprises. In
March 2012, head of the U.S. Northern Command General Charles Jacoby testified to the Senate
Armed Services Committee that Mexico had succeeded in capturing or killing 22 out of 37 of
Mexico’s most wanted drug traffickers identified by the Mexican government. Despite these
operations, General Jacoby noted that the removal of these crime leaders had not had “any
appreciable positive effect” in reducing the violence, which continued to climb in 2011.1
According to the estimates of the University of San Diego’s Trans-Border Institute (TBI), the
actual number of organized crime-related murders exceeded 16,000 last year. When President
Calderón’s six-year term draws to a close late in 2012, an average of 10,000 organized crime-
related murders per year will have taken place in each year of his term if current projections hold.
According to the Mexican government, there was an 11% increase of organized crime-related
murders in the first nine months of 2011, over the same period in 2010. However, the rate of
increase is much lower than the nearly 60% increase between 2009 and 2010, leading some
analysts to forecast that the number of killings is beginning to decline. Because casualty estimates
are reported differently by the Mexican government from the media outlets that track the
violence, there is some debate on exactly how many have perished. This report favors
government data, but it has not always been reported promptly or completely. (See “Casualty
Estimates in Context and for Special Populations.” )
Violence is an intrinsic feature of the trade in illicit drugs. As in other criminal endeavors,
violence is used by traffickers to settle disputes, and a credible threat of violence maintains
employee discipline and a semblance of order with suppliers, creditors, and buyers.2 This type of
drug trafficking-related violence has occurred routinely and intermittently in U.S. cities since the
early 1980s. The violence now associated with drug trafficking organizations in Mexico is of an
entirely different scale. In Mexico, the bloodletting is not only associated with resolving disputes
or maintaining discipline, but it is directed toward the government and the news media, and is not
bounded by traditional objectives of such violence.
With national elections in both the United States and Mexico in 2012,3 the bilateral efforts to
confront organized crime and reduce the violence are at an important crossroads. Some are
concerned that candidates in Mexico may be subject to intimidation, threats, and perhaps

1 General Charles Jacoby Jr., Commander of U.S. Northern Command, Senate Armed Services Committee, Hearing on
the Proposed Fiscal 2013 Defense Authorization as it Relates to the U.S. Southern and Northern Commands,
(transcript), March 13, 2012.
2 Robert J. MacCoun and Peter Reuter, Drug War Heresies: Learning from Other Times, Vices and Places (New York:
Cambridge University Press, 2001); Kevin Jack Riley, Snow Job? The War Against International Cocaine Trafficking
(New Brunswick: Transactional Publishers, 1996).
3 For more background on the Mexican elections, see CRS Report R42548, Mexico’s 2012 Elections, by Clare Ribando
Seelke.
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violence. In municipal and state elections in Mexico in 2010, several local office holders and
candidates were killed allegedly by traffickers. For example, on June 28, 2010, Tamaulipas
gubernatorial candidate Rodolfo Torre Cantú of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) party
was killed, the highest level political assassination in 15 years, allegedly by the drug trafficking
organizations (DTOs).4 In addition, 15 mayors, most from small towns, were killed during the
year (see Figure 4). The 2010 uptick in political assassinations occurred during an important
election year, but threats and assassinations have also taken place involving a more limited
number of races. In elections held in Michoácan state in late 2011, organized crime groups
reportedly intimidated National Action Party (PAN) sympathizers (President Calderón’s party)
and killed a PAN mayor in early November. (A total of six mayors were slain in 2011). Some
analysts anticipate DTO-initiated threats may interrupt the 2012 congressional and presidential
campaigns and elections. Indeed, there was an upsurge of extreme violence in April and May
2012 when at least 111 severely brutalized corpses were discovered in different locations in the
country in a six-week period.5 The government and most analysts, however, have not linked these
atrocities to the election campaigns and have suggested instead that they represent a “heating up”
of criminal rivalries.
There have also been highly publicized attacks on drug rehabilitation centers, private parties
(often with teenagers killed), the deadly firebombing of a casino in Monterrey killing 52 patrons
and employees, and a steady attack on Mexico’s journalists. In September 2010, the leading
newspaper in Ciudad Juárez published an editorial to seek a truce with the DTOs it identified as
the “de facto authorities” in the city.6 According to the OAS’s Special Rapporteur on Freedom of
Expression, 10 communications workers were killed in Mexico during 2011, including eight
professional journalists.7
In late August 2010, 72 Central and South American migrants passing through Mexico were
found massacred in Tamaulipas. According to a survivor, Los Zetas attempted to recruit the
migrants to assist in moving drugs and killed them when they refused. The Zetas are reported to
be significantly involved in human smuggling.8 In 2011, the DTOs’ recruitment of children
became another prominent concern, with reports that over 1,000 children have been killed in the
fighting since Calderón came to office. From March through May 2011, mass graves were
discovered in Durango and Tamaulipas, adding to the death toll linked to the DTOs in those
states.

4 While the term “cartel” was commonly applied to Colombian and Mexican organizations and is used frequently in the
press and elsewhere, this report favors the use of the term “drug trafficking organizations.” Today’s Mexican DTOs are
not necessarily engaged in price-fixing and other forms of collusive economic activity ascribed to cartels.
5 William Booth, "Attacks Grow Ever More Gruesome in Mexico," Washington Post, May 24, 2012.
6 Following the murder of a second journalist on the staff at El Diario newspaper in Ciudad Juárez, the editor published
a plea to the DTOs to consider a truce after asking openly “what do you want of us?” in an editorial September 19,
2010. The Mexican government condemned the idea of a truce, although the editorial was published because the paper
said that the authorities could not guarantee the safety of their colleagues.
7 Dr. Catalina Botero, Annual Report of the Office of the Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression, Office of the
Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression, Document 69, Washington, DC, December 30, 2011,
http://www.oas.org/en/iachr/expression/docs/reports/annual/2012%2003%2021%20Annual%20Report%20RELE%202
011pirnting.pdf.
8 Sofia Miselem, "Migrant Massacre Challenges Mexico Anti-Crime Strategy," Agence France Presse, August 31,
2010; "Drug Cartel Suspected in 72 Migrants' Deaths," NPR: Morning Edition, August 26, 2010; Tim Johnson,
“Violent Mexican Drug Gang, Zetas, Taking Control of Migrant Smuggling,” Miami Herald, August, 12, 2011.
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Mexico’s Strategy
Since coming to office in December 2006, after winning the presidency with a very slim margin,
President Calderón made an aggressive campaign against the DTOs the centerpiece of his
administration’s policy. He called the increased drug trafficking violence a threat to the Mexican
state and sent thousands of military troops and federal police to combat the DTOs in drug
trafficking “hot spots” throughout the country. The federal crackdown on the DTOs led by the
well-regarded Mexican military was met with violent resistance by the trafficking organizations.
At the same time, there have been some dramatic successes in capturing and arresting drug
leaders. According to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), more than 35 “high
value targets”—DTO leaders identified mutually by the U.S. and Mexican governments—were
arrested or killed in operations to detain them between January 2010 and July 2011. The pace of
removing mid- and high-level DTO leaders has increased sharply during the Calderón
Administration.9
However, the so-called kingpin strategy, of taking down top DTO leaders, which worked to
fragment and help destroy the Cali and Medellin organizations in Colombia in the 1990s, has not
been replicated as successfully in Mexico to date. Many analysts maintain that the
implementation of the kingpin strategy in Mexico has created more instability and, at least in the
near term, more violence.10 These analysts suggest that intense but unfocused enforcement efforts
against the DTOs have increased fragmentation and upset whatever equilibrium the organizations
are trying to establish by their displays of violent power.11 As a result, the violence in Mexico is
more extensive, more volatile, and less predictable.
Communities that have experienced increases in drug trafficking-related violence, such as
Monterrey, have successfully called for troops of the Mexican army and marines to be sent to
protect them. Despite government efforts, President Calderón’s strategy has been criticized for
not reducing the violence which continued to increase through 2011, while sharply increasing
human rights violations by the military, which is largely untrained in domestic policing.12
President Calderon has indicated that he does not foresee turning the drug war over to the
Mexican police, and that he expects to stay the course with a large military presence through the
end of his term in 2012.
As violence continues to escalate and reach more of Mexico’s territory, some observers and
policy analysts are raising concerns about the Mexican state’s stability. The U.S. government and
the administration of Mexican President Felipe Calderón strongly deny the so-called “failed state”
thesis that was put forward by some analysts in 2008 and 2009, which suggested that the Mexican
government was no longer exercising sovereignty in all areas of the country.13 However, in early

9 CRS interview with DEA officials on August 5, 2011.
10 Shannon K. O’Neil, “Drug Cartel Fragmentation and Violence,” Council on Foreign Relations Blog, August 9, 2011.
11 Some studies have shown that violence tends to escalate after a government launches a major law enforcement
initiative against a DTO or other organized crime group. See, for example, International Centre for Science in Drug
Policy, Effect of Drug Law Enforcement on Drug-Related Violence: Evidence from a Scientific Review, 2010.
12 See, for example, Human Rights Watch, Neither Rights nor Security: Killings, Torture, and Disappearances in
Mexico’s “War on Drugs,” November 2011.
13 The potential for a rapid and sudden decline in Mexico because of the undermining influence of criminal gangs and
DTOs was widely debated. See, for example, United States Joint Forces Command, “The Joint Operating Environment
2008: Challenges and Implications for the Future Joint Force,” December 2008.
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August 2010, when President Calderón initiated a series of meetings to open up public dialogue
about his counterdrug strategy, he described the violence perpetrated by the DTOs as “a challenge
to the state, an attempt to replace the state.”14 While some observers consider parts of Mexico lost
to DTO control, this is definitely not the case for most of the country.15
In September 2010, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in remarks to the Council on Foreign
Relations, said that the violence by the DTOs in Mexico may be “morphing into or making
common cause with what we would call an insurgency.”16 This characterization was quickly
rejected by the Mexican government and revised by then- Assistant Secretary of State for Western
Hemisphere Affairs Arturo Valenzuela, the Director of the White House’s Office of National Drug
Control Policy Gil Kerlikowske, and later reportedly by President Barack Obama.17 It became
clear that the Obama Administration generally rejects the term “insurgency” to describe the
violence of drug traffickers in Mexico and their objectives. However, many U.S. government
officials have concerns about the Mexican government’s capacity to lower the violence in Mexico
and control insurgent-like or terrorist tactics being employed by the DTOs.
Mexico’s stability is of critical importance to the United States and the nature and the intensity of
the violence has been of particular concern to the U.S. Congress. This immense neighbor shares a
nearly 2000-mile border with the United States and has close trade and demographic ties. In
addition to U.S. concern about this strategic partner and close neighbor, policy makers are
concerned that the violence in Mexico could “spill over” into U.S. border states or further inland
despite beefed up security measures. According to the 2011 National Drug Threat Assessment, the
potential harm of Mexico’s organizations is formidable. Mexican DTOs and their affiliates
“dominate the supply and wholesale distribution of most illicit drugs in the United States” and are
present in more than 1,000 U.S. cities. 18
Congressional Concerns
The 111th Congress held more than 20 hearings dealing with the violence in Mexico, U.S. foreign
assistance, and border security issues. Related hearings have continued during the 112th Congress.
Congressional concern heightened after the March 2010 killing of three individuals connected to

14 President Calderón’s full statement at the security conference was, “This criminal behavior is what has changed, and
become a challenge to the state, an attempt to replace the state.” See Tracy Wilkinson and Ken Ellingwood, “Cartels
Thrive Despite Calderon’s Crackdown; Drug Gangs Have Expanded Their Power and Reach in both Mexico and the
United States,” Los Angeles Times, August 8, 2010.
15 William Finnegan, “Silver or Lead,” The New Yorker, May 31, 2010. Mexican crime expert, Edgardo Buscaglia,
argues that about one-third of Mexican municipalities are controlled by organized crime. See, “Point Person: Our Q &
A with Edgardo Buscaglia,” Dallas Morning News, April 9, 2010.
16 “A Conversation with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton,” Council on Foreign Relations, September 8,
2010. Transcript available at
http://www.cfr.org/publication/22896/conversation_with_us_secretary_of_state_hillary_rodham_clinton.html.
17 Assistant Secretary of State Valenzuela and Director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy
Kerlikowske made remarks at the annual Conference on the Americas qualifying what Secretary of State Clinton had
said earlier in the day, September 8, 2010. President Obama was reported to have negated the comparison of Mexico to
Colombia 20 years ago in comments he made to the Spanish language newspaper La Opinion. The White House did not
provide an English translation of the remarks printed in La Opinion. See: "Mexico Drug War Not Comparable to
Colombia: Obama," Reuters, September 10, 2010, at http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6885TH20100910.
18 U.S. Department of Justice, National Drug Intelligence Center, National Drug Threat Assessment: 2011, August
2011, http://www.justice.gov/ndic/pubs44/44849/44849p.pdf. (Hereafter referred to at the NDTA). The NDTA 2011
estimated that the Mexican DTOs maintain drug distribution networks in 1,000 U.S. cities.
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the U.S. consulate in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, and the murder of Jaime Zapata, a U.S. ICE agent,
on February 15, 2011. Following the explosion of a car bomb in July 2010 that was allegedly
planted by a drug trafficking organization in Ciudad Juárez (killing four), additional car bombs
have been exploded in border states and elsewhere. These acts and occasional use of grenades and
rocket launchers have raised widespread concern that some Mexican drug traffickers may be
adopting insurgent or terrorist techniques. Congress has expressed its concern over the escalating
violence by enacting resolutions and considering legislation.
Background on Drug Trafficking in Mexico
Drug trafficking organizations have operated in Mexico for more than a century. The DTOs can
be described as global businesses with forward and backward linkages for managing supply and
distribution in many countries. As businesses, they are concerned with bringing their product to
market in the most efficient way in order to maximize their profits. The Mexican DTOs are the
major wholesalers of illegal drugs in the United States and are increasingly gaining control of
U.S. retail level distribution through alliances with U.S. gangs. Their operations, however, are
markedly less violent in the United States than in Mexico despite their reported presence in more
than 1,000 U.S. cities.19 The DTOs use the tools of bribery and violence, which are
complementary. Violence is used to discipline employees, enforce transactions, limit the entry of
competitors, and coerce. Bribery and corruption help neutralize government action against the
DTOs, ensure impunity, and facilitate smooth operations.
The proceeds of drug sales (either laundered or as cash smuggled back to Mexico) are used in
part to corrupt U.S. and Mexican border officials20 and Mexican law enforcement, security forces,
and public officials to either ignore DTO activities or to actively support and protect them.
Mexican DTOs advance their operations through widespread corruption; when corruption fails to
achieve cooperation and acquiescence, violence is the ready alternative. Police corruption has
been so extensive that law enforcement officials working for the DTOs sometimes carry out their
violent assignments. Purges of municipal, state, and federal police have not contained the
problem. The continuing challenge of police corruption was illustrated in the August 2010 firing
of 3,200 officers, about 10% of the 34,500-person federal force, by Mexico’s Federal Police
Commissioner after they failed basic integrity tests.21
Arrests of public officials accused of cooperating with the DTOs have not been followed by
convictions. For example in May 2009, federal authorities arrested 10 Mexican mayors and 18
other state and local officials in the president’s home state of Michoacán for alleged ties to drug
trafficking organizations. All but one individual were subsequently released because their cases
did not hold up in court.22 In 2011, the former mayor of the resort city Cancun, Gregorio “Greg”

19 The NDTA, 2010, February 2010, states “Direct violence similar to the violence occurring among major DTOs in
Mexico is rare in the United States.” For a discussion of why the violence has not spread into the United States, see
CRS Report R41075, Southwest Border Violence: Issues in Identifying and Measuring Spillover Violence, coordinated
by Kristin M. Finklea.
20 For further discussion of corruption of U.S. and Mexican officials charged with securing the border, see CRS Report
R41349, U.S.-Mexican Security Cooperation: The Mérida Initiative and Beyond , by Clare Ribando Seelke and Kristin
M. Finklea.
21 “Mexico Politics: Whither the War on Drugs?,” Economist Intelligence Unit, September 2, 2010.
22 David Luhnow, "Questions Over Tape Face Mexico Politician," Wall Street Journal, October 16, 2010. In the U.S.
Department of State’s 2011 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report it identifies the arrest of 38 officials and
(continued...)
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Sanchez, was released 14 months after his arrest on drug trafficking and money laundering
charges when his case collapsed in federal court.23 Similarly, the former mayor of Tijuana, Jorge
Hank Rhon, was released less than two weeks after his arrest in June 2011 on weapons and
murder charges due to mistakes made in the arrest procedures.24 The corruption has taken place in
states and localities governed by each of the three major political parties in Mexico, indicating
that no party is immune.25
The relationship of Mexico’s drug traffickers to the government and to one another is now a
rapidly evolving picture and any current snapshot (such as the one provided in this report) must
be continually adjusted. In the early 20th century, Mexico was a source of marijuana and heroin to
the United States, and by the 1940s, Mexican drug smugglers were notorious in the United
States.26 The growth and entrenchment of Mexico’s drug trafficking networks occurred during a
period of one-party rule in Mexico by the PRI, which governed for 71 years.27 During that period,
the government was centralized and hierarchical, and, to a large degree, it tolerated and protected
some drug production and trafficking in certain regions of the country, even though the PRI
government did not generally tolerate crime.28 According to numerous accounts, for many years
the Mexican government pursued an overall policy of accommodation. Under this system, arrests
and eradication of drug crops took place, but due to the effects of widespread corruption the
system was “characterized by a working relationship between Mexican authorities and drug
lords” through the 1990s.29
The stability of the system began to fray in the 1990s as Mexican political power decentralized
and the push toward democratic pluralism began first at the local level and then nationally with
the election of the National Action Party (PAN) candidate Vicente Fox as president in 2000.30 The
process of democratization upended the equilibrium that had developed between state actors
(such as the Federal Security Directorate that oversaw domestic security from 1947 to 1985) and
organized crime. No longer were certain officials able to ensure the impunity of drug traffickers
to the same degree and to regulate competition among Mexican DTOs for drug trafficking routes,
or plazas. To a large extent, DTO violence directed at the government appears to be an attempt to
re-establish impunity while the inter-cartel violence seems to be attempts to re-establish
dominance over specific drug trafficking plazas. The intra-DTO violence (or violence inside the
organizations) reflects reaction to suspected betrayals and the competition to succeed killed or
arrested leaders.

