The Tijuana Cartel or Arellano-Félix-Cartel is a Mexican drug cartel based in Tijuana, Baja California, Mexico. Founded by the Arellano-Félix family, the cartel once was described as "one of the biggest and most violent criminal groups in Mexico". However, since the 2006 Sinaloa Cartel incursion in Baja California and the fall of the Arellano-Félix brothers, the Tijuana Cartel has been reduced to a few cells. In 2016, the organization became known as Cartel Tijuana Nueva Generación and began to align itself under the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, along with Beltrán Leyva Organization (BLO) to create an anti-Sinaloa alliance, in which the Jalisco New Generation Cartel heads. This alliance has since dwindled as the Tijuana, Jalisco New Generation, and Sinaloa cartels all now battle each other for trafficking influence in the city of Tijuana and the region of Baja California.
Los Zetas is a Mexican criminal syndicate and terrorist organization, known as one of the most dangerous of Mexico's drug cartels. They are known for engaging in brutally violent "shock and awe" tactics such as beheadings, torture, and indiscriminate murder. While primarily concerned with drug trafficking, the organization also runs profitable sex and gun rackets. Los Zetas also operate through protection rackets, assassinations, extortion, kidnappings and other illegal activities. The organization is based in Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas, directly across the border from Laredo, Texas. The origins of Los Zetas date back to the late 1990s, when commandos of the Mexican Army deserted their ranks and began working as the enforcement arm of the Gulf Cartel. In February 2010, Los Zetas broke away and formed their own criminal organization, rivalling the Gulf Cartel.
The Gulf Cartel is a criminal syndicate and drug trafficking organization in Mexico, and perhaps one of the oldest organized crime groups in the country. It is currently based in Matamoros, Tamaulipas, directly across the U.S. border from Brownsville, Texas.
The Mexican drug war is an ongoing asymmetric low-intensity conflict between the Mexican government and various drug trafficking syndicates, who variously fight amongst each other. When the Mexican military began to intervene in 2006, the government's main objective was to reduce drug-related violence. The Mexican government has asserted that their primary focus is dismantling the cartels, and preventing drug trafficking demand along with American functionaries. Therefore, the conflict has been described as a Mexican theater of the global war on drugs, as led by the United States federal government.
The Sinaloa Cartel, also known as the Guzmán-Zambada Organization, the Federation the Blood Alliance, or the Pacific Cartel, is a large, international organized crime syndicate that specializes in illegal drug trafficking and money laundering. It was established in Mexico during the late 1980s as one of a various number of subordinate "plazas" operating under a predecessor organization known as the Guadalajara Cartel. It is currently headed by Ismael Zambada García and is based in the city of Culiacán, Sinaloa, with operations in many world regions but primarily in the Mexican states of Sinaloa, Baja California, Durango, Sonora, and Chihuahua. and presence in a number of other regions in Latin America as well as in cities across the U.S. The United States Intelligence Community generally considers the Sinaloa Cartel to be the largest and most powerful drug trafficking organization in the world, making it perhaps even more influential and capable than Pablo Escobar's infamous Medellín Cartel of Colombia was during its prime. According to the National Drug Intelligence Center and other sources within the U.S. the Sinaloa Cartel is primarily involved in the distribution of cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine, fentanyl, cannabis and MDMA.
The timeline of some of the most relevant events in the Mexican drug war is set out below. Although violence between drug cartels had been occurring for three decades, the Mexican government held a generally passive stance regarding cartel violence through the 1980s and early 2000s.
The Milenio Cartel, or Cártel de los Valencia, was a Mexican criminal organization based in Michoacán. It relocated to Jalisco in the early 2000s. The Jalisco New Generation Cartel was born from the splintering of the Milenio Cartel.
Blog del Narco is a citizen journalism blog that attempts to document the events of the Mexican drug war, primarily those not reported by the government of Mexico or the Mexican news media.
Valentín Valdés Espinosa, a Mexican journalist for the newspaper Zócalo in Saltillo, Mexico. He was 29 years old when he was murdered and was the third journalist killed in the Mexican drug war in less than three weeks in the northern states of Mexico
The Jalisco New Generation Cartel or CJNG, formerly known as Los Mata Zetas, is a Mexican organized crime syndicate based in Jalisco which is headed by Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, one of the world's most-wanted drug lords. The cartel has been characterized by its aggressive use of extreme violence and its public relations campaigns. Although the CJNG is particularly known for diversifying into various types of criminal rackets, drug trafficking remains its most profitable activity. The cartel has also been noted for cannibalizing some of its victims, sometimes during the training of new sicarios or cartel members, as well as using drones and rocket-propelled grenades to attack its enemies.
