Aguililla is a city in the Mexican state of Michoacán. It is the municipal seat for the surrounding municipality of the same name. The municipality has a population of roughly 15,000.
The Mexican drug war is the Mexican theater of the global war on drugs, as led by the U.S. federal government, an ongoing asymmetric low-intensity conflict between the Mexican government and various drug trafficking syndicates. 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 U.S. functionaries.
The Sinaloa Cartel, also known as the CDS, the Guzmán-Loera Organization, the Pacific Cartel, the Federation and the Blood Alliance, 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. It also has a notable presence in a number of other regions in Latin America, such as Colombia; as well as in cities across the U.S. The United States Intelligence Community generally considers the Sinaloa Cartel to be the most powerful drug trafficking organization in the Western Hemisphere, making it perhaps even more influential and capable than the infamous Medellín Cartel of Colombia was during its prime. It is frequently referred to by the media as one of the most powerful criminal organizations in the world and indisputably the most powerful in Mexico.
Operation Michoacán is a joint operation by Federal Police and the Mexican military to eliminate drug plantations and to combat drug trafficking. Initiated on December 11, 2006, the operation was supervised by The Secretary of Public Safety, Attorney General of Mexico, Secretary of the Interior, Mexican Navy and Mexican Army.
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.
La Familia Michoacana, La Familia, or LFM is a Mexican drug cartel and organized crime syndicate based in the Mexican state of Michoacán. Formerly allied to the Gulf Cartel—as part of Los Zetas—it split off in 2006. The cartel was founded by Carlos Rosales Mendoza, a close associate of Osiel Cárdenas. The second leader, Nazario Moreno González, known as El Más Loco, preached his organization's divine right to eliminate enemies. He carried a "bible" of his own sayings and insisted that his army of traffickers and hitmen avoid using the narcotics they produce and sell. Nazario Moreno's partners were José de Jesús Méndez Vargas, Servando Gómez Martínez and Enrique Plancarte Solís, each of whom has a bounty of $2 million for his capture, and were contesting the control of the organization.
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.
The Knights Templar Cartel was a Mexican criminal organization originally composed of the remnants of La Familia Michoacana drug cartel based in the Mexican State of Michoacán.
Cárteles Unidos, also known as La Resistencia is a Mexican criminal enforcer squad composed of well-trained gunmen from the Sinaloa Cartel, Gulf Cartel and Knights Templar Cartel originally formed to expel the Los Zetas Cartel from the states of Michoacán and Jalisco. However, Cárteles Unidos' current main rival has now become the Jalisco New Generation Cartel; a paramilitary criminal organization based in the neighboring state of Jalisco.
The Jalisco New Generation Cartel or CJNG, formerly known as Los Mata Zetas, is a semi-militarized Mexican criminal group 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 as well as stealing crude oil remain among their most profitable criminal activities. 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 to attack their enemies. U.S. prosecutors have said operatives of the cartel tried to buy belt-fed M-60 machine guns in the United States, and once brought down a Mexican military helicopter with a rocket-propelled grenade.
The Cadereyta Jiménez massacre occurred on the Fed 40 on 12–13 May 2012. Mexican officials stated that 49 people were decapitated and mutilated by members of Los Zetas drug cartel and dumped by a roadside near the city of Monterrey in northern Mexico. The Blog del Narco, a blog that documents events and people of the Mexican Drug War anonymously, reported that the actual (unofficial) death toll may be more than 68 people. The bodies were found in the town of San Juan in the municipality of Cadereyta Jiménez, Nuevo León at about 4 a.m. on a non-toll highway leading to Reynosa, Tamaulipas. The forty-three men and six women killed had their heads, feet, and hands cut off, making their identification difficult. Those killed also bore signs of torture and were stuffed in plastic bags. The arrested suspects have indicated that the victims were Gulf Cartel members, but the Mexican authorities have not ruled out the possibility that they were U.S.-bound migrants. Four days before this incident, 18 people were found decapitated and dismembered near Mexico's second largest city, Guadalajara.