(...continued)
police in Michoacán in 2009, 37 of whom were released for lack of evidence.
23 Tracy Wilkinson, "Ex-Mayor of Cancun Released as Case Appears to Collapse," Los Angeles Times, July 21, 2011.
24 Trans-Border Institute (TBI), Justice in Mexico, June 2011 News Report.
25 Luis Astorga and David A. Shirk, Drug Trafficking Organizations and Counter-Drug Strategies in the U.S.-Mexican
Context, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars Mexico Institute, Working Paper Series on U.S.-Mexico
Security Cooperation, April 2010, p. 11.
26 Ibid. p. 4.
27 For more on the political history of Mexico, see CRS Report RL32724, Mexico: Issues for Congress, by Clare
Ribando Seelke.
28 Astorga and Shirk, Drug Trafficking Organizations and Counter-Drug Strategies, p. 5.
29 Francisco E. Gonzalez, "Mexico's Drug Wars Get Brutal," Current History, February 2009.
30 Shannon O'Neil, "The Real War in Mexico: How Democracy Can Defeat the Drug Cartels," Foreign Affairs, vol. 88,
no. 4 (July/August 2009).
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Before this political development, an important transition in the role of Mexico in the
international drug trade took place during the 1980s and early 1990s. As Colombian DTOs were
forcibly broken up, the highly profitable traffic in cocaine to the United States was gradually
taken over by Mexican traffickers. The traditional trafficking route used by the Colombians
through the Caribbean was shut down by intense enforcement efforts of the U.S. government. As
Colombian DTOs lost this route, they increasingly subcontracted the trafficking of cocaine
produced in the Andean region to the Mexican DTOs, who they paid in cocaine rather than cash.
These already strong organizations gradually took over the cocaine trafficking business, evolving
from being mere couriers for the Colombians to being the wholesalers they are today. As
Mexico’s drug trafficking organizations rose to dominate the U.S. drug markets in the 1990s, the
business became even more lucrative. This “raised the stakes,” which encouraged the use of
violence in Mexico to protect and promote market share. The violent struggle between DTOs over
strategic routes and warehouses where drugs are consolidated before entering the United States
reflects these higher stakes.
Today the major Mexican DTOs are polydrug, handling more than one type of drug although they
may specialize in the production or trafficking of specific products. Mexico is a major producer
and supplier to the U.S. market of heroin, methamphetamine, and marijuana and the principal
transit country for cocaine sold in the United States.31 The west coast state of Sinaloa (see map in
Figure 1), which has a long coastline and difficult-to-access areas favorable for drug cultivation,
is the heartland of Mexico’s drug trade. Marijuana and poppy cultivation has flourished in this
state for decades.32 It has been the source of Mexico’s most notorious and successful drug
traffickers. In April 2012, violence began to spike in Sinaloa including a lengthy engagement with
Mexican military and police, thought to be caused by resident drug traffickers protecting their
drug growing turf or an important leader.33
According to the U.S State Department’s 2012 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report,
about 95% of the cocaine that is seized in the United States has transited the Central
America/Mexico corridor. In the United States, the availability of cocaine began to decline in
2009, which some authorities have attributed in part to an increase in law enforcement efforts in
both Mexico and the United States. Coca production in Colombia has also declined, and there has
been an increasing flow of Colombian cocaine to other regions such as West Africa and Europe.
At the same time, cultivation of opium poppy (from which heroin is derived) and marijuana
doubled in Mexico between 2006 and 2011.34 The U.S. government estimated that Mexico
produced 19,500 hectares of poppy in 2009, surpassing Burma as the second-largest cultivator of
poppy in the world.35 Domestic consumption of heroin inside Mexico is increasing. Production of

31 U.S. Department of State, 2011 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report (INCSR), March 2011.
32 The region where Sinaloa comes together with the states of Chihuahua and Durango is a drug-growing area
sometimes called Mexico’s “Golden Triangle” after the productive area of Southeast Asia by the same name. In this
region, a third of the population is estimated to make their living from the illicit drug trade. See Tim Johnson, “For
Mexican Cartels, Marijuana is Still Gold,” San Jose Mercury News, September 5, 2010.
33 STRATFOR, [Formerly Stratfor Global Intelligence, a subscription database], “Mexico Security Memo: Long Fight
Between Military, Gunmen in Sinaloa,” May 2, 2012.
34 IHS Jane's, Jane's Sentinel Security Assessment - Security, Mexico, February 6, 2012. The report notes that one
reason the illicit crops have increased in Mexico is that eradication by Mexican military has decreased over recent years
because those forces have been deployed to combat organized crime.
35 U.S. Department of State, INCSR 2011. The report states notes “While opium poppy cultivation in Mexico is very
sparse in comparison to the densities estimated in Burma and Afghanistan, Mexico’s share of global poppy production
has been increasing in recent years.” Mexico only produces 7% of the world’s supply of heroin, but is the major
supplier of heroin to the United States. However, some authorities in Mexico question the size of the poppy cultivation
(continued...)
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methamphetamine is also believed to be climbing, suggested by the number of laboratories that
were destroyed by the Mexican authorities in 2009 (three times greater than the year before).36
Mexico’s Major Drug Trafficking Organizations
The DTOs have been in constant flux. By some accounts, when President Calderón came to office
in December 2006, there were four dominant DTOs: the Tijuana/Arellano Felix organization
(AFO), the Sinaloa cartel, the Juárez/Vicente Carillo Fuentes organization (CFO), and the Gulf
cartel.
Since then, the more stable organizations that existed in the earlier years of the Calderón
Administration have fractured into many more groups. For a time, according to the U.S. DEA,
seven organizations were dominant. These included Sinaloa, Los Zetas, Tijuana/AFO,
Juárez/CFO, Beltrán Leyva, Gulf, and La Familia Michoacana. However, many analysts suggest
that these seven now seem to have fragmented to between 12 and as many as 20 organizations.
Today, two large “national” DTOs—Sinaloa and Los Zetas—appear to be preeminent. But the
diversification into other crime, the ephemeral prominence of new gangs and DTOs, and shifting
alliances make a static DTO landscape difficult to portray.
For instance, the Gulf cartel, based in northeastern Mexico, had a long history of dominance in
terms of power and profits with the zenith of its power in the early 2000s. However, the Gulf
cartel’s enforcers—Los Zetas, who were organized around Mexican military deserters—split to
form a separate DTO and turned against their former employers. The well-established Sinaloa
DTO, with roots in western Mexico, has fought brutally for increased control of routes through
Chihuahua and Baja California with the goal of becoming the dominant DTO in the country.
Sinaloa has a more decentralized structure of loosely linked smaller organizations, which has
been susceptible to conflict when units break away. Nevertheless, the decentralized structure has
enabled it to be quite adaptable in the highly competitive and unstable environment that now
prevails.37 Finally, La Familia Michoacana—a DTO based in the Pacific southwestern state of
Michoácan and influential in surrounding states—split apart in early 2011 and has fought a bitter
turf battle with its violent successor, the Knights Templar, that is expected to continue.
From open source research, there is more available information about the seven “traditional”
DTOs (and their successors). Current information about the array of new regional and local crime
groups is more difficult to assess. The seven organizations and their successors are still operating,
both in conflict with one another and at times working in collaboration. A brief sketch of each of
these groups, portrayed in Figure 1 (the U.S. DEA map from January 2012), follows:

(...continued)
estimates of the U.S. government and the United Nations. See Steven Dudley, “Raw Feed: Making Sense of Mexico’s
Heroin Production,” In Sight: Organized Crime in the Americas, March 7, 2011, at http://insightcrime.org/insight-
latest-news/item/649-rawfeed-deciphering-mexicos-rise-in-heroin-productio.
36 William Booth and Anne-Marie O'Connor, "Mexican Cartels Emerge as Top Source for U.S. Meth," Washington
Post, November 28, 2010.
37 Oscar Becerra, “Traffic Report - Battling Mexico's Sinaloa Cartel,” Jane's Information Group, May 7, 2010. The
author describes the networked structure: “The Sinaloa Cartel is not a strictly vertical and hierarchical structure, but
instead is a complex organization containing a number of semi-autonomous groups.”
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Tijuana/Arellano Felix Organization (AFO). One of the founders of modern Mexican DTOs,
Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo, a former police officer from Sinaloa, created a network that
included the Arellano Felix family, and numerous other DTO leaders such as Rafael Caro
Quintero, Amado Carrillo Fuentes, and current fugitive Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán. The seven
“Arellano Felix” brothers and four sisters inherited the drug fiefdom (AFO) from their uncle,
Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo, after his arrest in 1989 for the murder of DEA Special Agent
Enrique “Kiki” Camarena.38
By the late 1990s and the early 2000s, this DTO, based in Tijuana, was one of the two dominant
organizations, and competed against the more powerful Juárez organization. The AFO structure
began to dissolve after several of its leaders were arrested. Of the Arellano Felix brothers, in 2002
Ramón was killed and Benjamin was later arrested. In October 2008, Eduardo Arellano, the last
of the five brothers involved in the drug business, was apprehended in Tijuana.
A bloody battle for control broke out in 2008 when the AFO organization split into two factions.
In the vacuum left by the arrests of the AFO’s key players, other DTOs in the region attempted to
assert control over the profitable Tijuana/Baja California-San Diego/California border plaza. The
AFO suffered another blow when Eduardo Teodoro “El Teo” Garcia Simental, a former AFO
lieutenant, aligned himself with the Sinaloa cartel, which led to a surge of violence in Tijuana.39
Since the January 2010 arrest of Garcia Simental, violence in Tijuana has markedly decreased.40
Some observers have claimed the decrease in violence is an important law enforcement success,
while others suggest competing DTOs may have come to an agreement on the use of the drug
trafficking route.41
Fernando Sanchez Arellano (alias “El Ingeniero”) is a nephew of the founding Arellano Felix
brothers. According to several sources, he maintains leadership of the diminished AFO (also
known as the Tijuana DTO). STRATFOR reports that he has worked out a deal with the dominant
Sinaloa organization to pay a fee for the right to use the lucrative plaza once under the AFO’s
control.42 Other analysts suggest the Tijuana leader is purposefully maintaining a low profile to
reduce attention from the media and Mexican government while maintaining a steady business
moving drugs North into California.43

38 Special Agent Camarena was an undercover DEA agent working in Mexico who was kidnapped, tortured, and killed
in 1985. The Felix Gallardo network broke up in the wake of the investigation of its role in the murder. The famous
case and ensuing investigation is chronicled on a DEA website honoring Agent Camarena at
http://www.justice.gov/dea/ongoing/red_ribbon/redribbon_history.html.
39 This turf battle resulted in more than 400 deaths in the final quarter of 2008. See Viridian Rios and Gabriel Aguilera,
"Keys to Reducing Violence in Mexico: Targeted Policing and Civic Engagement," ReVista, vol. XI, no. 2 (Winter
2012).
40 Sandra Dibble, “Tijuana Violence Slows, Drops from Spotlight,” San Diego Union Tribune, April 26, 2010.
Following the January 12, 2010 arrest of Teodoro “El Teo” Garcia Simental, on February 8, 2010 his brother, Manuel,
and their chief lieutenant Raydel Lopez Uriarte, were arrested. For more information, see testimony of Anthony P.
Placido, Assistant Administrator for Intelligence, Drug Enforcement Administration and Kevin L. Perkins, Assistant
Director, Criminal Investigative Division, Federal Bureau of Investigation, before the Senate Caucus on International
Narcotics Control, May 5, 2010.
41 Interview with David Shirk, Director of the Trans-Border Institute, University of San Diego, May 13, 2010. For more
background on the role of Tijuana authorities in the reduction of violence, see Rios and Aguilera, “Keys to Reducing
Violence in Mexico.”
42 STRATFOR, “Mexican Drug Wars Update: Targeting the Most Violent Cartels,” July 21, 2011.
43 Patrick Corcoran, “A Survey of Mexico’s Trafficking Networks,” In Sight: Organized Crime in the Americas, June
27, 2011.
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Sinaloa DTO. This organization retains the Sinaloa core that has descended from the Felix
Gallardo network. Headed by the fugitive prison escapee and billionaire Joaquín “El Chapo”
Guzmán, the Sinaloa DTO emerged as an effective leader in moving cocaine from South America
to the United States. Early in 2008, a federation dominated by the Sinaloa cartel (which included
the Beltrán Leyva organization and the Juárez cartel) broke apart. Sinaloa, still composed of a
network of smaller organizations, has grown to be the dominant DTO operating in Mexico today,
controlling by one estimate 45% of the drug trade in Mexico.44 In addition to Guzmán, top
leadership of the DTO includes Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada García.45 Examining arrest data of
the Calderón antidrug effort, some analysts believe they have detected a pattern of arrests
demonstrating favor toward the Sinaloa DTO whose members have not been arrested at the same
rates as competing DTOs. President Calderón has strongly denied any accusation of favoritism.46
The Mexican military’s July 2010 killing of Ignacio Coronel Villarreal (alias “El Nacho”),
reportedly the third-highest leader overseeing Sinaloa operations in central Mexico, has given
credence to the argument that Sinaloa has taken serious hits like the others.
Sinaloa reportedly has a substantial presence in some 50 countries, including throughout the
Americas, Europe, West Africa, and Southeast Asia.47 Often described as the most powerful mafia
organization in the Western Hemisphere, Sinaloa is also reported to be the most cohesive. In
2011, it expanded operations into Mexico City, and into Durango, Guerrero, and Michoacán states
while continuing its push into territories in both Baja California and Chihuahua once controlled
by the Tijuana and Juárez DTOs. Sinaloa experienced several arrests of some of its leaders in the
spring of 2011, but some of these may have been the result of betrayals to weed out threats from
within the DTO.48
Juárez/Vicente Carrillo Fuentes Organization. This DTO is led by Vicente Carrillo Fuentes,
who took over from his brother Amado, founder of the DTO, who died in 1997. Vicente oversaw
the operations when the Juárez DTO was part of the Sinaloa federation from which it split in
2008.49 The Juárez DTO and its enforcement arm, La Línea, have ferociously fought their former
Sinaloa ally to maintain their core territory, the Ciudad Juárez corridor abutting El Paso, Texas.
Since 2008, this inter-DTO battle has raged, resulting in thousands of deaths in Ciudad Juárez,

