Ismael Mario Zambada García is a Mexican drug lord, co-founder and current top leader of the Sinaloa Cartel, an international crime syndicate based in Sinaloa. Before he assumed leadership of the entire cartel, he allegedly served as the logistical coordinator for its Guzmán-Zambada organization, which has overseen the trafficking of cocaine and heroin into Chicago and other US cities by aircraft, narcosubs, container ships, go-fast boats, fishing vessels, buses, rail cars, tractor trailers, and automobiles. As of early 2023, he has never been arrested or incarcerated and is the single last remaining fugitive of the List of Mexico's 37 most-wanted drug lords (2009).
The Juárez Cartel, also known as the Vicente Carrillo Fuentes Organization, is a Mexican drug cartel based in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, across the Mexico—U.S. border from El Paso, Texas. The cartel is one of several drug trafficking organizations that have been known to decapitate their rivals, mutilate their corpses and dump them in public places to instill fear not only in the general public but also in local law enforcement and their rivals, the Sinaloa Cartel. Its current known leader is Juan Pablo Ledezma. The Juárez Cartel has an armed wing known as La Línea, a Juárez street gang that usually performs the executions and is now the cartel’s most powerful and leading faction. It also uses the Barrio Azteca gang to attack its enemies.
The House of Death refers to a serial killing site in the Mexican city of Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, where executions were committed by members of the Juárez Cartel, some allegedly with the knowledge and participation of a United States undercover informant known by the pseudonym "Lalo", who had infiltrated the cartel. According to policy of the United States Department of Justice, undercover informants are not permitted to participate in acts of violence.
Vicente Carrillo Fuentes, commonly referred to by his alias El Viceroy, is a Mexican convicted drug lord and former leader of the Juárez Cartel, a drug trafficking organization. The cartel is based in Chihuahua, one of the primary transportation routes for billions of dollars' worth of illegal drug shipments entering the United States from Mexico annually. He was one of Mexico's most-wanted drug lords until his capture in 2014.
Ignacio "Nacho" Coronel Villarreal was a Mexican suspected drug lord and a founder of the Sinaloa Cartel, a criminal group based in Sinaloa. He worked alongside Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán, Mexico's most-wanted drug lord. His stronghold was Jalisco.
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.
Heriberto Lazcano Lazcano, commonly referred to by his aliases Z-3 and El Lazca, was a Mexican drug lord and the leader of Los Zetas drug cartel. He was one of the most-wanted Mexican drug lords.
The Ciudad Juárez rehab center attack was a shooting that occurred at 7:15 pm on September 2, 2009, at the El Aliviane drug treatment clinic in the city of Ciudad Juárez, Mexico. Seventeen men were killed in the attack, and another died the following day from injuries, bringing the total killed to eighteen.
La Línea is currently the leading faction of the Juárez Cartel originally designed to be one of the cartel's enforcer units set up by a number of former and active-duty policemen, heavily armed and extensively trained in urban warfare. Their corrupt "line" of policemen were set up to protect drug traffickers, but after forming an alliance with Barrio Azteca to fight off the forces of the Sinaloa Cartel in 2008, they established a foothold in Ciudad Juárez as the enforcement wing of the Juárez cartel. La Línea has also been involved in extortions and kidnappings. As of 2021, La Línea has formed an alliance with the Jalisco New Generation Cartel in Ciudad Juárez to fight off influence and incursions from the Sinaloa Cartel.
Juan Pablo Ledezma is the alleged current leader of the Mexican gang called La Línea, which is the leading armed wing of the drug trafficking organization known as the Juárez Cartel and is said to be the current head of the organization.
Gente Nueva, also known as Los Chapos, in reference to their drug lord Joaquín Guzmán Loera, is a large group of well-trained and experienced gunmen that function as one of the elite armed wings of the Sinaloa Cartel, created to counter, battle and destroy the Juárez Cartel's influence in the Mexican north-west, as well as to battle and destroy La Línea which is currently the Juárez Cartel's largest remaining cell.