Grupos de autodefensas or Policía Comunitaria or Policía Popular are vigilante self-defense groups that arose in the Gulf of Mexico and South Mexico regions between 2012 and 2013. The Mexican government has attempted to monitor and absorb these groups into the federal government to act as Rural Police in order to avoid clashes between the paramilitaries and the Mexican Armed Forces itself.
Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, commonly referred to by his alias El Mencho, is a Mexican drug lord and leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), a trafficking group based in Jalisco. He is the most-wanted person in Mexico and one of the most-wanted in the U.S. Both governments are offering up to MXN$30 million and US$10 million, respectively, for information leading to his arrest.
Antonio Oseguera Cervantes is a Mexican suspected drug lord and former high-ranking leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), a criminal group based in Jalisco. His brother is Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, the leader of the CJNG and one of Mexico's most-wanted drug lords. In Mexico, he was formally charged in 2015 for drug trafficking and being in possession of military-exclusive firearms.
Érick Valencia Salazar, commonly referred to by his alias El 85, is a Mexican suspected drug lord and high ranking leader in the Nueva Plaza Cartel. He previously served as a high-ranking leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), a criminal group based in Jalisco. The Mexican Army suspects he was responsible for supervising the CJNG's cocaine and ephedrine delivery shipments from Colombia and China to Mexico, and for coordinating attacks against rival groups like La Resistencia and Los Zetas in the 2010s. Before leading the CJNG, Valencia reportedly held a leadership role within the Milenio Cartel, the predecessor group where the CJNG originated from. When several of his superiors were arrested and/or killed, Valencia and several others from the Milenio Cartel reportedly formed the CJNG.
Jorge Luis Mendoza Cárdenas, commonly referred to by his alias La Garra, is a Mexican suspected drug lord and high-ranking leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), a criminal group based in Jalisco. Security forces suspect that La Garra heads the drug trafficking operations for the CJNG in the United States under Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, the top leader of the criminal group. La Garra reportedly coordinates marijuana, cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamine shipments to Los Angeles, San Jose, Atlanta, and New York City from Mexico.
Martín Arzola Ortega, commonly referred to by his alias "El 53", was a Mexican convicted drug lord and former high-ranking leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), a criminal group based in Jalisco. He worked under Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, the alleged top leader of the CJNG. Arzola Ortega began his criminal career in 1998 as a cargo truck thief and eventually joined the Milenio Cartel, the predecessor group of the CJNG. After several of his bosses were arrested and/or killed, he founded the CJNG with other defectors in the 2010s.
The 2019 Western Michoacán clashes were a series of armed confrontations on 30 August 2019 between the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) and the El Abuelo Cartel based in Tepalcatepec, Michoacán, Mexico. The clashes began early in the morning, when CJNG launched an attack on El Abuelo after declaring war on the El Abuelo Cartel and stating their intentions to expand into Michoacán and clear the state of El Abuelo. The fight lasted for several hours until government forces from the Mexican National Guard arrived and broke up the fighting.
Los Viagras is a criminal group based in Michoacán, Mexico. The leader of the group is Nicolás Sierra Santana, for whom arrest warrants have been issued in connection with multiple counts of homicide, robbery, extortion, and kidnapping.
The Nueva Plaza Cartel is a Mexican criminal organization from the state of Jalisco. The group began as a split from the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, having an important presence in the Guadalajara metropolitan area, having been previously commanded by Enrique Sánchez Martínez, "El Cholo," Emilio Alejandro Pulido Saldaña, "El Tiburón," and Érick Valencia Salazar "El 85". El Cholo would be killed in 2021, with "El Tiburón" surrendering himself to Mexican authorities soon afterwards. El 85 would be arrested in 2022.
Mexico 
Jalisco New Generation Cartel