44 “Outsmarted by Sinaloa: Why the Biggest Drug Gang Has Been Least Hit,” Economist, January 7, 2010.
45 The son (Jesus Vicente Zambada) and brother (Jesus Zambada García) of Zambada García are in U.S. custody. The
son of the Sinaloa cartel leader was arrested in March 2009 and extradited to the United States in 2010, and has alleged
in U.S. federal court that he was ineligible for narcotics trafficking charges because of immunity he earned by being an
informant for the DEA (a claim rejected by a Chicago Federal Judge in April 2012 in advance of his trial which is
slated to begin in October 2012). The brother, who was arrested in Mexico in 2008, was extradited to the United States
on April 3, 2012 and faces eight charges of drug trafficking and one of involvement in organized crime. Edward Fox,
“Mexican Drug Lord Fails to Prove He Was Informant,” In Sight:Organized Crime in the Americas, April 6, 2012;
“Top Member of Sinaloa Cartel, “El Rey” Zambada, Extradited to United States,” TBI, Justice in Mexico, April 2012
News Report.
46 Ibid. See also: John Burnett and Marisa Peñaloza, “Mexico’s Drug War: A Rigged Fight,” NPR, All Things
Considered, May 18, 2010.
47 Geoffrey Ramsey, “Colombian Officials Arrest Money Launderer for ‘Chapo’ Guzman,” In Sight:Organized Crime
in the Americas, August 11, 2011.
48 STRATFOR, “Mexican Drug Wars Update: Targeting the Most Violent Cartels,” July 21, 2011.
49 Some analysts trace the origins of the split to a personal feud between “El Chapo” Guzmán of the Sinaloa DTO and
former ally Vicente Carillo Fuentes. In 2004, Guzmán allegedly ordered the killing of Rodolfo Carrillo Fuentes,
another of Vicente’s brothers. Guzmán’s son, Edgar, was killed in May 2008 allegedly on orders from Carrillo Fuentes.
See Alfredo Corchado, “Juárez Drug Violence Not Likely To Go Away Soon, Authorities Say,” Dallas Morning News,
May 17, 2010.
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making the surrounding Mexican state of Chihuahua the deadliest in the country.50 The Juárez
DTO has reportedly been worn down by the conflict and resorted to other lucrative activities to
finance its battle, including domestic drug sales in Ciudad Juárez (where rates of abuse are among
the highest in Mexico). The Juárez DTO has battled for control of local drug markets with proxy
street gangs. Los Aztecas, one of the larger gangs, is fighting for the Juárez organization against
two gangs, the Artistas Asesinos and the Mexicales, representing the Sinaloa DTO.51
The degree of decline this organization has suffered is contested. Some analysts believe it is a
“spent force,” while others have identified a tenacity to hold on to parts of Ciudad Juárez and
other cities in Chihuahua.52 The DTO’s enforcement arm, the La Linea gang, suffered a major
loss when leader José Antonio Acosta Hernández (alias “El Diego”) was arrested in late July
2011. He confessed to ordering more than 1,500 murders and was convicted of the March 2010
murder of the three people connected to the U.S. consulate in Juárez. After his extradition to the
United States, he was convicted in U.S. federal court on charges of murder and drug trafficking
and sentenced to four consecutive life sentences in April 2012. The case represents increasingly
close cooperation between Mexican and U.S. authorities on bringing hyper-violent offenders to
justice.53

50 Molly Molloy, research librarian at New Mexico State University, keeps a tally of homicides as reported in the
Juárez media and the official reports from the Chihuahua Attorney General. She and others have reported more than
3,000 deaths in Ciudad Juárez in 2010, and more than 10,000 deaths in the beleaguered city since January 2008. See:
Frontera List, at http://groups.google.com/group/frontera-list and more information about the list at
http://fronteralist.org/.
51 STRATFOR, “Mexican Drug Cartels: Two Wars and a Look Southward,” December 17, 2009.
52 Patrick Corcoran, “A Survey of Mexico’s Trafficking Networks,” In Sight: Organized Crime in the Americas, June
27, 2011; STRATFOR, “Mexican Drug Wars Update: Targeting the Most Violent Cartels,” July 21, 2011.
53 “Leader of La Linea Sentenced in Texas court for 2010 U.S. Consulate Murders in Ciudad Juárez,” TBI, Justice in
Mexico, April 2012 News Report.
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Figure 1. Map of DTO Areas of Dominant Influence in Mexico by DEA

Source: DEA, January 2012
Notes: The DEA uses the term “cartel” in place of DTO. Also, the DTO identified as the Knights Templar in the report text is labeled in the map key by its Spanish name,
“Los Caballeros Templarios.”
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Gulf DTO. The Gulf DTO is based in the border city of Matamoros in the northeastern Mexican
state of Tamaulipas. It arose in the bootlegging era of the 1920s. In the 1980s, its leader, Juan
García Abrego, developed ties to Colombia’s Cali cartel as well as to the Mexican Federal Police.
His violent successor, Osiel Cárdenas Guillén, successfully corrupted elite Mexican military
forces sent to capture him. Those corrupted military personnel became known as Los Zetas and
fused with the Gulf cartel. At the beginning of the 21st century, Gulf was considered one of the
most powerful Mexican DTOs. Cárdenas was arrested by Mexican authorities in 2003, but he
successfully ran his drug enterprise from prison.54 The violent struggle to succeed him did not
begin until his extradition to the United States in early 2007. (In February 2010, Cárdenas was
sentenced to serve 25 years in a U.S. prison). Despite a difficult internal succession battle and
successful law enforcement operations against it, the Gulf organization continues to successfully
move drugs. On November 5, 2010, Osiel’s brother, Antonio Ezequiél Cárdenas Guillén (alias
Tony Tormenta), was killed in Matamoros in a gun battle with Mexican marines. He had risen to a
top position in the Gulf DTO following his brother’s extradition. His death set off renewed
violence as the weakened Gulf DTO attempted to fight off the continued assault by its former
allies, Los Zetas.55 In 2011, Gulf continued its battle with the Zetas for control over its former
strongholds in Tamaulipas, Nuevo León, and Veracruz.56 Although identified by some observers
as a “national” cartel, its area of influence has become quite diminished (See Figure 1).
Los Zetas. This group was originally composed of former elite airborne special force members of
the Mexican Army who defected to the Gulf cartel and became their hired assassins.57 In 2008,
Los Zetas began to contract their services to other DTOs operating throughout the country,
notably the Beltrán Leyva organization and the Juárez DTO.58 Los Zetas split with the Gulf cartel
in the period of late 2008 to 2010 (analysts disagree on the exact timing) to become an
independent DTO. Since February 2010, Los Zetas and the Gulf cartel have been battling in
Tamaulipas, Nuevo León and other Gulf territory for control of drug smuggling corridors. What is
especially significant is that in order to fight Los Zetas, the Gulf cartel has allied itself with two
former enemies—La Familia Michoacana (LFM) and the Sinaloa cartel—creating an
environment of urban warfare with commando-style raids on state prisons, abduction of
journalists, murder of police, and attacks on military posts. They have organized elaborate road
blockades during their violent operations to prevent legitimate police from responding.59 In 2010,
the battle for territory between the Zetas and the Gulf-Sinaloa-La Familia alliance (a temporary
alliance of convenience) increased casualties among the government’s security forces.60 Some

54 George W. Grayson, Mexico: Narco-Violence and a Failed State? (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers,
2010), pp. 72-73.
55 Nacha Cattan, “Killing of Top Mexico Drug Lord ‘Tony Tormenta’ May Boost Rival Zetas Cartel,” Christian
Science Monitor, November 8, 2010.
56 Patrick Corcoran, “A Survey of Mexico’s Trafficking Networks,” In Sight: Organized Crime in the Americas, June
27, 2011.
57 Most reports indicate that Los Zetas were created by a group of 30 lieutenants and sub-lieutenants who deserted from
the Mexican military’s Special Mobile Force Group (Grupos Aeromóviles de Fuerzas Especiales, GAFES) to join the
Gulf Cartel in the late 1990s. See CRS Report RL34215, Mexico’s Drug Cartels, by Colleen W. Cook.
58 Scott Stewart and Alex Posey, “Mexico: The War with the Cartels in 2009,” STRATFOR, December 9, 2009; DEA
maintains the split between Los Zetas and the Gulf DTO began in March 2008 at the same time there was growing
evidence that Los Zetas had aligned themselves with the BLO. CRS consultation with the Drug Enforcement
Administration, December 20, 2010.
59 William Booth, “Drug War Violence Appears in Mexico’s Northeast, Near Texas Border,” Washington Post, April
21, 2010.
60 “The War Is Mainly Between the Drug Cartels,” Latin American Security and Strategic Review, April 2010.
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observers argue that this killing does not suggest a tactic by the DTOs to target government
officials, but rather an increase in inter-cartel rivalry.61
Los Zetas gained power under the leadership of Heriberto Lazcano Lazcano.62 The Zetas have
expanded their operations to Central America to collaborate with their Guatemalan equivalent,
Los Kaibiles, and with Central American gangs in an effort to take control of cocaine shipments
from Guatemala to Mexico.63
Currently, Los Zetas appear to have the largest area of geographic influence in Mexico and to be
growing stronger in Guatemala. The Zetas are also believed to have achieved the most
diversification in other criminal activities. (See section “DTO Fragmentation, Competition, and
Diversification.”) While they have been aggressively expansionist, some analysts question if this
DTO is responsible for the largest portion of the violent conflict in Mexico. The Zetas were
targeted by both the Mexican and U.S. governments for increased enforcement in 2011. While
this additional government pressure does not appear to have diminished their areas of influence,
the Sinaloa DTO is still considered by many observers to be the most dominant.64
Beltrán Leyva Organization (BLO). Until 2008, this syndicate was a part of the Sinaloa
federation and controlled access to the U.S. border in Sonora state. The January 2008 arrest of
Alfredo Beltrán Leyva, brother of the syndicate’s leader, Arturo, and a leading lieutenant in the
organization, is believed to have been abetted by “El Chapo” Guzmán, the top leader of the
Sinaloa DTO. The loss of Alfredo cemented the animosity between the two organizations. Despite
resistance from the Sinaloa federation, the BLO successfully secured drug transport routes in the
states of Sinaloa, Durango, Sonora, Jalisco, Michoacán, Guerrero, and Morelos. In addition, the
BLO, like other dominant Mexican DTOs, is believed to have infiltrated the upper levels of the
Mexican government to help maintain its strong presence and control.65 The BLO has executed
uncooperative officials, and is believed to be responsible for the May 2008 assassination of acting
federal police director Edgar Millan Gomez.66 The organization has shown a high level of
sophistication in its operations, forming a strategic alliance with Los Zetas to fight for important
drug territory against the Gulf, Sinaloa, and La Familia DTOs. The BLO had long-standing links
to Colombian sources, and control over multiple and varied routes into Mexico. Along with the
Sinaloa DTO, it had also enjoyed a significant presence in southern Mexico.

61 Ibid.
62 According to one account, Los Zetas are active throughout the Gulf Coast with centers of operation in Veracruz, the
southern states of Tabasco, Yucatán, Quintana Roo, and Chiapas, and in the Pacific Coast states of Guerrero and
Oaxaca, as well as Aguascalientes and Zacatecas. They are also gaining dominance in Mexico State and Hidalgo,
which they are using to gain entree to Mexico City. See chapter “Emerging and New Narco Sects—Los Zetas and La
Familia,” in George W. Grayson, Mexico: Narco-Violence and a Failed State? (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction
Publishers, 2010.)
63 Steven S. Dudley, "Drug Trafficking Organizations in Central America: Transportistas, Mexican Cartels and Maras,"
in Shared Responsibility: U.S.-Mexico Options for Confronting Organized Crime, ed. Eric L. Olson, David A. Shirk,
and Andrew Selee (Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and the University of San
Diego, 2010).
64 Patrick Corcoran, “Are the Zetas the Most Dangerous Drug Gang in Mexico?,” In Sight:Organized Crime in the
Americas, August 8, 2011; Geoffrey Ramsey, “Have the Zetas Replaced Sinaloa as Mexico’s Most Powerful Cartel?,”
In Sight:Organized Crime in the Americas, January 3, 2012.
65 James C. McKinley, Jr. “Keeping Resident Close, and Maybe a Cartel Closer, Mexican Mayor’s First Months in
Office Marked by Scandal, Twists,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, April 25, 2010.
66 STRATFOR, “Mexico: The Cartel Turf War Intensifies,” May 9, 2008.
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The organization suffered a series of setbacks at the hands of the Mexican security forces
beginning with the December 2009 killing of Arturo Beltrán Leyva during a raid conducted by
Mexican marines, and the arrest of Carlos Beltrán Leyva in January 2010. Some experts believe
that the remaining Beltrán Leyva brother, Hector, is the acting head of the organization now that
the three others have been arrested or killed. Gerardo Alvarez-Vazquez, who was arrested in April
2010, had been fighting Hector Beltrán Leyva for control of the DTO along with Edgar Valdez
Villarreal (alias “La Barbie”), who was arrested in August 2010.67
Valdez’s arrest was a major victory for the Mexican authorities and for President Calderón’s drug
strategy.68 He reportedly was one of the rare Mexican-Americans who was a top leader of a
Mexican DTO.69 The power vacuum left by the death of Arturo Beltrán Leyva had led to major
fighting among members of the BLO and contributed significantly to violence in the central
region of the country such as the state of Morelos in early and mid-2010.70 Following the killing
of Arturo Beltrán Leyva, two new organizations have emerged: the South Pacific Cartel,
reportedly led by Arturo’s brother Hector, and the Independent Cartel of Acapulco, which
contains remnants of the old BLO that were loyal to Edgar Valdez (“La Barbie”). The capture of
Valdez (who had a $2 million reward for his arrest in both the United States and Mexico) may
decrease the BLO’s importance, continue the internal power struggle, or tempt other DTOs to
take control of the BLO routes.
La Familia Michoacana (LFM) / Knights Templar. This DTO, first known as LFM, acquired
notoriety for its hyper-violent crimes in 2006, although it traces its roots back to the 1980s.
Ironically, it started as a vigilante group to eradicate drug use in Mexico and particularly in
Michoacán, where it is based. But as a DTO it has specialized in methamphetamine production
and smuggling (reportedly for sale in the United States only) and is also a vigorous trafficker of
marijuana, cocaine, and heroin.71 LFM was known for its use of extreme, symbolic violence and a
pseudo-ideological or religious justification for its existence. According to one study, the LFM
represented “a hybrid fusion of criminal drug enterprise entity and Christian evangelical beliefs”
combining social, criminal, and religious elements in one movement.72 LFM was known for
leaving signs (“narcomantas”) on corpses and at crime scenes, describing their actions as “divine
justice.”73 LFM members have reportedly made donations of food, medical care, and schools to
benefit the poor in order to project a “Robin Hood” image.74 Once affiliated with Los Zetas (when

67 Ivan Moreno, “Mexico City Area Shootout Leads to Arrest of Major Alleged Drug Trafficker,” Associated Press,
April 23, 2010.
68 The Mexican government’s strategy to remove high-value targets or kingpins has been especially productive since
the end of 2009 when Arturo Beltrán Leyva was killed. That event was followed in 2010 by the arrest or attempted
arrest and killing of several other key leaders or top lieutenants vying for leadership such as Edgar Valdez. At the close
of 2010, the pace of the strategy to take out top leaders seemed to be increasing.
69 Edgar Valdez is an American-born drug smuggler from Laredo, Texas and allegedly started his career in the United
States dealing marijuana. His nickname is “La Barbie” because of his fair hair and eyes. Nicholas Casey and Jose de
Cordoba, “Alleged Drug Kingpin Is Arrested in Mexico,” Wall Street Journal, August 31, 2010.
70 “15 Suspected Drug Cartel Enforcers Captured in Mexico,” EFE News Service, April 24, 2010; Trans-Border
Institute, Justice in Mexico, February and March 2010 News Reports.
71 Finnegan, “Silver or Lead.” With regard to heroin, LFM has allowed independent traffickers to cultivate opium
poppies and to produce heroin for a “tax” in Michoacán, according to a source at the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City.
72 Robert J. Bunker and John P. Sullivan, “Cartel Evolution Revisited: Third Phase Cartel Potentials and Alternative
Futures in Mexico,” Small Wars & Insurgencies, vol. 21, no. 1 (March 2010), p. 45.
73 Finnegan, “Silver or Lead.”
74 Samuel Logan and John P. Sullivan, Mexico's Divine Justice, ISN Security Watch, August 17, 2009.
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the Gulf and Zetas DTOs were merged), the LFM turned to oppose Los Zetas. Declared Mexico’s
most violent DTO in 2009 by Mexico’s then-attorney general, LFM used some of the ruthless
techniques learned from the paramilitary Zetas.75
In 2010, however, LFM played a less prominent role, and in November 2010, the LFM reportedly
called for a truce with the Mexican government and announced it would disband.76 In a December
10, 2010, gun battle with the Mexican federal police, the LFM’s spiritual leader Nazario Moreno
González (alias “El Más Loco”) was killed, according to Mexican authorities.77 In June 2011,
LFM leader José de Jesús Méndez Vargas was arrested. A new organization that emerged in early
2011 calling itself the Knights Templar claims to be a successor or offshoot of LFM, and is led by
charismatic former lieutenant Servando Gomez, (alias “La Tuta”).
The Knights Templar may replace the older organization with which it is now locked in
competition. Like LFM, it claims to have a code of conduct and has published a 22-page booklet
laying out its ethics.78 The Knights Templar have emulated LFM’s supposed commitment to
“social justice” and reportedly LFM’s penchant for diversification into crime such as extortion.
According to some analysts, the Knights Templar have been engaging in combat with the
remnants of the LFM throughout 2011, including clashes in the states of Michoacán, Mexico,
Morelos and Guerrero and have been used as a proxy by the Sinaloa DTO in its battles with Los
Zetas and affiliated gangs.79
DTO Fragmentation, Competition, and Diversification
As stated earlier, the DTOs today are more fragmented, more violent, and more competitive than
the larger and more stable organizations that President Calderón faced at the beginning of his
administration.80 Analysts disagree about the extent of this fragmentation and its importance, and
whether the group of smaller organizations will be easier to dismantle. There is more agreement
that the environment is growing more violent and that the “violent free for all” is a relatively new
development in Mexico.81
Fragmentation that began in 2010 and accelerated in 2011 has redefined the “battlefield” and
brought new actors, such as Los Zetas and the Knights Templar, to the fore. An array of smaller
organizations are now active including the Resistance and the Jalisco Cartel – New Generation
who are reportedly competing for territory in the coastal states of Nayarit, Colima, and Jalisco.82