Barrio Azteca, or Los Aztecas, is a Mexican-American street and prison gang originally based in El Paso, Texas, USA and Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico. The gang was formed in the Coffield Unit, located near Tennessee Colony, Texas by Jose "Raulio" Rivera, a prisoner from El Paso, in the early 1980s. It expanded into a transnational criminal organization that traded mainly across the US-Mexico border. Currently one of the most violent gangs in the United States, they are said to have over 3,000 members across the country in locations such as New Mexico, Texas, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania as well as at least 5,000 members in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico.
The FBI's Ten Most Wanted Fugitives during the 2010s is a list, maintained for a seventh decade, of the Ten Most Wanted Fugitives of the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation. At any given time, the FBI is actively searching for 12,000 fugitives. During the 2010s, 29 new fugitives were added to the list. By the close of the decade a total of 523 fugitives had been listed on the Top Ten list, of whom 488 have been captured or located.
Los Mexicles is a Mexican street gang based in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua. It is allied to the Sinaloa Cartel, a criminal group based in Sinaloa.
The Villas de Salvárcar massacre occurred in Villas de Salvárcar, Ciudad Juárez on January 31, 2010, early in the morning. 16 young people died. Alejandro Martínez-Cabrera of the El Paso Times stated that the event "brought attention to the city's social problems" and "caused outrage in Mexico because of the brutality". People outside Mexico also expressed outrage about the crime. As a result, the federal government started the program "Todos Somos Juárez" to rejuvenate the city, and President of Mexico Felipe Calderón took additional measures against drug cartels. Lorena Figueroa of the El Paso Times stated that due to the "brutality" of the crime, "The massacre gave notoriety" to Villas de Salvárcar.
On 9 November 1999, two agents from the United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) were threatened at gunpoint and nearly killed in Matamoros, Tamaulipas, Mexico, by gunmen of the Gulf Cartel, a criminal group based in the area. The two agents traveled to Matamoros with an informant to gather intelligence on the operations of the Gulf Cartel. As they cruised through one of the properties owned by the criminal group, they noticed several vehicles following them. The agents were forced to a stop and were corralled by a convoy of eight vehicles, from which fifteen gunmen emerged and surrounded the agents' car. Some of them wore uniforms of the local police. Among the gunmen was the former kingpin Osiel Cárdenas Guillén, who recognized the informant and ordered the three of them to get out of their vehicle.
José Manuel Garza Rendón, also known as La Brocha, is a Mexican convicted drug lord and former high-ranking member of the Gulf Cartel, a criminal group based in Tamaulipas, Mexico. In 1979, he was convicted of drug-related charges in the U.S. Back in Mexico in 1985, Garza Rendón joined the Federal Judicial Police; released in 1989, he joined the Gulf Cartel. His roles in the cartel were managing drug shipments from the U.S. to Mexico and serving as bodyguard to former kingpin Osiel Cárdenas Guillén.
On 1 January 2023, a gang stormed a prison in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, Mexico, resulting in the deaths of 19 people.
Ernesto Alfredo Piñón de la Cruz, also known as El Neto, was a Mexican criminal known for his leadership over Los Mexicles, a street gang based in Ciudad Juárez and allied with the Sinaloa Cartel.
La Empresa, The New Company or The Enterprise is a Colombian cartel and a Drug trafficking gang thats mainly based in the country of Colombia. La Empresa is a relatively new cartel that formed in Medellín during the late 1990s. The cartel was founded by Gerardo Santana Garza and Luis Mendez, Garza's brother Omar "The Gnome" Alejandro was also a major figure and member in the cartel. The cartel is alleged to be a "breakaway" cartel of the Juárez Cartel, many of the Juárez Cartel members became adversaries of the cartel and from 1998 the cartel became very undstable. In 1999 many members broke from the cartel and formed their own gangs. During the early 2000s, the Juarez members and drug lords from contiguous Mexican states forged an alliance that became known as 'The Golden Triangle Alliance' or 'La Alianza Triángulo de Oro' because of its three-state area of influence: Chihuahua, south of the U.S. state of Texas, Durango and Sinaloa, a few other gangs formed along with the alliance. La Empresa formed during this time and was one of the gangs.
Mexico