The 2012 Nuevo Laredo massacres were a series of mass murder attacks between the allied Sinaloa Cartel and Gulf Cartel against Los Zetas in the border city of Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas, across the U.S.-Mexico border from Laredo, Texas. The drug-violence in Nuevo Laredo began back in 2003, when the city was controlled by the Gulf Cartel. Most media reports that write about the Mexican Drug War, however, point to 2006 as the start of the drug war. That year is a convenient historical marker because that's when Felipe Calderón took office and carried out an aggressive approach against the cartels. But authors like Ioan Grillo and Sylvia Longmire note that Mexico's drug war actually began at the end of Vicente Fox's administration in 2004, when the first major battle took place in Nuevo Laredo between the Sinaloa Cartel and Los Zetas, who at that time worked as the armed wing of the Gulf Cartel.
El Narco: Inside Mexico's Criminal Insurgency is a non-fiction book of the Mexican drug war written by Ioan Grillo. In El Narco, Grillo takes a close look at the Mexican drug trade, starting with the term "El Narco", which has come to represent the vast, faceless criminal network of drug traffickers who cast a murderous shadow over Mexico. The book covers the frontline of the Mexican drug war. It seeks to trace the origins of the illegal drug trade in Mexico, the recent escalation of violence, the human cost of the drug trade and organized crime in the country. The book takes a critical stance on the unsuccessful efforts made by the Mexican government and the United States to confront the violence and its causes.
Marisol Macías Castañeda, also appearing as Maria Elizabeth Macías Castro in media reports and known for her online name "NenaDLaredo" or "La Nena De Laredo,", was a Mexican editor-in-chief for Primera Hora in Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas, Mexico and posted information about drug activities online. Macías was secretly reporting using the internet site Nuevo Laredo en Vivo, or Nuevo Laredo Live, about drug cartels in her city. Los Zetas murdered her in a publicly visible and brutal slaying with a note near her body as a warning to others. Her murder is the first documented murder of a journalist by a drug cartel in retaliation for journalism that was posted on a social media site.
Armando Rodríguez, born José Armando Rodríguez Carreón and also known as "El Choco",, was a Mexican journalist who covered the crime beat for El Diario de Juárez in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, Mexico and was murdered at his residence. He was known for his investigative journalism and reporting on crime, including the Juárez murders, and his death was acknowledged by the Board of the Investigative Reporters & Editors in an official statement that condemned his murder.
On 13 August 2012, Mario Segura, a Mexican journalist who served as an editor for El Sol del Sur Tampico, a regional newspaper in Tampico, Tamaulipas, was abducted by a drug cartel. He was released a week later and was forced to relocate with his family to Mexico City, where he became a clown as he could no longer get a job as a journalist. Mario Segura is one of at least 30 Mexican journalists who have had to relocate because of threats and violence.
Los Ántrax is a large enforcer unit and hit squad for the Sinaloa Cartel, a major crime syndicate based in the Mexican state of Sinaloa. The group was led by the drug lords Jesús Peña, José Rodrigo Aréchiga Gamboa, René Velázquez Valenzuela, among others, and they are responsible for a number of homicides and for providing armed security services to Ismael El Mayo Zambada. The gang operates in the capital city of Culiacán, Sinaloa, where its members conduct homicides and violent attacks. Los Antrax is the Sinaloa Cartel's largest and deadliest enforcer unit.
Héctor David Delgado Santiago, commonly referred to by his alias El Metro 4, was a suspected Mexican drug lord and high-ranking leader of the Gulf Cartel, a criminal group based in Tamaulipas. Born and raised in Matamoros, Tamaulipas, El Metro 4 initiated his criminal career by working with Los Metros, an enforcer gang of the Gulf Cartel.
Narcoculture in Mexico is a subculture that has grown as a result of the strong presence of the various drug cartels throughout Mexico. In the same way that other subcultures around the world that are related to crime and drug use, Mexican narco culture has developed its own form of dress, music, literature, film, religious beliefs and practices and language (slang) that has helped it become a part of the mainstream culture in some areas of the country, mainly among lower-class, uneducated youth. Narco culture is dynamic in that there are various regional differences within Mexico and among those who participate in it.
José Rodrigo Aréchiga Gamboa, commonly referred to by his alias "El Chino Ántrax", was a Mexican drug lord, a professional hitman, and a high-ranking member of the Sinaloa Cartel, a criminal organization based in Sinaloa.
Claudia Ochoa Félix was a social media personality. In 2014, a rumor spread on social media that she was a high-ranking leader of the murder squad Los Ántrax, a bloc of enforcers that operate as an armed wing of the Sinaloa Cartel. After their leader José Rodrigo Aréchiga Gamboa was arrested, Ochoa Félix was rumored to be one of the leaders. She denied the claims and her involvement in organized crime.