75 Sidney Weintraub and Duncan Wood, Cooperative Mexican-U.S. Antinarcotics Efforts, Center for Strategic and
International Studies, November 2010.
76 STRATFOR, “Mexican Drug Wars: Bloodiest Year to Date,” December 20, 2010.
77 Ibid.
78 “Patterned After the Knights Templar, Drug Cartel Issues ‘Code of Conduct,’” Fox News Latino, July 20, 2011.
79 STRATFOR, “Mexican Drug War Update: Indistinct Battle Lines,” April 16, 2012.
80 Patrick Corcoran, “A Survey of Mexico’s Trafficking Networks,” In Sight: Organized Crime in the Americas, June
27, 2011.
81 Patrick Corcoran, “Mexico: Upstart Gangs Eat into Cartel Hegemony,” In Sight: Organized Crime in the Americas,
August 4, 2011.
82 Patrick Corcoran, “Mexico: Upstart Gangs Eat into Cartel Hegemony,” In Sight: Organized Crime in the Americas,
August 4, 2011.
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Contrary to the experience in Colombia with the sequential dismantling of the enormous Medellin
and Cali cartels, 83 fragmentation in Mexico has been associated with escalating violence.84 A
“kingpin strategy” implemented by the Mexican government has successfully “taken down”
numerous top- and mid-level leaders in all the major DTOs, either through arrests or deaths in
operations to detain them. However, this strategy with political decentralization has contributed to
violent succession struggles, shifting alliances among the DTOs, a proliferation of new gangs and
small DTOs, and the replacement of existing leaders and criminal groups by ones who are even
more violent.85 Analysts disagree about the extent of this fragmentation and its importance.
Several analysts have observed that as the Mexican DTOs have fragmented and multiplied,
violence has escalated to an all-time high.86 Others analysts caution not to overstate the level of
fragmentation. Many of these organizations and smaller gangs are new and it is premature to
predict how they will fare or whether the resulting highly competitive group of smaller
organizations will be easier to dismantle. The Mexican government, on the other hand, has
asserted that the removal of DTO leadership through government enforcement operations has not
caused violence to spike.87
Another emerging factor has been the criminal diversification of the DTOs. In addition to selling
illegal drugs, they have branched into other profitable crimes such as kidnapping, assassination
for hire, auto theft, controlling prostitution, extortion, money-laundering, software piracy,
resource theft, and human smuggling. The surge in violence due to inter- and intra-cartel conflict
over lucrative drug smuggling routes has been accompanied by an increase in kidnapping for
ransom and other crimes. According to recent estimates, kidnappings in Mexico have increased
by 188% since 2007, armed robbery by 47%, and extortion by 101%.88 Some believe
diversification may be evidence of organizational vitality and growth. Others contend that
diversification signals that U.S. and Mexican drug enforcement measures are cutting into profits
from drug trafficking, or constitutes a response to shifting U.S. drug consumption patterns. 89 The
growing public condemnation of the DTOs may also be stimulated by their diversification into

83 In Colombia’s case, successfully targeting the huge and wealthy Medellín and Cali cartels and dismantling them
meant that a number of smaller drug trafficking organizations replaced them. One result of Colombia’s dismembering
these enormous organizations was that they were replaced by smaller organizations (“cartelitos”) which have not been
as violent and thus the government was seen to have reduced violence in the drug trade. Critically, however, were other
factors in Colombia that were not present in Mexico, such as the presence of guerilla insurgents and paramilitaries who
became deeply involved in the illegal drug business, and, some would argue, the Colombian cartels of the 1980s and
1990s were structured and managed very differently than their contemporary counterparts in Mexico. (See Appendix).
84 O’Neil, “Drug Fragmentation and Violence.”
85 STRATFOR, “Mexico’s Drug Wars: Bloodiest Year to Date,” December 20, 2010; STRATFOR, “Mexican Drug
Wars Update: Targeting the Most Violent Cartels,” July 21, 2011.
86 O’Neil, “Drug Cartel Fragmentation and Violence;” Eduardo Guerrero Guitiérez, “La Raiz de La Violencia,” Nexos
en Línea, June 1, 2011. Guerrero also argues that eliminating leaders has dispersed the violence.
87 See Alejandro Poiré and Maria Teresa Martinez, “La Caida de los Capos No Muliplica la Violencia: El Caso de
Nacho Coronel,” Nexos en Linea, May 1, 2011. (Alejandro Poiré and Maria Teresa Martinez were officials from the
National Public Security Council at the time the article was written. Poiré was since appointed Mexico’s Minister of
Interior in November 2011).
88 Mária de la Luz González, “Delitos Aumentan en el País, Alertan,” El Universal, August 23, 2011. This article cites
data from México Evalua that is available in Spanish at: http://www.mexicoevalua.org/.
89 Morris Panner, "Latin American Organized Crime's New Business Model," ReVista, vol. XI, no. 2 (Winter 2012).
The author comments: “...the business is moving away from monolithic cartels toward a series of mercury-like mini-
cartels. Whether diversification is a growth strategy or a survival strategy in the face of shifting narcotics consumption
patterns, it is clear that organized crime is pursuing a larger, more extensive agenda.”
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street crime, which causes more harm to average Mexican civilians than intra- and inter-DTO
violence related to conflicts over drug trafficking.
Because the DTOs have diversified, many analysts now refer to them as transnational criminal
organizations (TCOs), as organized crime groups, or mafias.90 Others maintain that much of their
non-drug criminal activity is in service of the central drug trafficking business.91 Whatever the
label, no one has an accurate way to assess how much of the DTOs’ income is earned from their
non-drug activities. Los Zetas are one of the most diversified DTOs. Their satellite businesses
include the theft of petroleum from the state-owned oil company PEMEX, product piracy, and
human smuggling, as well as extortion, money laundering, and robbery. 92 In July 2011, the
Obama Administration released a new Strategy to Combat Transnational Organized Crime, citing
the Mexican DTOs as some of its target subjects.93 On July 25, the White House issued an
executive order that named four groups around the world that presented transnational organized
crime threats to U.S. national security. Not surprisingly, Los Zetas were identified for their
diverse criminal activities and their propensity to commit mass murder. Some analysts have
questioned why Los Zetas were singled out, when Sinaloa and other Mexican DTOs are also
known to be significantly involved in other forms of crime.94
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 2014.95
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

90 See for example, Eric L. Olson and Miguel R. Salazar, A Profile of Mexico’s Major Organized Crime Groups,
Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, February 17, 2011.
91 Often kidnapping and extortion are a mechanism to collect payment for drug deliveries, for example. Weapons
trafficking and money laundering are obviously closely tied to drug trafficking. DEA officials suggested in an
interview that about 80% of the DTOs income may come from drugs, and they continue to use “DTO” or “cartel” to
identify the organizations. CRS interview with DEA officials on August 5, 2011.
92 William Booth, “Drug War Violence Appears in Mexico’s Northeast, Near Texas border,” Washington Post, April
21, 2010; Ioan Grillo, "Special Report: Mexico's Zetas Rewrite Drug War in Blood," Reuters, May 23, 2012.
93 President of the United States, Strategy to Combat Transnational Organized Crime, July 19, 2011 at
http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/Strategy_to_Combat_Transnational_Organized_Crime_July_2011.pdf.
94 Tim Johnson, "Do U.S., Mexican Officials Favor One Cartel Over Another?," Miami Herald, August 24, 2011.
95 Samuel Logan and James Bosworth, Beyond 2012, Southern Pulse, 2012, http://www.southernpulse.com.
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the Mexican government that has taken out kingpins and leaders and produced violent
competition to replace those who have been arrested or killed.96
Table 1. Drug Trafficking Organizations Typology
CATEGORY DESCRIPTION
ORGANIZATIONS
National
Cartels control or maintain presence along routes of
Sinaloa, Los Zetas, and Gulf cartels,
Cartels
several drugs. They also operate important international
(although Gulf has a significantly less
routes to and from Mexico. These DTOs keep control of
important role than the other two).
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.
“Toll
These are the cartels whose main income comes from tol
Tijuana and Juárez cartels
Collector”
fees received from the cartels and regional cartels that
Cartels
send drug shipments through their control ed
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.
Regional
These DTOs keep limited control over segments of drug
The Knights Templar and South
Cartels
trafficking routes that pass through their territory. Like the Pacific cartels
tol col ector cartels, the regional cartels play a secondary
role in the drug trading business and receive small profits
from it and have limited capabilities to diversify to other
criminal businesses like human smuggling or oil and fuel
theft.
Local Mafias
The mafias are disbanded cells from fragmented national
The Resistance; Jalisco Cartel - New
or regional cartels. These are locally based and their range
Generation; Cártel del Charro; The
can extend from a few contiguous localities to several
Hands with Eyes; Los Incorriegibles;
states. Their business activities are mainly focused in drug
La Empresa; Independent Cartel of
distribution and dealing within their controlled
Acapulco; and others.
municipalities, and they have extended their illegal business
towards extortion, kidnapping and vehicle theft.
Source: Eduardo Guerrero-Gutiérrez, Security, Drugs, and Violence in Mexico: A Survey, 7th North American
Forum, Washington, DC, 2011.
Notes: Text modified in consultation with the author on May 21, 2012.
A couple of generalizations can be made about the current DTO landscape. First there is more
competition and more violence. Second, few large actors remain except for the two dominant
ones, Sinaloa and Los Zetas, which have become polarized in their battle for supremacy. Sinaloa,
based in the western part of the country, was present in some 17 states as of August 2011

96 Eduardo Guerrero-Gutiérrez, Security, Drugs, and Violence in Mexico: A Survey, 7th North American Forum,
Washington, DC, October 2011 at http://iis-db.stanford.edu/evnts/6716/NAF_2011_EG_(Final).pdf.
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according to one analysis. Los Zetas, which cover the eastern portion of the country, had
operations in 21 states as of August, giving them greater geographic presence. 97 The Zetas had
the reputation for being the most violent, but the Sinaloa cartel in the competition to deliver a
devastating blow to their rivals has emulated the newer DTO’s most violent tactics. Both Sinaloa
and Los Zetas have made grisly incursions into the home turf of their opponent, either directly or
through proxies (smaller organizations which have affiliated with one side or the other at least
temporarily), leaving behind headless torsos and bodies hanging from bridges among other
atrocities.98
Characteristics of the Increased Violence
As the DTOs have fractured and more organizations vie for control of trafficking routes, the level
of inter- and intra-cartel violence has spiked. Inter-DTO violence is used when the cartels fight
one another to dominate trafficking routes. Besides inter-DTO violence (between the different
organizations), there has been widespread violence within the organizations, as factions battle in
succession struggles to replace fallen or arrested leaders. The succession battles are hastened by
the drug war victories by the Mexican government. In describing the violence resulting from the
elimination of a leader, one observer refers to “internal vacancy chains” that result when an
organization is squeezed by the government and there is great uncertainty about how the leader
will be replaced (either through internal succession or external replacement). In some cases, a
weakened DTO will be attacked by other DTOs in a “feeding frenzy” until the uncertainty of
succession is resolved.99 Thus highly charged violence may result from asymmetric weakening of
competitive organizations.100 Intra-DTO violence is used to assert leadership inside the cartel or
to impose organizational discipline and loyalty. The violent response of the DTOs to the
government’s aggressive security strategy is a third key element leading to escalation. Gun battles
between government forces and the DTOs are regular occurrences. And with the expansion of
democratic pluralism, DTOs are fighting the state to reassert their impunity from the justice
system.
Drug trafficking-related violence in Mexico has been brutal, and, in an apparent contradiction,
both widespread and relatively concentrated. However, since 2010 the violence has dispersed
considerably to new areas and involved more municipalities. The violence, while still
concentrated along drug trafficking routes and in a small percentage of Mexican municipalities,
has spread to every state and flared in the northern border states. In 2011, the violence moved
towards Mexico’s interior, exploding in such states as Veracruz (a Gulf state) and in Guerrero on
Mexico’s southern Pacific coast. According to analysis by University of San Diego’s Trans-
Border Institute (TBI), 84% of Mexico’s municipalities have been affected in some way by
organized crime violence (with only 16% violence free) and over time violence has spread to a

97 Eduardo Guerrero-Guitiérrez, Security, Drugs, and Violence in Mexico: A Survey.
98 Olga Rodriguez, "Mexico Drug War's Latest Toll: 49 Headless Bodies," Washington Times, May 14, 2012; Tracy
Wilkinson, “Mexico Under Siege: Dozens of Bodies Found Dumped; Authorities Suspect a Drug Cartel, and Say Most
of Victims Had Been Decapitated,” Los Angeles Times, May 14, 2012; Jo Tuckman, “Mexican Drug Cartel Massacres
have Method in Their Brutal Madness,” Guardian, May 14, 2012.
99 Phil Williams, “El Crimen Organizada y la Violencia en Mexico: Una Perspectiva Comparativa,” ISTOR: Revista de
Historia International, 11th Year, Number 42, Fall 2010. Professor Williams argues that the leaders of the DTOs act
like medieval barons, “engaged in constant power struggles and fluid alliances,” even as their businesses have fully
exploited the opportunities of 21st century globalization.
100 Ibid.
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larger number of municipalities.101 There remains a debate about exactly how many have perished
in the violence.
The Mexican government has released data on homicides in Mexico linked to organized crime
during the Calderón Administration in January 2011 and January 2012.102 In these two releases,
the government reported that between December 2006 and September 2011 more than 47,500
killings were organized crime-related homicides. These official figures are about 15% to 25%
higher than the tallies provided in some media reporting, such as that of the Mexican media outlet
Grupo Reforma, which have been used by TBI to track violence in Mexico because the data has
been released more consistently. The Reforma data is reported weekly and collected by a national
network of newspaper correspondents spread across the country.103
While casualty estimates from the government and media sources have not been identical, they
have reflected similar trends. All reports have shown the violence rising sharply since early 2007
and spreading to new parts of Mexico. This report gives preference to officially reported data.
According to government data, in 2007 (the first full year of the Calderón government), there
were more than 2,800 organized crime-related homicides which more than doubled in 2008.
Between 2008 and 2009, the rate of increase was about 40%. Between 2009 and 2010, organized
crime-related homicides grew by almost 60%. Finally the rate of increase started to come down
between 2010 and 2011. (See Figure 2), The government’s second data release in January 2012,
only included data for the first three quarters of 2011 (January – September 2011), reporting a
total of 12,903 homicides. Consequently, when measured against the same nine-month period in
2010, the number of organized crime killings grew by only 11% in 2011. There is some
disagreement if the killings have plateaued and even begun to decline in 2012. (It depends if the
first quarter of 2012 is compared to the first or last quarter of 2011, for example). At this point it
is premature to make an estimate, although some commentators have suggested that a decline is
likely to proceed more slowing than the rapid rise in killings.
Casualty Estimates in Context and for Special Populations
The Mexican authorities maintained in July 2010 that more than 90% of the casualties (those who
have died since President Calderón’s crackdown in December 2006) were individuals involved
with or linked in some way to the criminal activities of the DTOs. Critics, however, have
questioned this assertion and noted it does little to mitigate the Mexican public’s growing alarm
about public safety. Mexican government information has neither been easy to access nor
reported regularly. To track the violence, TBI and others have turned to Mexican media reporting.
Newspapers and other media organizations keep daily tallies of the killings that are considered a
close approximation of the overall situation. TBI’s Justice in Mexico project has used the data
collected by the national Mexican newspaper Reforma to tabulate Mexico’s drug trafficking
violence over the past decade.

