What's Going On in Drug Trafficking in Mexico?

 Like any contemporary self-respecting oligopoly or monopoly with global reach--petroleum producers, car manufacturers, smart-phone makers, airlines, cable news networks,etc.--Mexican drug cartels have hedged their bets on the future through diversification.  Today's drug organizations in Mexico have not only diversified their product portfolios.  Three decades ago cartels trafficked only of marijuana, cocaine, and heroin.  Since then drug cartels have become efficient producers of fentanyl (which has the highest profit margins) adding synthetic drugs, methamphetamines, etc. to the mix, but also into related activities such as extortion, money laundering, and weapons markets.  By any measure these oligopolies in Mexico are prospering and expanding their activities.  By continuing to specialize in illicit businesses, today's drug-based organizations continue to enjoy exceptionally high profit margins compared with, say the airline industry.  And, after a period of upstart organizations competing with the big boys for some of the action, the market appears to be stabilizing into a couple of major players with a handful of national organizations and a few dozen local organizations in on the action, affiliated to these giants.

The biggest player of them all is still the Sinaloa cartel, probably the oldest, operating in the Northwestern quadrant of Mexico.   After Chapo was sent to an escape-proof prison in the US, El Mayo Zambada is believed to have taken over some of the business.  He has been around a long time and is now over 70 years old.  Jose Esparragoza "El Azul," a fellow player, died of Covid, and there appears be an ongoing power struggle to replace this aging leadership.

Another major player by anyone's calculus is the CJNG, Jalisco's Nueva Generacion, operating largely in Central Mexico.  CJNG lost no time in expanding its activities when the Sinaloa Cartel was weakened a few years ago after the shake-up of Chapo's capture.  Headed by Nemesio Oseguera Martinez, "El Mencho," the cartel is also experiencing tensions related to a transition from El Mencho to younger lieutenants.

A host of other organizations take up a good deal of Mexico's geography, probably in more of a subsidiary role to these two giants, since no other organization has been able to corner the market on all facets of trafficking, from harvesting poppy seeds, obtaining farmaceutical products for making fentanyl, maintaining supply chains of cocaine from South America, etc., to delivering shipments to and across the border, warehousing of the product, government relations, laundering money, distributing the product to local retailers in large cities, etc.  Among these are the Juarez cartel, with it armed force called "la Linea," the Knights Templars, the Arellano Felix organization with its armed force "los Zetas" in Tijuana, La Familia Michoacana, and the Beltran Leyva organization.  And another one called Los Viagra.  Depending on the source, there are anywhere from 7 large-scale operations to hundreds of smaller organizations.  And at any given time one or more of these is on the up- or downswing.

Juarez has come under the cone of influence of the Sinaloa cartel, although the Juarez cartel is said to maintain an active and important presence in most parts of the city.

At the national level, each president for the past 7 or eight decades has had to deal with the economic and political realities of these organizations, and at the statewide and local levels governors have learned how to navigate between public opinion, which turns against the government when violence reaches high levels, and the demands of law enforcement officials who would thwart these activities.  President Lopez Obrador has focused most of his policy orientation toward dealing with organized criminal pipeline theft of oil--a serious issue affecting government revenues, rather than disrupting the activities of drug-specific organizations.