Mexico is home to some of the hemisphere’s largest, most sophisticated and violent organized criminal groups. These organizations have drawn from Mexico’s long history of smuggling and its close proximity to the United States, the world’s largest economy, to grow into a regional threat.
Early investigations indicate the CJNG is striking partnerships with drug rings in Guatemala that receive shipments of cocaine from Colombia and Venezuela and deliver them to the cartel.
Cattle from Mexico and the Central American nations of Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua help feed the domestic beef markets of each of these countries. The processed byproducts of some of…
Ranchers from Mexico's eastern state of Veracruz know a way to buy cheap cattle: Drive to a remote part of the Chiapas-Guatemala border and purchase cows being brought illegally across…
Mexico is home to some of the hemisphere’s largest, most sophisticated and violent organized criminal groups. These organizations have drawn from Mexico’s long history of smuggling and its close proximity to the United States, the world’s largest economy, to grow into a regional threat. Their networks stretch from Argentina to Canada and even into Europe. They traffic in illegal drugs, contraband, arms and humans, and launder their proceeds through regional moneychangers, banks and local economic projects. Their armament, training and tactics have become increasingly sophisticated as the Mexican government has ramped up efforts to combat them.
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Mexico's criminal landscape has morphed in recent years from one dominated by a handful of powerful cartels into a fragmented web of nearly 200 criminal groups defined by fragile and fast-changing alliances. While the Sinaloa Cartel and Jalisco Cartel New Generation (CJNG) still dominate the scene, other upstart, hyperviolent groups have carved out a place for themselves through oil theft and other predatory crimes like extortion and kidnapping.
The death of two indigenous leaders in Guerrero, Mexico, has again drawn attention to the government’s negligent protection of indigenous communities targeted by criminal groups throughout Mexico. In a…
Mexico's produce industry has taken another hit from cartel violence, as tens of millions of dollars worth of peaches are set to be lost after farmers abandoned their fields.
Mexico City authorities have sustained a two-year crackdown on the city’s largest gang, La Unión Tepito, arresting hundreds and freezing millions in assets as they attempt to destroy the group…
A US national who received smuggled AR-15 parts in Mexico and assembled the weapons for two of the country's most violent cartels shows that such firearms, known as ghost guns,…
The Mexican government's shuttering of a special criminal investigative unit that worked with US anti-drug agents has added new cracks in a security relationship that once formed the foundation of…
Mexican authorities have arrested a leader of the initially Guerrero-based Los Rojos crime group in the neighboring state of Michoacán, raising questions about the group’s potential expansion into new territory…
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