101 Cory Molzahn, Viridiana Rios, and David A. Shirk, Drug Violence in Mexico: Data and Analysis Through 2011,
Trans-Border Institute, University of San Diego, March 2012.
102 Mexican government data for 2007-2010 is available here: http://www.presidencia.gob.mx/base-de-datos-de-
fallecimientos/ and data for January through September 2011 is available here:
http://www.pgr.gob.mx/temas%20relevantes/estadistica/estadisticas.asp.
103 Molzahn, Rios, and Shirk, Drug Violence in Mexico: Data and Analysis Through 2011.
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TBI has found that Reforma is generally more conservative and cautious about classifying a death
as drug trafficking-related than are official sources and other media outlets.104 Reforma’s
classification of a homicide attributed to the drug trafficking organizations is based on criminal
justice protocols and the presence at the crime scene of characteristics traditionally used by
DTOs, such as high-caliber weapons, decapitations, or “narco” messages.105 The possibility that
other criminals could carry out murders in a manner to make them appear to be those of the DTOs
is one cause to question the accuracy of the figures. Further concerns are that authorities often fail
to identify and fully investigate drug trafficking-related homicides, some DTOs will attempt to
eliminate all evidence of murders, and some leave confusing messages either accepting blame or
trying to shift it to a rival. According to the Reforma data, there were 11,583 drug trafficking-
related homicides in 2010, and according to the government database the total murders attributed
to organized crime exceeded 15,270. The higher government figure may be due to a definition of
organized crime which is broader than drug trafficking. But the trends in the data produced by
Reforma closely correlate with those trends in the data released by the government.106
Mexican government data is compiled by a collaborative task force coordinated by the Technical
Secretary for the National Security Council (CNS) and involves multiple intelligence and law
enforcement agencies.107 The two releases of aggregate data by the Mexican government task
force in January 2011 and January 2012 had slightly different definitions. For the first release of
data (January 2007 – December 2010), the Mexican government labeled the information as
“homicides allegedly linked to organized crime.” The second release of data (January 2011 –
September 2011) was defined as “homicides allegedly caused by criminal rivalry.”108 Like the
Reforma data there are a number of characteristics utilized by the government to identify such
homicides. These homicides generally have not been fully investigated so accuracy is always an
issue. TBI has found that the government count was consistently about 25% greater than the
Reforma count and that the media company consistently underestimates organized crime
homicides but this has the advantage of reducing the frequency of “false positives.”
Because the Mexican government released data for only three quarters of 2011, there is no
“official tally” for 2011. As shown in Figure 2, the government reported nearly 13,000 organized-
crime related homicides for the first three quarters of the year. TBI has calculated the killings in
the last three months of 2011, basing its projections on Reforma’s data for the last quarter of the
year expanded by 24%. This estimate incorporates a decline in the level of homicides in the last

104 TBI, Drug Violence in Mexico: Data and Analysis from 2001-2009, January 2010.
105 Angelica Duran-Martinez, Gayle Hazard, and Viridiana Rios, 2010 Mid-Year Report on Drug Violence in Mexico,
Trans-Border Institute, August 2010.
106 For a discussion of how the two sources compare, see Ríos and Shirk, Drug Violence in Mexico: Data and Analysis
Through 2010, Trans-Border Institute, University of San Diego, February 2011; Molzahn, Rios, and Shirk, Drug
Violence in Mexico: Data and Analysis Through 2011.
107 Ibid. According to the report, the agencies involved include: the Center for Investigation and National Security
(CISEN), the National Center for Information, Analysis and Planning to Fight Crime (CENAPI) with the Office of the
Federal Attorney General (PGR), the Public Security Secretariat (SSP), Secretary of National Defense (SEDENA),
Secretary of the Navy (SEMAR), and the Secretary of the Interior (Gobernación).
108 The January 2012 data release is further broken down in four categories: organized crime homicides (79%);
Organized Crime-Government Clashes (2%); Organized Crime Direct Attack on Officials (6%); and Organized Crime
Clashes (1.3%). For more details on what distinguishes these categories, see Molzahn, Rios, and Shirk, Drug Violence
in Mexico: Data and Analysis Through 2011.
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quarter observed in the Reforma data trends and therefore “provides what is probably a more
precise estimate of the government’s final tally for 2011.”109
As shown in Figure 3, the TBI estimate for the entire year is slightly more than 16,400 organized
crime-related homicides. The TBI data has been mapped and a geographic explanation of the
violence will be addressed in the next section. With that number of organized crime homicides in
2011 (16,414), the total number of organized crime homicides for the December 2006 –
December 2011 period is slightly more than 50,900. As TBI notes, this calculation is consistent
with the estimates of various non-governmental organizations and other observers.110 As
discussed above, violence did continue to rise in 2011, but far less sharply. Many observers have
noted that the level of organized crime killings in 2011 was several times higher than 2007 and
TBI’s annual report on the violence summarized it vividly:
On average, for every day of 2011, 47 people were killed, three of whom were tortured, one
of whom was decapitated, two of whom were women, and ten of whom were young people
whose lives ended in organized-crime-related violence.111
The Trans-Border Institute has tracked violent crimes against journalists, mayors, and other
special groups who were victims of violent crime (See Figure 4). Violent crimes targeting
journalists, and high levels of impunity for perpetrators of those crimes, have caused Mexico to
be ranked among the most dangerous places in the world to work as a journalist. In the first half
of 2012, at least six journalists were slain in Mexico, several in the troubled state of Veracruz.
Crime against journalists runs from harassment to murder, and often causes journalists to self-
censor their work and news outlets to stop publishing or broadcasting stories on violent crime.
In response to the spike in journalist murders and criticism that the Mexican judiciary was not
resolving such cases, the Calderón government took some steps in 2011 to improve security
measures for journalists at risk of being victimized. (Frequently those include reporters who cover
crime or government corruption beats). In April 2012, a law to enhance protection for journalists
and human rights defenders passed both houses of the Mexican Congress. Nevertheless, in May
2012, a newspaper in Nuevo Laredo, the Mexican city contiguous to Laredo, Texas, announced it
would no longer report on violent rivalries between crime groups anywhere in the country after
being subject to threats and attacks. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, this
announcement of such broad self-censorship may be the first of its kind.112


109 Ibid.
110 Ibid, p. 11.
111 Ibid.
112 Mike O’Conner, “El Mañana Cedes Battle to Report on Mexican Violence,” Committee to Protect Journalists Blog,
May 23, 2012, at http://www.cpj.org/blog/2012/05/el-manana-cedes-battle-to-report-on-mexican-violen.php.
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Figure 2. Organized Crime-Related Killings (2007-2011)
Reported by the Mexican Government

Source: Mexican government data for 2007-2010 is available here: http://www.presidencia.gob.mx/base-de-
datos-de-fal ecimientos/ and data for January through September 2011 is available here:
http://www.pgr.gob.mx/temas%20relevantes/estadistica/estadisticas.asp.
Notes: The Mexican government’s Attorney General’s office (PGR) only released data for the first three
quarters of 2011 (January – September).
Pressure from organized crime is often greatest at the local level. Fifteen mayors were killed in
2010 and six in 2011, according to TBI (see Figure 4). Another population hard hit by the
violence is young people between 15-29 years of age. The Mexican newspaper El Universal
reported that drug trafficking-related violence had become the leading cause of death for young
people in recent years, growing ten-fold between 2007 and 2010.113 Not all victims are known.
According to Mexico’s National Human Rights Commission, more than 5,300 people have
disappeared since December 2006 when Calderón came to office, and another 9,000 bodies have
not been identified, some because of mutilation. The number of disappearances is probably
greater because many disappearances like so many other violent crimes go unreported to Mexican
authorities.114

113 Molzahn, Rios, and Shirk, Drug Violence in Mexico: Data and Analysis Through 2011.
114 Catherine E. Shoicet, “Mexican Troops Capture a Top Suspect in Slayings of 49,” CNN, May 21, 2012.
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Figure 3. Organized Crime-Related Killings in Mexico in 2011 by State


Source: Map created by CRS using data from the Trans-Border Institute (TBI), University of San Diego.
Notes: Mexican government and TBI data drawn from presentation in Cory Molzahn, Viridiana Ríos, and David
A. Shirk, Drug Violence in Mexico: Data and Analysis Through 2011, Trans-Border Institute, March 2012.
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Figure 4. Journalists and Mayors Assassinated in Mexico, 1999-2011


Source: Cory Molzahn, Viridiana Ríos, and David A. Shirk, Drug Violence in Mexico: Data and Analysis Through
2011, Trans-Border Institute, March 2012.
Notes: Data provided in report adapted by CRS.
Locations of the Violence and Its Impact on Tourism and Business
As the violence in Mexico has sharply increased over the past several years, it has also shifted
locations. Drug trafficking-related violence has noticeably increased in the northern border states,
including Tamaulipas and Nuevo León, and remained high in Chihuahua although it amounted to
a smaller percentage of the total in 2011. As it has spread to new locations, the fear of violence
has closed businesses and had an impact on tourism. American investors in Mexico have grown
concerned about the violence and businesses have sent home dependents or closed operations
altogether in some cities. Small and medium-sized businesses have been particularly hard hit,
without the resources to hire private security firms and provide for employee safety as have the
larger businesses and multinational corporations.115 The Mexican government recently published
a report indicating that foreign direct investment (FDI) has continued to pour into some of the
most violent states at levels exceeding the investment prior to 2006, but others argue that job

115 Dora Beszterczey and Shannon O'Neil, "Breaking the Cycle," Americas Quarterly, Winter 2011. This source notes
that as many as 10,000 businesses have closed down in Ciudad Juárez alone, while the city’s unemployment rate soared
from “virtually zero” to 20% in the last three years.
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creating investment has been moving into safer cities in central Mexico where drug trafficking-
related violence is lower.116
In 2008, drug trafficking-related violence was concentrated in a few cities and states. About 60%
of the killings took place in three cities: Tijuana (Baja California), Culiacán (Sinaloa), and highly
contested Ciudad Juárez (Chihuahua). By far, the largest number of drug trafficking-related
deaths took place in Ciudad Juárez, a city of approximately 1.3 million inhabitants across the
border from El Paso, Texas. The Mexican border city is where the conflict between the Sinaloa
and Juárez DTOs is most focused. (Mexico’s National Public Security Council estimates that 36%
of the drug trafficking-related deaths in Mexico’s drug war from December 2006 through July
2010 could be attributed to the conflict centered in Ciudad Juárez.)117 According to the U.S. State
Department and media reports, some 3,100 people were killed in Ciudad Juárez in 2010 alone,
making it one of the most violent cities in the world.118 However, in 2011 total homicides in
Ciudad Juárez declined to 1,933, still the most violent city in Mexico, but behind San Pedro Sula,
Honduras, now estimated to be the city with the highest homicide rate in the world.119 (This shift
suggests the epicenter of drug trafficking-related violence may be moving into Central America.
For more background, see CRS Report R41731, Central America Regional Security Initiative:
Background and Policy Issues for Congress).
Starting in 2009, the violence spread to new areas throughout the country for the usual reasons:
changing alliances and competition between and within the DTOs, the succession struggles when
leaders are taken down or eliminated, and expanding DTO efforts to corrupt and intimidate
officials to permit the trade.120 The intense government crackdown using army and navy forces
and the Mexican Federal Police has provoked a violent response from the DTOs to communicate
their lack of fear of the government. Meanwhile, Mexico’s law enforcement and courts have been
ineffective in investigating and prosecuting the perpetrators of violence, leaving the DTOs to
continue their attacks free of legal consequences.
Violence spread from near the border in northern Mexico south to the states of Durango and
Guerrero in 2009, with homicides doubling in both states.121 As in 2009, violence in 2010
continued along the U.S./Mexico border including the states of Chihuahua, Nuevo León, and
Tamaulipas (the latter two states being the locus of the 2010 conflict between the Zetas and the

116 Nacha Cattan, "Is Violence in Mexico Affecting Foreign Investment? No, Say Recent Reports," Christian Science
Monitor, August 8, 2011; Secretaría de Economia, Subsecretaria de la Inversión Extrajera Directa (IED) a Nivel
Nacional y Subnacional: Seguridad y Otros Factores, July 27, 2011.
117 Mexican Federal Government, “Información Sobre el Fenómeno Delictivo en México,” August 2010; David Shirk,
“Mexican Government Reveals Distribution of Drug Violence,” Justice in Mexico blog, Trans-Border Institute,
http://justiceinmexico.org/2010/08/28/.
118 U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Consular Affairs, Travel Warning: Mexico, April 22, 2011,
http://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/tw/tw_5440.html; Andrew Rice, "The End of America: Why Mexico's Pain is El
Paso's Gain," New York Times, July 31, 2011.
119 U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Consular Affairs, Travel Warning: Mexico, February 8, 2012 at
http://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/tw/tw_5665.html; Seguridad, Justicia, y Paz, “San Pedro Sula La Ciudad Más
Violenta del Mundo; Juárez, La Segunda,” January 11, 2012 at http://www.seguridadjusticiaypaz.org.mx/sala-de-
prensa/541-san-pedro-sula-la-ciudad-mas-violenta-del-mundo-juarez-la-segunda. According to this Mexican NGO, the
most violent city in the world was San Pedro Sula, Honduras, in 2011, with Ciudad Juárez second, (although still the
most violent in Mexico).
120 The choice of “silver or lead” (either a bribe or a bullet) is forced on many government officials by Mexico’s drug
traffickers. See William Finnegan, “Silver or Lead.”
121 TBI, Justice in Mexico, January 2010 News Report.
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Gulf DTOs), and with notable increases in Sinaloa, Guerrero, Durango, and the state of
Mexico.122 In 2010, some of the Central Pacific states experienced a large increase in violent
activity, including Jalisco and Nayarit. Violence in the Central Pacific states (including the state
of Mexico, Guerrero, Morelos, Jalisco, and Nayarit) has been attributed to the conflict between
factions of the Beltrán Leyva organization, La Familia Michoacana, and the Sinaloa DTO.123
The violence is highly concentrated along key drug routes and within a relatively few cities and
towns. In August 2010, a Mexican government report on 28,000 homicides linked to organized
crime (from December 2006 through July 2010), revealed that 80% of drug trafficking-related
homicides occurred in 162 of Mexico’s 2,456 municipalities,(less than 7%).124 Through additional
analysis of municipal-level data, analyst Eduardo Guerrero identified six clusters of the most
violent municipalities in late 2010.125 The 36 municipalities he classified as the most violent are
located in five states (there are two high-violence zones in the border state of Chihuahua).
Guerrero argues that if an effective anti-violence strategy targeted these zones, the drug
trafficking-related violence could be reduced.126
In 2011, the violence continued to grow and spread. While violence in Baja California and
Chihuahua declined somewhat, it spiked in Tamaulipas, Coahuila, and Nuevo León (see Figure
3). The Gulf DTO’s struggle to dislodge the Zetas from Monterrey, Nuevo León, the major
industrial and financial hub 140 miles from the Texas border, is a near-paralyzing conflict that has
frightened business owners and destroyed the city’s reputation as one of Mexico’s safest cities.127
The six border states with the United States continued to experience a majority of the violence.
According to government data, Mexico’s northern border states accounted for 44% of the
homicides in 2011, down from 50% in 2010. Reductions in Tijuana and Juárez were offset by
increases in Monterrey and elsewhere,128 and violence dispersed south toward Mexico’s interior.
In other words, violence remained high in crucial transit regions near the border and along the
coasts, but it dispersed to a greater number of cities and states. In 2011, violence in the coastal
state of Sinaloa declined in comparison with the prior year, but increased in Guerrero and
Michoácan further south. Jalisco, home to Mexico’s second largest city, Guadalajara, saw
violence flare, and, in the latter half of 2011, Veracruz became a hot spot with incursions against
Los Zetas in territory they had dominated. The discoveries of mass graves in Durango and
Tamaulipas in the middle of the year added to the drug trafficking death tolls in those states.129
While drug trafficking-related killings remain concentrated in a relatively few cities, the violence
is spreading to more populated and economically important urban centers. Killings, kidnappings,
and other violence have dramatically increased in Monterrey, Mexico’s third-largest city. The
resort city of Acapulco, a seaport in Guerrero state, has also seen a sharp increase in violence and

122 Duran-Martinez, Hazard, and Rios, 2010 Mid-Year Report on Drug Violence in Mexico.
123 TBI, Justice in Mexico, November 2010 News Report.
124 Mexican Federal Government, “Información Sobre el Fenómeno Delictivo en México,” August 2010; David Shirk,
“Mexican Government Reveals Distribution of Drug Violence,” Justice in Mexico blog, Trans-Border Institute,
http://justiceinmexico.org/2010/08/28/.
125 Eduardo Guerrero Gutiérrez, “Cómo Reducir La Violencia en México,” Nexos en Línea,” November 3, 2010.
126 Ibid.
127 Nik Steinberg, "The Monster and Monterrey: The Politics and Cartels of Mexico's Drug War," The Nation, May 25,
2011; David Luhnow, “Expats Flee Drug War in Mexico’s No. 3 City,” Wall Street Journal, September 11, 2010.
128 Molzahn, Ríos, and Shirk, Drug Violence in Mexico: Data and Analysis Through 2011.
129 TBI, Justice in Mexico: June 2011 News Report.
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was the second most violent city in Mexico in 2011. Guadalajara, Mexico’s second largest city,
saw increasing violence in 2011 and has continued to experience incidents in 2012. Finally,
Nuevo Laredo in Tamaulipas state has again been immersed in conflict as Los Zetas defend their
important stronghold in one of the busiest land ports handling U.S.-Mexico trade.130
According to some estimates, the violence costs the country roughly one percentage point of
annual economic growth.131 However, Mexico’s economy grew an estimated 4% in 2011 and the
government has argued that overall growth and foreign investment have not been harmed. In
April 2012, the government vigorously denied the claim of an important national employers’
federation (Coparmex) that violence and threats of violence caused 160,000 businesses to leave
Mexico in 2011.132 Similarly, with regard to tourism the record is mixed. While the U.S.
government has issued increasingly foreboding travel warnings and tourism has declined in the
border region, more than 22 million tourists visited Mexico in 2011, breaking records set in
2008.133 Some of this increase can be attributed to policies adopted by the Calderón government
to make tourism more attractive to foreign visitors.
The government has touted the decline in violence in Ciudad Juárez in 2011 as evidence their law
enforcement efforts and social reforms are working. But another possible cause is that the rival
Sinaloa DTO and Carillo Fuentes/Juárez DTOs have come to some accommodation on use of the
drug corridor. According to many assessments, the Sinaloa DTO is the most powerful DTO in
Mexico.134 It has successfully pushed into Baja California and Chihuahua that were once
controlled by the Tijuana and Juárez DTOs. Some analysts have speculated that Sinaloa’s
dominance may be the reason for a decline in violence in both border cities.135
Recently, some analysts have identified Tijuana as an example of a qualified success in its
reduction of violence. They maintain that Tijuana’s significantly lower number of homicides
resulted from an effective government strategy of building trust and communication between civil
society and enforcement authorities, which was aided by a respected policing role for the military.
Furthermore, the DTOs operating in Tijuana were broken up but retained sufficient organizational
coherence to order a reduction in violence in response to a well-executed and targeted “hot spot”
policing effort.136
Major tourist destinations, such as Acapulco, Cancún, Mazatlan, Taxco, and Cuernavaca, have
been hit by violence, and the economically vital tourist industry has been affected. As noted
above, tourism along the U.S.-Mexico border has also suffered a dramatic decline because of
fears of violence. According to the U.S. State Department, foreign tourists have not been a DTO
target. But there have been several incidents of Mexican tourists becoming victims. The State
Department’s travel warning updated in February 2012 reported that the number of Americans
murdered in Mexico rose from 35 in 2007 to 120 in 2011.137

130 STRATFOR, “Mexico Security Memo: The Value of Nuevo Laredo,” March 7, 2012.
131 David Luhnow, "Mexico Economy Withstands Drug War," Wall Street Journal, November 22, 2011.
132 “Mexico Denies that Firms Are Leaving Over Security,” LatinNews Daily, April 5, 2012.
133 Kenan Christiansen, "Tourism Up, Mexico Aims for Non-U.S. Visitors," New York Times, March 4, 2012.
134 See, for example, STRATFOR, “The Evolution of Mexican Drug Cartels’ Areas of Influence,” April 28, 2011;
STRATFOR, “Mexican Drug Wars Update: Targeting the Most Violent Cartels,” July 21, 2011.
135 Ibid; Guy Taylor, "Life Stirs Anew in 'Murder Capital' Juarez," Washington Times, May 27, 2012.
136 Rios and Aguilera, "Keys to Reducing Violence in Mexico: Targeted Policing and Civic Engagement.”
137 The State Department does not identify which murders may be attributed to the drug trafficking-related violence or
(continued...)
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One consequence of the intense violence in many municipalities is the displacement of residents
fleeing for safety. The Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre estimated in December 2010 that
230,000 persons were displaced, roughly half of whom fled to the United States and the other
estimated 115,000 were internally displaced persons inside Mexico.138 According to the
Monitoring Centre’s annual report covering 2011, about 140,000 people have been displaced by
drug-cartel violence since 2007. The report criticizes the Mexican government for not initiating a
program to recognize or assist this population.139 However, in contrast to this finding, the United
Nations has identified only 1,570 people as a “population of concern” inside Mexico as of
January 2011.140 In addition, many Mexican nationals fearing that they could be victims of the
violence (including journalists and law enforcement officers) have sought asylum in the United
States.141 According to the U.S. Department of Justice, there were 6,133 requests for asylum from
Mexico in FY2011, about double the number of requests made in 2010, and only 104 requests
(1.7%) were granted.142
Mexico’s Antidrug Strategy and Reaction143
President Calderón’s military-led crackdown on the drug trafficking organizations has been at the
center of his domestic policy, and he launched his aggressive approach almost immediately after
his inauguration in December 2006. He has since deployed some 50,000 Mexican military and
thousands of federal police around the country to combat the DTOs.144 A leading element of the
strategy has been to confront and dismantle the drug trafficking organizations by going after the
high-value targets: the leadership of the major DTOs.
The DTOs have fought back strongly, refusing to allow law enforcement actions from taking
place and making an all-out effort to neutralize repressive measures. The DTOs have also
demonstrated an unanticipated resilience as their leadership is arrested or killed. Mexico’s
Secretary of Public Security Genaro Garcia Luna and others have acknowledged that removing

(...continued)
organized crime, although the most recent travel warning does describe the heightened risk caused by transnational
criminal organizations (TCOs) in different parts of the country. U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Consular Affairs,
Travel Warning: Mexico, February 8, 2012 at http://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/tw/tw_5665.html.
138 Norwegian Refugee Council – Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, “Briefing Paper on Forced Displacement
in Mexico due to Drug Cartel Violence,” December 2010.
139 Norwegian Refugee Council – Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, Global Overview 2011: People Internally
Displaced by Conflict and Violence, April 2012, at http://www.unhcr.org/IDMC/IDMC-report.pdf.
140 For further information, see profile of Mexico on the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) website at
http://www.unhcr.org/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/page?page=49e492706&submit=GO.
141 Patricia Giovine, "More Mexicans Fleeing the Drug War Seek U.S. Asylum," Chicago Tribune, July 14, 2011.
142 U.S. Department of Justice, Executive Office for Immigration Review, Office of Planning, Analysis, and
Technology, Immigration Courts, FY2011 Asylum Statistics, at http://www.justice.gov/eoir/efoia/FY11AsyStats-
Current.pdf.
143 For a fuller discussion of the Mexican government’s strategy see: CRS Report RL32724, Mexico: Issues for
Congress, by Clare Ribando Seelke. The report identifies a broad-based strategy that includes: 1) carrying out joint
police-military operations to support local authorities and citizens; 2) increasing the operational and technical capacities
of the state; 3) initiating legal and institutional reforms; 4) strengthening crime prevention and social programs; and 5)
strengthening international cooperation (such as the Mérida Initiative and Beyond Mérida, as described below).
144 Ken Ellingwood, "An Agony of Its Own; Some See a Colombian Parallel to Mexico's Drug Violence. But as the
U.S. Considers Its Options, It's the Differences that Will Count," Los Angeles Times, September 26, 2010; Randal C.
Archibold, "Adding to Unease of a Drug War Alliance," New York Times, May 30, 2012.
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the high-value targets at the top of the organization has not paralyzed the DTOs because in most
cases the organizations have transferred power to new and sometimes more violent leaders.145 An
additional complexity is that the drug organizations are adapting and transforming themselves
from hierarchical and vertical organizations to become more multi-nodal and horizontal in their
structure. Some of the DTOs have adopted a more decentralized and networked model with
independent cell-like structures that make it harder for law enforcement to dismantle.146 As the
Mexican military has shifted resources to pursue leaders of the DTOs, it appears to have fewer
resources to devote to older missions such as eradication efforts. This may be contributing to the
increases in the cultivation of opium and marijuana, and production of heroin and
methamphetamine, which, unfortunately, are generating more income for the DTOs.
In carrying out his antidrug strategy, President Calderón has demonstrated an unprecedented
willingness to collaborate with the United States and the United States has shown a remarkable
new trust and respect for its Mexican partners. U.S.-Mexican security cooperation has been
structured upon the Mérida Initiative, a bilateral counterdrug and security effort first funded in
2008.147 The initiative, as it was originally conceived by Presidents George W. Bush and Felipe
Calderón, was to end with the FY2010 budget cycle. Its focus has evolved from providing
hardware to Mexican security forces to modernizing and strengthening institutions of law
enforcement and the judiciary in Mexico. A successor to the Mérida Initiative—called “Beyond
Mérida”—was introduced by the Obama Administration in the FY2011 budget request. The “four
pillars” of the current strategy are (1) disrupting organized crime groups; (2) institutionalizing the
rule of law; (3) building a 21st-century border; and (4) building strong and resilient communities.
The Obama Administration’s funding priorities have shifted from providing expensive equipment
to Mexican security forces to supporting institutional reform programs in the Mexican federal
government and more recently to assisting certain key states.
A parallel shift is evident in Mexico’s domestic strategy. Following a brutal massacre of 15 youth
at a party in Ciudad Juárez in January 2010, President Calderón made a series of visits to the
border city and announced that police and military action alone were insufficient to address
Juárez’s problems. Within weeks, the Calderón Administration released a plan, “Todos Somos
Juárez,” to address social causes that sustain the drug trade such as unemployment and a weak
education system, which parallels Pillar 4 of the Beyond Mérida strategy.148 In addition, the
Calderón government has taken advantage of improved sharing of U.S. intelligence, and
vigorously responded to extradition requests of suspects wanted by the United States.149 The

145 One former drug operative in Mexico described the dilemma in an interview. “Trying to stop the gangsters ‘is like
mowing the grass….You can cut it down. But it always grows back.’” See "Under the Volcano," Economist, October
16, 2010. See also: Daniel Kurtz-Phelan, “The Long War of Genaro Garcia Luna,” New York Times, July 13,
2008.
146 The evolution is described by Luis Astorga and David Shirk as a move from centralized, hierarchical structures to
“an increasingly multi-polar constellation of trafficking organizations with varying specializations and capacities in the
late 1990s and 2000s.” Luis Astorga and David A. Shirk, Drug Trafficking Organizations and Counter-Drug Strategies
in the U.S.-Mexican Context, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars Mexico Institute, Working Paper
Series on U.S.-Mexico Security Cooperation, May 2010, p. 25. See also: Juan Carlos Garzón, Mafia & Co.: The
Criminal Networks in Mexico, Brazil, and Colombia, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, June 2008.
This evolution in the structure of criminal groups to new models is also described in CRS Report R41547, Organized
Crime: An Evolving Challenge for U.S. Law Enforcement, by Jerome P. Bjelopera and Kristin M. Finklea.
147 For background on the Mérida Initiative and its successor Beyond Mérida, see CRS Report R41349, U.S.-Mexican
Security Cooperation: The Mérida Initiative and Beyond , by Clare Ribando Seelke and Kristin M. Finklea.
148 Estrategia Todos Somos Juárez, http://www.todossomosjuarez.gob.mx/estrategia/index.html
149 One of the earliest successes of the Calderón counterdrug strategy was the extradition of Osiel Cardenas Guillen (the
(continued...)
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Calderón administration is also implementing a major restructuring of the judicial system and has
successfully expanded and restructured the Mexican Federal Police (which went from 6,000 to
35,000 officers), improved their pay, and implemented procedures to vet and train officers to
combat corruption. Efforts to reform the Attorney General’s Ministerial Police have lagged and
steep challenges remain in cleaning up and reforming Mexico’s municipal and state forces that
number over 300,000.
President Calderón convened for the first time a “dialogue on security” bringing together
government officials with business leaders, civic leaders, and academics in August 2010 to
publicly discuss the country’s antidrug strategy. These discussions were partly a response to the
Mexican government’s inconsistent and incomplete releases of public information on drug
trafficking-related homicides.150 President Calderón notably said at one forum he would be
willing to discuss the option of drug legalization, although he quickly announced that he was not
a proponent.151 He reaffirmed his government’s commitment to the antidrug fight observing that
the violence threatened the media and democratic governance.152 In April 2012, in the lead up to
the Summit of the Americas in Colombia, when the subject of alternative drug strategies was
being discussed, President Calderón expressed the view that the United States might consider
“market alternatives” in its efforts to reduce drug demand.153
The Mexican military had initially been in the forefront of the government’s counterdrug
campaign as an interim solution until enough police could be vetted, trained, and equipped to be
given back the lead in the public security function. By late 2010, the Calderón Administration had
apparently assessed that current programs of police and justice reform would be insufficient to rid
the system of corruption before Calderón’s six-year term expired in December 2012, and that the
military would retain its lead role until the end of his term.154 Persistent police corruption was
highlighted in the August 2010, purge of the federal police in which more than 3,000 officers
were fired. On the other hand, four high ranking former officers (three of them generals) in the
Mexican Army were arrested on corruption charges (for alleged links to the Beltrán Leyva
organization and abetting their drug trafficking) in May 2012.155 The highly esteemed Mexican
military has been dogged by corruption and allegations of violations of human rights (especially
the Mexican Army) since it took on an expanded role in the Calderón antidrug campaign. The
role of the military in the ongoing counterdrug effort has been debated among the four leading

(...continued)
notorious leader of the Gulf DTO) to the United States in January 2007. Extraditions have increased significantly under
President Calderón. For example, in 2009, the Mexican government extradited a record 107 suspects to the United
States, 94 in 2010, and 96 in 2011. For more background, see CRS Report R41349, U.S.-Mexican Security
Cooperation: The Mérida Initiative and Beyond , by Clare Ribando Seelke and Kristin M. Finklea
150 David Shirk, “Mexican Government Reveals Distribution of Drug Violence,” Justice in Mexico blog, Trans-Border
Institute, http://justiceinmexico.org/2010/08/28/.
151 "Mexico's President Calls for Legalisation Debate," LatinNews Daily, August 4, 2010. President Calderón
subsequently expressed opposition to a California ballot initiative, Proposition 19, which would have legalized adult
use of marijuana. California voters defeated the measure in the November 2010 general election.
152 "Calderón Calls for Debate on Marijuana," Latin News Weekly Report, August 5, 2010.
153 “The Summit of the Americas and Drug Legalization,” Latin American Security & Strategic Review, April 2012. At
the time, this comment was interpreted to mean that the President was willing to engage in a debate about drug
legalization.
154 “Mexico Politics: Whither the War on Drugs?,” Economist Intelligence Unit, September 2, 2010.
155 Randal C. Archibold, "Mexico Holds 3 Generals Said to Aid Drug Cartels," New York Times, May 19, 2012; Randal
C. Archibold, "Adding to Unease of a Drug War Alliance," New York Times, May 30, 2012.
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candidates in Mexico’s presidential campaign although some of the candidates security proposals
have been deemed vague.156 In addition, supporters of the Calderón strategy maintain that to
confront DTOs armed with powerful assault and military-style weapons a well-armed military-led
response is the only viable option.
Another challenge for the Calderón strategy has been a rise in drug abuse in border cities such as
Ciudad Juárez and Tijuana, and the gang warfare that has broken out to control that local drug
trade.157 Local drug dealing increased because drugs headed for the U.S. market are being stopped
from going over the border. Gangs that are hired by the DTOs for protection and other
“outsourced” services are paid in product (illegal drugs) and need to convert the drugs to cash.
Fighting to control street corner sales, DTO-supplied gangs are killing each other in both border
cities. Unemployment, caused by the economic downturn and businesses fleeing the violence, has
also provided ready recruits for the gangs, who are frequently hired by the DTOs to fight as their
proxies.
In order to improve intelligence sharing and increase U.S. support for Mexico’s struggle against
organized crime, binational cooperation in 2011 included the deployment of U.S. unmanned
aerial vehicles to gather intelligence on DTO activities158 and the opening of a compound to
gather intelligence in northern Mexico.159 The compound, reportedly staffed by DEA, Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA), and civilian personnel from the Pentagon’s Northern Command, is to
be modeled on “fusion intelligence centers” operated by the United States in Afghanistan and
Iraq.160 Responding to concerns about the fusion center, William J. Burns, U.S. Deputy Secretary
of State, in a roundtable with Mexican news media, stressed that this intelligence analysis
program is not a basis for U.S. personnel to conduct operations or engage in law enforcement
activities in Mexico.161 In remarks made in August 2011, he stated that the United States would
always respect Mexican sovereignty and provide cooperation based upon the request of Mexican
authorities.162
Trends and Outlook
Notwithstanding how the violence is characterized, a few trends are clear. First, the drug-
trafficking related violence has continued to rise from December 2006 through December 2011.
While the rate of increase may be leveling off, it is premature to predict if 2012 will see an
increase or a decrease over the prior year. If current trends hold, it is likely that there will be more
than 60,000 organized crime-related homicides before the end of President Calderón's term.

156 See CRS Report R42548, Mexico’s 2012 Elections, by Clare Ribando Seelke.
157 Thousands of gang members in both the United States and Mexico serve the Mexican DTOs. In Ciudad Juárez there
are an estimated 500 gangs with a combined membership of between 15,000 to 25,000 persons. Eduardo Guerrero
Gutiérrez, “Cómo Reducir La Violencia en México.”
158 Ginger Thompson and Mark Mazzetti, “U.S. Drones Fly Deep in Mexico to Fight Drugs,” New York Times, March
16, 2011.
159 Ginger Thompson, “U.S. Widens Its Role in Battle Against Mexico’s Drug Cartels,” New York Times, August 7,
2011.
160 Ibid.
161 William J. Burns, Deputy Secretary of State, “Roundtable with Mexican Media,” U.S. Embassy, Mexico City,
August 16, 2011.
162 Ibid.
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Second, the violence is concentrated in a few cities and towns, with 80% of the deaths
concentrated in slightly under 7% of Mexico’s municipalities, according to Mexican government
data released in August 2010.163 According to the newer Mexican government data, violence in
2010 continued to be concentrated in relatively few cities, with over 70% of the violence in just
80 municipalities.164 In 2011, violence dispersed to a greater number of cities. While the five most
violent cities accounted for roughly 32% of the violence in 2010, they accounted for about 24%
of the violence in 2011.165
Third, the violence is largely targeted at people with ties to the drug trafficking organizations
because much of the violence is open warfare between and within the organizations. The number
of Mexican security forces (military and police) killed is believed to be approximately 7% of the
total, although estimates vary.166 Some of the deaths of Mexican officials may involve individuals
who at some time colluded with one DTO or another. Until recently, the Mexican government
maintained that most of the victims are tied to the DTOs and suggested the extensive violence
should be seen as a sign of success.
Fourth, the power of the DTOs is fluid and the boundaries of their operations change. Even the
seven organizations that formerly dominated the picture a year ago were only loosely
geographically based. The conflict evolves as fighting between DTOs over drug plazas and
corridors is exacerbated or resolved. Some DTOs have fragmented and this has generated more
violence. But there is a debate if fragmentation represents a long-run weakening of the DTOs’
influence and makes them more susceptible to state penetration.167
While forecasting changes in the violence is speculative, most analysts see the high levels of
violence continuing in the near term.168 The inputs from the United States that fuel the violence—
high-powered guns and illicit profits—have not been significantly disrupted.169 According to the

163 Mexican Federal Government, “Información Sobre el Fenómeno Delictivo en México,” August 2010; David Shirk,
“Mexican Government Reveals Distribution of Drug Violence,” Justice in Mexico blog, Trans-Border Institute,
http://justiceinmexico.org/2010/08/28/.
164 Ríos and Shirk, Drug Violence in Mexico: Data and Analysis Through 2010.
165 Molzahn, Rios, and Shirk, Drug Violence in Mexico: Data and Analysis Through 2011.
166 TBI, Drug Violence in Mexico: Data and Analysis from 2001-2009, January 2010.
167 Diana Villiers Negroponte, “Measuring Success in the Drug War: Criteria to Determine Progress in Mexico’s
Efforts to Defeat Narco-traffickers,” Brookings Institution, October 19, 2010, at
http://www.brookings.edu/opinions/2010/0525_mexico_drug_war_negroponte.aspx.
168 See STRATFOR, “Mexican Drug Cartels: An Update,” May 17, 2010. The DEA in various testimony before
Congress has predicted that the violence will continue to increase. For example, in testimony before the Senate Caucus
on International Narcotics Control, DEA’s Anthony Placido said “The fight against Mexican DTOs is at a critical stage
and the violence which is the by-product of this contest may get worse before it gets better. As such, we must manage
expectations as well. It took decades for these Mexican DTOs to gain the level of power and impunity that they
presently enjoy. We’re working at breakneck pains with our government of Mexico counterparts to deal with this
cancer, but we may have to deal with the chemotherapy in the process.” For more see, Statement of Anthony P.
Placido, Assistant Administrator for Intelligence, Drug Enforcement Administration and Kevin L. Perkins, Assistant
Director, Criminal Investigative Division, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Hearing before the Senate Caucus on
International Narcotics Control, “Drug Trafficking Violence in Mexico: Implications for the United States,” May 5,
2010.
169 For background on the problem of gun trafficking, see CRS Report R40733, Gun Trafficking and the Southwest
Border, by Vivian S. Chu and William J. Krouse. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) estimates between $19
to $29 billion generated by illicit drug sales in the United States flows back to Mexico each year. See DHS,
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), United States-Mexico Criminal Proceeds Study, June 2010. Analysts
have found it difficult to determine how much of these funds are transferred back to the Mexican DTOs through bulk
(continued...)
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U.S. government, nearly 100,000 guns have been turned over to the U.S. Department of Justice’s
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) for tracing by the Mexican
government which were seized by authorities between 2007 through 2011. Of those, some 68,161
(68% of the total) were determined by the ATF to have come from the United States.170 Seizures
of illicit funds derived from drug trafficking have been low. Some estimate that $20 to $25 billion
annually in bulk cash flows back to Mexico and its Colombian suppliers from drug sales in the
United States. According to an analysis by the Washington Post of data from the U.S. and
Mexican governments, only about 1% of this cash is recovered despite unprecedented efforts to
seize more.171
However, there is a lively debate about how large the annual profits from drug trafficking actually
are which flow back to Mexico from the United States. Estimates within the U.S. government
vary, ranging from $22 billion (U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration) to $19 to $29 billion
(U.S. Department of Homeland Security) and an even broader range of $8 to $25 billion (U.S.
State Department).172 Nongovernmental analysts have calculated considerably lower estimates.
The Rand Corporation released a report in 2010 that estimated the amount of drug revenues
flowing to Mexico’s DTOs annually at $6.6 billion.173 Independent scholar Alejandro Hope
projects total export revenue for Mexico’s drug trafficking organizations between $4.7 to $8.1
billion, with $6.2 billion as the best estimate.174 In April 2012, Mexico’s Ministry of Finance
released a study that estimated total proceeds from organized crime laundered in Mexico in 2011
at approximately $10 billion, with drug trafficking accounting for 41% of the laundered
proceeds.175 Regardless of the total, some analysts remain skeptical that clamping down on
money laundering will be the magic bullet for reducing illicit trafficking in Mexico or its
associated violence.176 They argue that other strategies are needed to tackle the problem. U.S. and

(...continued)
cash flows and how much is laundered through other methods. Douglas Farah, "Money Laundering and Bulk Cash
Smuggling: Challenges for the Mérida Initiative," in Shared Responsibility: U.S.-Mexico Options for Confronting
Organized Crime, ed. Eric L. Olson, David A. Shirk, and Andrew Selee (Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson
International Center for Scholars and the University of San Diego, 2010).
170 Pete Yost, "ATF: 68,000 Guns in Mexico Traced to U.S.," Washington Post, April 27, 2012. See also, Colby
Goodman and Michael Marizco, U.S. Firearms Trafficking to Mexico: New Data and Insights Illuminate Key Trends
and Challenges, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars Mexico Institute, Working Paper on U.S.-Mexico
Security Cooperation, September 2010. Analysts contest how many firearms the Mexican government has seized and if
the sample of those submitted for tracing to the ATF is representative. The Mexican government and many others have
maintained that the increased availability of high-powered weapons, often originating from the United States, provides
the tools for more violence.
171 William Booth and Nick Miroff, "Stepped-up Efforts by U.S., Mexico Fail to Stem Flow of Drug Money South,"
Washington Post, August 25, 2010.
172 Mollie Laffin-Rose, “’Organized Crime Laundered $10 Bn in Mexico in FY2011,’” In Sight: Organized Crime in
the Americas, April 20, 2012. This article has links to all the U.S. government studies; see also footnote number 169.
173 Beau Kilmer, Jonathan P. Caulkins, and Brittany M. Bond, et al., Drug Trafficking Revenues and Violence in
Mexico: Would Legalizing Marijuana in California Help?, RAND Corporation, Los Angeles, CA, 2010.
174 Eric L. Olson, Considering New Strategies for Confronting Organized Crime in Mexico, Woodrow Wilson
International Center for Scholars: Mexico Institute, Washignton, DC, March 2012.
175 Mollie Laffin-Rose, “’Organized Crime Laundered $10 Bn in Mexico in FY2011,’” In Sight: Organized Crime in
the Americas, April 20, 2012.
176 See for example, Alejandro Hope, “Money Laundering and the Myth of the Ninja Accountant,” In Sight: Organized
Crime in the Americas, October 11, 2011.
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Mexican government officials assert that one of the most effective ways to dismantle the DTOs is
to reduce the criminal proceeds that fund their operations.177
Cooperation between Mexico and the United States has markedly increased under the Mérida
Initiative. Mexico has demonstrated an increased commitment to control its borders and
announced an initiative in September 2010 to control money laundering and disrupt the flow of
drug money.178 In March 2012, the Mexican Attorney General’s office created a Specialized Unit
for Financial Analysis to increase the government’s capacity to prosecute financial crimes
including money laundering. In the United States, bilateral cooperation on money laundering
cases, including training for Mexican prosecutors, has increased.179 The United States and Mexico
formed a Bilateral Money Laundering Working Group to coordinate the investigation and
prosecution of money laundering and bulk cash smuggling.180 Since 2001, the United States has
applied financial sanctions to all the major DTOs in Mexico or individuals heading those DTOs
(as well as several smaller organizations) under the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation
Act.181 Between 2008 and April 2011, the U.S. government designated 271 individuals and 135
entities tied to the financial and commercial networks of Mexico’s most wanted traffickers under
the act.182
The brutal violence associated with drug trafficking in Mexico appears to exceed the violence that
is intrinsic to narcotics trafficking and organized crime in general. The attack on civil society has
been particularly harsh for local government officials and journalists, including the most recent
rash of attacks in Veracruz. Beyond the reports of journalists, mayors, and young people being
killed described earlier, there have been reports of innocent bystanders increasingly being caught
in the violence. On August 25, 2011, 52 people lost their lives in a casino fire allegedly ignited by
Los Zetas, the highest number of Mexican civilians killed in a single incident since the beginning
of the government’s campaign against organized crime.183 President Calderón decried the incident
as the work of “true terrorists.”184 Others have cited this incident as another example of organized
crime’s involvement in corruption and extortion.185

177 See, for example, testimony from Hearing before the U.S. Senate Caucus on International Narcotics Control,
“Money Laundering and Bulk Cash Smuggling along the Southwest Border,” March 9, 2011. Anti-money laundering
efforts including countering bulk cash smuggling are important elements of the National Southwest Border
Counternarcotics Strategy available at http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/ondcp/policy-and-
research/swb_counternarcotics_strategy11.pdf.
178 Embassy of Mexico, “Fact Sheet – National Strategy for Preventing and Fighting Money Laundering and the
Financing of Terrorism,” September 2010.
179 Joseph Palazzo, "U.S. in New Drug-Money Push," Wall Street Journal, September 30, 2010.
180 For more background, see CRS Report R41349, U.S.-Mexican Security Cooperation: The Mérida Initiative and
Beyond , by Clare Ribando Seelke and Kristin M. Finklea.
181 The U.S. Department of the Treasury of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) targets and blocks
financial assets, subject to U.S. jurisdiction, of drug kingpins and related associates and entities. See CRS Report
R41215, Latin America and the Caribbean: Illicit Drug Trafficking and U.S. Counterdrug Programs, coordinated by
Clare Ribando Seelke.
182 Celina B. Realuyo, It's All About the Money: Advancing Anti-Money Laundering Efforts in the U.S. and Mexico to
Combat Transnational Organized Crime, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars: Mexico Institute,
Washington, DC, May 2012. This report describes both U.S. and Mexican anti-money laundering efforts.
183 Tracy Wilkinson, "As Fury Builds in Mexico, 5 Arrested in Casino Fire," Chicago Tribune, August 30, 2011.
184 Dudley Althaus, “Calderon: Casino Killers 'Terrorists',” Houston Chronicle, August 27, 2011.
185 “Corruption, not terrorism? Extortion now suspected in casino deaths,” Washington Post, September 1, 2011.
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The use of car bombs, simultaneous attacks in different cities, and a couple of incidents of
seemingly indiscriminate attacks on civilians (including the aforementioned casino fire) have
raised concerns that the DTOs may be using tactics similar to those of insurgent groups or
terrorists.186 The DTOs, however, appear to lack a discernible political goal or ideology, which is
one element of a widely recognized definition of terrorism. The U.S. State Department, in its
Country Reports on Terrorism 2010, published in August 2011, maintains that notwithstanding
Mexico’s “unprecedented drug trafficking-related violence…. No known international terrorist
organization had an operational presence in Mexico and no terrorist group targeted U.S. interests
and personnel in or from Mexican territory. There was no evidence ... that the criminal
organizations had aims of political or territorial control, aside from seeking to protect and expand
the impunity with which they conduct their criminal activity.”187
The violence has affected the state of democracy in Mexico. For example, the human rights group
Freedom House downgraded Mexico in its 2011 ranking as part of its annual evaluation of
political rights and civil liberties worldwide. Freedom House ranks countries as free, partly free,
or not free. In its Freedom in the World 2011 report, Mexico was downgraded from “free” in 2010
to “partly free” in 2011 because of a decline in its political rights rating “due to the targeting of
local officials by organized crime groups and the government’s inability to protect citizens’ rights
in the face of criminal violence.”
For the foreseeable future, current and future Mexican governments will likely have to deal with
the DTOs and the violence they generate. The DTOs are having a profound demoralizing and
delegitimizing effect on local, state, and federal government in Mexico. It may take years of
building stronger institutions before violence is markedly reduced. Notwithstanding the DTO
violence, Mexico continues to have one of the lower homicide rates in the region, although the
recent escalation in drug trafficking-related deaths has pushed the national homicide rate
significantly higher. From a nationwide homicide rate of 11 homicides per 100,000 in 2008, the
national homicide rate rose to 14 per 100,000 in 2009.188 According to a U.N. global study on
homicide published last year, Mexico’s homicide rate was 18 per 100,000 in 2010. The same
study reporting national rates in the region for 2010 shows that Mexico’s overall homicide rate is
far lower than Guatemala (41), El Salvador (66), and Honduras (82). In South America,
Colombia, Brazil, and Venezuela’s national homicide rates also significantly exceeded Mexico’s
in recent years.189 But the violence from organized crime has pushed up Mexico’s rate. In 2007,
organized crime deaths in Mexico were the cause of slightly less than 32% of all intentional
homicides, but by 2010 and 2011 organized crime homicides accounted for more than half of all
intentional homicides.190

186 Mark A. R. Kleiman, Jonathan P. Caukins, and Angela Hawken, Drugs and Drug Policy: What Everyone Needs to
Know (Oxford University Press, 2011); Jane’s Information Group, “Jane’s Sentinel Security Assessment – Central
America and the Caribbean,” February 16, 2011. Of note, some Members of Congress have introduced legislation
(H.R. 1270, H.R. 4303) that would direct the U.S. Secretary of State to designate certain Mexican DTOs as foreign
terrorist organizations.
187 U.S. Department of State, Country Reports on Terrorism 2010, August 18, 2011.
188 Economist Intelligence Unit, “Mexico Risk: Security Risk,” September 23, 2010.
189 United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Global Study on Homicide: Trends, Contexts, Data, 2011 at
http://www.unodc.org/documents/data-and-analysis/statistics/Homicide/Globa_study_on_homicide_2011_web.pdf.
Rates have been rounded to present nearest whole number.
190 Molzahn, Rios, and Shirk, Drug Violence in Mexico: Data and Analysis Through 2011.
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The Mexican public does not appear to credit the government’s claim of success in reducing the
violence and improving street security. Recent polls have shown Mexicans believe the DTOs are
winning the conflict. For example, a survey conducted by Pew Research Center and published in
late August 2011 found that less than half (45%) believed the government is making progress in
the campaign against the DTOs.191 However, the Pew study had some interesting additional
findings. The Mexican public, while appalled at the violence, has continued to back the use of the
Mexican military as part of the Calderón government’s antidrug campaign (83% of respondents).
This apparent support for the military’s role in the antidrug effort comes despite a popular
movement protesting abuses by the military which has gained ground since early 2011 (see
below). According to the Pew survey, a larger fraction says they would support American military
assistance (38%) than in 2010, with nearly three-quarters of respondents indicating they
welcomed U.S. help to train the Mexican police and the military.192 In another survey,
“Citizenship, Democracy, and Drug-related Violence” conducted by several NGOs between May
and June 2011 with more than 7,400 interviews of Mexicans from high, intermediate, and low
violence states found that only 26% of respondents believed that the government was “winning
the war on drugs.” Somewhat paradoxically, this study found that Mexicans supported the
government’s strategy, but did not believe it was successful.193 A recent poll conducted by the
Dallas Morning News and the Mexican newspaper El Universal in May 2012 supports this
finding. The poll of Mexican voters found 64% approve the Mexican military taking a lead role in
the fight against organized crime whereas only 21% said they thought the strategy was
working.194
President Calderón has confronted a recently emerging peace movement led by Mexican poet
Javier Sicilia, whose son was killed by drug gangs in Cuernavaca in March 2011. Sicilia, who
now leads the Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity, has met with the president several
times, including in a televised meeting in June 2011. He has led a peace caravan across Mexico,
and headed demonstrations in Mexico City. Sicilia has urged the president to abandon his
military-led strategy, which some of his supporters believe has caused violence and human rights
abuses by security forces. They propose a new approach focused on combating poverty,
inequality, and unemployment, which they say are contributing to the rising violence.195
For many Mexican citizens, the primary sign of success of Calderón’s campaign against
organized crime would be a significant reduction in the violence. But such a goal may prove
elusive given that the government’s current strategy is stimulating DTO rivalries and intra-DTO
battles for succession. In addition, the operations of the Mexican security forces have led to
complaints of human rights violations that include forced disappearances, torture, and arbitrary

191 Pew Research Center, “Crime and Drug Cartels Top Concerns in Mexico,” Press Release, August 31, 2011. The
study can be accessed at http://pewglobal.org/files/2011/08/Pew-Global-Attitudes-Mexico-Report-FINAL-August-31-
2011.pdf
192 Ibid. See also, Sara Miller Llana, "In Drug War, Mexico Warms to the U.S.," Christian Science Monitor: Daily
News Briefing, September 2, 2011.
193 CASEDE, USAID, and CEGI, et al., Encuesta Ciudadanía Democracia y Narcoviolencia (CIDENA, 2011):
Methodology and Findings, March 26, 2012. Summary in English at
http://csis.org/files/attachments/120326_SIMO_slides.pdf.
194 Alfredo Corchado, "Most Mexicans Want U.S. to Take a Bigger Role in Fighting Violence, Poll Finds," Dallas
Morning News, May 13, 2012.
195 Candace Vallantin, “Mexicans Campaign to End Drug War; Renowned Poet Puts Down his Pen to Focus on a
Caravan For Peace,” Toronto Star, June 7, 2011.
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detention.196 The manner in which the violence will be reduced could depend upon the policies of
the president who succeeds Calderón.197
To reduce the violence will require public support for the government’s policy. Thus far, the
confrontation with the DTOs and other criminal organizations has failed to bring the violence
down, and public backing for the Calderón counterdrug strategy has waned. Some observers have
criticized the Calderón government for adopting an aggressive approach (literally declaring war
on the drug traffickers) without having a clear definition of success, without understanding the
consequences of the policy, and without having the tools necessary to win.198 Elements of the
government’s strategy in the Beyond Mérida program that are designed to reduce the violence,
such as institutionalizing the rule of law, reforming the justice system, and completing economic
and social development programs to combat crime, all have a longer timeframe.199 It may take
years or decades to build effective, efficient legal institutions in Mexico that resist threats and
bribery. Yet policy analysts believe these institutions are necessary before the DTOs can be
reduced from a national security threat to a law and order problem.
Some observers in Mexico are advocating anti-violence programs modeled on successful
strategies used in other Latin American cities, such as Rio de Janeiro in Brazil and Guayaquil in
Ecuador, or from programs in the United States.200 Some analysts have called for a violence
reduction strategy to be applied in the near term, while longer term efforts to reform the police
and justice system carry on simultaneously. Drug policy analyst Mark Kleiman and others have
endorsed enforcement efforts that concentrate resources on the most violent organizations. 201
Such a targeted strategy would sequentially focus on groups based on their violence levels or
violence behaviors. It would put incentives in place to avoid the designation of being most
violent. This strategy has risks associated with it including that such a policy might appear to
favor one or more groups by focusing the government’s efforts on a particular group (the most
violent) or lead to greater disequilibrium among rival organizations.202 However, the current non-
selective or “undifferentiated” strategy seems to have stimulated drug war rivalries, invited
succession battles, and continued to ratchet up the violence.

196 Human Rights Watch, Neither Rights nor Security; testimony from Hearing of the Tom Lantos Human Rights
Commission, “Human Rights in Mexico,” May 10, 2012.
197 In Mexico, the President is limited to one six-year term by the Constitution.
198 See, for example, Jorge G. Castaneda, "What's Spanish for Quagmire?," Foreign Policy, January/February 2010.
199 The United States and Mexico are recognizing that reduction in violence must be a key goal of the Beyond Mérida
strategy. For more on the Beyond Mérida strategy, see CRS Report R41349, U.S.-Mexican Security Cooperation: The
Mérida Initiative and Beyond.
200 Eduardo Guerrero Gutiérrez, “Cómo Reducir La Violencia en México,” Nexos en Línea,” November 3, 2010.
Guerrero cites the Boston program “Operation Ceasefire” and the Tri-Agency Resource Gang Enforcement Team
(TARGET) of Orange County, California, as two examples of effective programs to reduce violence by applying the
principle of concentrating enforcement efforts and reducing violence through credibly communicating to violent
offenders that they will be prosecuted.
201 Eric L. Olson, Considering New Strategies for Confronting Organized Crime in Mexico; Mark Kleiman, "Surgical
Strikes in the Drug Wars: Smarter Policies for Both Sides of the Border," Foreign Affairs, vol. 90, no. 5,
September/October 2011.
202 Guillermo Vásquez del Mercado Almada, “Five Ps for a Violence Reduction Strategy in Mexico (Part III),” Small
Wars Journal, March 9, 2012. The author also endorses a violence reduction strategy, but cautions against “sequential”
targeting. He backs a strategy with the following tactics: “a) aim for simultaneous rather than sequential targets; b)
contain violence; and c) conquer high intensity crime zones.”
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A very new development is significantly increased sharing of intelligence at the federal level by
the United States with Mexico, which reflects greater U.S. confidence in Mexican law
enforcement capacity and integrity. This development again raises the possibility that identifying
and targeting DTO leaders for apprehension and investigation and successfully removing them
can work to lower the violence. However, if the long-established pattern of ineffectual attacks and
prosecution of DTO leaders continues, the intense violence is likely to endure. If a near-term
solution to the violence is not adopted, there could be public pressure in Mexico to resort to the
policies of accommodation that worked in the past. Alternatively, some communities may take
matters into their own hands and resort to vigilante justice, as some have already.203
As noted above, U.S.-Mexico security cooperation has increased significantly with the
implementation of the Mérida Initiative, an Administration program that Congress began funding
in 2008. The new Beyond Mérida strategy in Mexico is increasingly focused on the challenges of
bringing violence under control. The increased use of intelligence-based security operations that
has led to successes in taking down the top DTO leaders is now being expanded to disrupt the
capacity of the entire organization—not just top leadership and their hired killers, but those that
handle the money and acquire the guns.204
The goal of the Mexican government’s present drug strategy is to reduce the extent and character
of the DTOs’ activity from a national security threat to a law and order problem and to transfer
responsibility from military forces back to the police. While the DTOs have used terrorist tactics,
they do not use them to the degree or with the same intentions as did narco traffickers in
Colombia.205 Mexico’s challenge remains largely an organized crime or mafia problem, and the
most important tools for managing it include long-term institutional reform and the replacement
of a culture of illegality with one of rule of law and legality.

203 Nick Miroff and William Booth, "In Mexico, a Legal Breakdown Invites Brutal Justice," Washington Post,
December 9, 2010; Vanda Felbab-Brown, Calderón's Caldron: Lessons from Mexico's Battle Against Organized Crime
and Drug Trafficking in Tijuana, Ciudad Juárez, and Michoacán, The Brookings Institution, Washington, DC,
September 2011. In the Brookings report, see section on “Mexico’s Militias.”
204 For more on the Mérida Initiative and Beyond Mérida, see CRS Report R41349, U.S.-Mexican Security
Cooperation: The Mérida Initiative and Beyond , by Clare Ribando Seelke and Kristin M. Finklea.
205 Ken Ellingwood, "Is Mexico a New Colombia? Mexicans May Have Cause to Bristle at U.S. Comparison," Chicago
Tribune, September 26, 2010. Also see Appendix.
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Appendix. Comparing Mexico and Colombia
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton compared the upsurge in violence in Mexico to the situation in
Colombia 20 years ago in her remarks before the Council of Foreign Relations in September
2010.206 The comparison to Colombia was quickly disavowed by the Mexican government (and
reportedly by President Obama), but broadened the debate about the seriousness of the threat
posed to Mexico’s national security and democracy.
Some analysts employ the Colombia comparison to argue that the successes of Plan Colombia207
offer appropriate prescriptions for Mexico. Other observers counter that Colombia two decades
ago faced a very different challenge than Mexico faces today. The government of Colombia
confronted an insurgency of armed guerrillas who were attempting to overthrow the Colombian
government, while simultaneously facing a campaign of violence by its drug trafficking
organizations. The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and other armed groups in
the country had the goal of replacing the Colombian state, which is significantly different from
the goal of the DTOs of Mexico, which want impunity to traffic drugs and engage in other illicit
activities for profit. While the FARC and other insurgents turned to drug trafficking to help
finance their cause, their goal was to overthrow the sovereign state. At the height of their power,
the FARC and other insurgents controlled more than a third of the country’s municipalities.208 The
degree to which some of Mexico’s municipalities are influenced by the DTOs is hard to
determine. In Mexico, the goal of the traffickers is to corrupt the police and government at all
levels to allow them to pursue illicit profits, but it is not to take control of the apparatus of the
state. Thus, it remains a problem of criminality rather than a battle with insurgents or terrorists.
On the other hand, because some of the characteristics of the violence in Mexico—political
assassinations, car bombs, extreme violence, and the increased killing of innocent bystanders—
are similar to the tactics of political insurgents, some analysts have asserted that the violence goes
beyond conventional organized crime behavior. These observers maintain that the violence is
highly organized and exceptionally brutal, and therefore it is qualitatively different from criminal
violence.209 Some policy analysts have described the Mexican criminal organizations as a
“criminal insurgency.”210 John P. Sullivan at the Center for Advanced Studies in Terrorism
describes how the response to the government’s enforcement crackdown led to the evolution of
the conflict and violence: “In Mexico, when faced with a crackdown, the cartels chose to battle

206 “A Conversation with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton,” Council on Foreign Relations, September 8,
2010. Transcript available at
http://www.cfr.org/publication/22896/conversation_with_us_secretary_of_state_hillary_rodham_clinton.html.
207 Plan Colombia is a U.S.-supported counterdrug and counterterrorism program that has operated for more than a
decade in Colombia. For more background, see CRS Report RL32250, Colombia: Background, U.S. Relations, and
Congressional Interest, by June S. Beittel.
208 U.S. General Accounting Office, Drug Control: Challenges in Implementing Plan Colombia, Statement of Jess T.
Ford, Director, International Affairs and Trade, GAO-01-76T, October 12, 2000.
209 For example, there have been near simultaneous actions against Mexico’s military or police forces, coordinated
attacks on different cities, cartel roadblocks throughout cities like Monterrey to prevent responders from reaching
firefights or other hot spots, and kidnappings by cartel forces dressed in Mexican police or military uniforms or in close
simulations of the official uniforms.
210 For other analysts using the terminology of “criminal insurgency” see Bob Killebrew and Jennifer Bernal, Crime
Wars: Gangs, Cartels and U.S. National Security, Center for a New American Security, September 2010.
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each other and the government to maintain a stake in the game. A high level of violence,
impunity, and a criminal insurgency were thus an unintended side effect.”211
From another perspective, Professor Phil Williams argues that the violence is that of traditional
organized crime, but taken to new depths or levels of intensity. He suggests that the Mexican drug
trafficking-related violence grows out of a “perfect storm” of conditions. The situation in Mexico
has precedents and parallels with the growth of criminal organizations in Italy, Russia, Albania,
and elsewhere. In addition, there is a feature of “anomie” to Mexico’s violence—the homicidal
violence has become a feature of everyday life leading to “a degeneration of rules and norms and
the emergence of forms of behavior unconstrained by standard notions of what is acceptable.”212
The Mexican DTOs have no ideology other than a ruthless pursuit of profit, but their corruption
and intimidation have challenged the state’s monopoly on the use of force and rule of law. In
Mexico, the police and court system, historically weak and undercut by corruption, are not
equipped, organized, or managed to combat the drug organizations. Most arrests are never
prosecuted. However, there have been many arrests, and suspects are usually displayed to the
news media. 213 Arrests have only a low chance of turning into successful prosecutions. The rate
of impunity (non prosecution) for murder in Mexico is 81% and higher for other types of
crime.214 The violent response of the DTOs to the Calderón government’s antidrug campaign,
similar to what was seen in smaller municipalities throughout Colombia, has intimidated local,
state, and federal authorities. DTO profits, like those made by local FARC commanders in
Colombia, are shared with government officials at all levels. Unlike the Colombian FARC, the
Mexican traffickers do not seek to replace the government and provide services, but they are
committed to manipulating it with bribery and violence to continue their illegal activities without
interference.
Some observers argue that parts of the Mexican state have been “captured” similar to the control
insurgents once had over large parts of Colombia. These analysts maintain that some states or
localities in Mexico are under DTO control.215 For example, in Michoacán, the LFM organization
controlled many local businesses through extortion (taxing businesses or charging them for
security services). According to one estimate made in 2010, approximately 85% of legitimate
businesses in Michoacán had some type of relationship with the LFM.216 Another study
concerning DTO presence in Mexican local governments was released in late August 2010. That
study, entitled “Municipal Government and Organized Crime,” prepared for a committee of the
Mexican Senate, reportedly found that 195 Mexican municipalities (8% of the total) were
completely under control of organized crime, while another 1,536 (63% of the total) were
“infiltrated” by organized crime. The study concluded that a majority of Mexican municipalities
had organized crime elements capable of controlling the illicit businesses of retail drug
trafficking, cultivation and trafficking of drugs, kidnapping, and extortion.217 The study found that

211 John P. Sullivan, "Counter-supply and Counter-violence Approaches to Narcotics Trafficking," Small Wars &
Insurgencies, vol. 21, no. 1 (March 12, 2010), p. 186.
212 Williams, “El Crimen Organizada y la Violencia en Mexico.”
213 William Booth, “In Mexico, Made-for-TV Confessions,” Washington Post, August 31, 2011.
214 Mexico Evalúa, Seguridad y Justicia Penal en los Estados: 25 Indicadores de Nuestra Debilidad Institucional,
March 2012.
215 For example, see William Finnegan, “Silver or Lead,” The New Yorker, May 31, 2010.
216 Ibid.
217 “Measuring the Extent of Drug Cartel Control in Mexico,” LatinNews Daily, September 15, 2010. Ricardo Ravelo,
(continued...)
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criminal structures operate with logistical support from corrupt municipal police and
politicians.218
Some analysts contend that Colombia's experience provides valuable lessons for Mexico.219 The
increasing training provided by Colombian security forces to Mexico’s army and police in recent
years demonstrates that there are operational lessons that Mexican authorities value.220 Others
maintain that Mexico’s situation is distinctly complex, which limits the relevance of Colombia as
a model. Clearly, there are many lessons learned from studying the U.S. supported successes and
failures in Colombia, but their application to Mexico is limited by the countries’ very different
histories and circumstances.

Author Contact Information

June S. Beittel

Analyst in Latin American Affairs
jbeittel@crs.loc.gov, 7-7613



(...continued)
"Los Cárteles Imponen Su Ley," Proceso, October 24, 2010.
218 Ibid.
219 For example, Robert C. Bonner, "The New Cocaine Cowboys," Foreign Affairs, vol. 89 (July/August 2010). Bonner
looks to an earlier era for lessons from Colombia, but asserts that: “Virtually all the key lessons learned from the defeat
of the Colombian cartels in the 1990s are applicable to the current battle against the Mexican cartels.”
220 Juan Forero, "Colombia Stepping Up Anti-Drug Training of Mexico's Army, Police," Washington Post, January 22,
2011.
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