Mexican drug war

Mexican drug war
	Part of the war on drugs
	; The Mexican military detaining suspects in Michoacán, 2007
Date	December 11, 2006 – present ; (17 years, 5 months and 1 day)
Location	Throughout Mexico, with occasional spillover across international borders into Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, and California, and also into the Central and South American countries of El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Belize, Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador and Guatemala
Status	Ongoing
Belligerents
Mexico Armed Forces; National Guard; (2019–present); Federal Police; (2006–2019); State and municipal police forces; Self-defense groups; Consulting and training support by: United States through the Mérida Initiative; Colombia through the National Police of Colombia; Australia through the Australian Federal Police; Canada through the Royal Canadian Mounted Police's Anti-Crime Capacity Building Program (ACCBP); Guerrilla groups:; Popular Revolutionary Army (EPR); Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN)	Mexican cartels: Sinaloa Cartel; CJNG; LNFM Los Viagras; ; Weakened and defunct cartels: Gulf Cartel Los Metros; ; LFM; CSRL; Los Zetas; Juárez Cartel; Tijuana Cartel; Cárteles Unidos; La Barredora; La Unión Tepito; Milenio Cartel; (2006–2010); BLO (2006–2017); CIDA (2010–2014); Knights Templar Cartel; (2011–2017);
Commanders and leaders
Felipe Calderón (2006–2012); Enrique Peña Nieto (2012–2018); Andrés Manuel López Obrador (2018–present); Guillermo Galván (2006–2012); Salvador Cienfuegos (2012–2018); Luis Cresencio Sandoval (2018–present); Mariano Francisco Saynez (2006–2012); Vidal Francisco Soberón Sanz (2012–2018); José Rafael Ojeda (2018–present);	"El Mayo"; "El Chapo" (incarcerated); "El Vicentillo" (incarcerated); "El Chapito"; "El Ratón" (incarcerated); "El Coss" (incarcerated); "El Viceroy" (incarcerated); "El Ingeniero" (incarcerated); "La Tuta" (incarcerated); "El Chango" (incarcerated); "El Tío" (incarcerated); "El General" (incarcerated); "El Grande" (incarcerated); "La Barbie" (incarcerated); "La Jefa"; "El Teo" (incarcerated); "El Ingeniero" (incarcerated); "El Z-40" (incarcerated); "El Z-42" (incarcerated); "El L-50" (incarcerated); "El Goyo" (incarcerated); "El Mencho"; "El 85" (incarcerated); "El Cuini" (incarcerated); "El Menchito" (incarcerated); "El Tony Montana" (incarcerated); "El Marro" (incarcerated);
Strength
Mexico 368,000 police officers; 277,000 Soldiers; 107,000 National Guard members; 23,300 Self-defense group; 9,000 Guerrillas group;	Cartels: 100,000+ individuals;
Casualties and losses
Mexico: 400 servicemen killed and 137 missing; 4,038 federal, state, and municipal police killed; 66 members of the Policía Comunitaria killed; EPR: 2 EPR members killed;	Cartels: 12,456 cartel members killed (2006–2010); 121,199 cartel members detained (2006–2009); 8,500 cartel members convicted (2006–2010);
	Total casualties: 41,034 dead in war conflicts between identified parties 2006–Present (total 350,000–400,000 dead from organized crime homicides 2006–Present); 60,000+ missing;

The Mexican drug war (also known as the Mexican war on drugs; Spanish: Guerra contra el narcotráfico en México, shortened to and commonly known inside Mexico as War against the narco; Spanish: Guerra contra el narco)^[29] is an ongoing asymmetric^[30]^[31] armed conflict between the Mexican government and various drug trafficking syndicates. When the Mexican military intervened in 2006, the government's main objective was to reduce drug-related violence.^[32] The Mexican government has asserted that their primary focus is dismantling the cartels and preventing drug trafficking. The conflict has been described as the Mexican theater of the global war on drugs, as led by the United States federal government.^[33]

Violence escalated after the arrest of Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo in 1989. He was the leader and the co-founder of the first major Mexican drug cartel; the Guadalajara Cartel, an alliance of the current existing cartels (which included the Sinaloa Cartel, the Juarez Cartel, the Tijuana Cartel, and the Sonora Cartel with Aldair Mariano as the leader). After his arrest, the alliance broke and high-ranking members formed their own cartels, fighting for control of territory and trafficking routes.

Although Mexican drug trafficking organizations have existed for several decades, their influence increased^[34]^[35] after the demise of the Colombian Cali and Medellín cartels in the 1990s. By 2007, Mexican drug cartels controlled 90% of the cocaine entering the United States.^[36]^[37] Arrests of key cartel leaders, particularly in the Tijuana and Gulf cartels, have led to increasing drug violence as cartels fight for control of the trafficking routes into the United States.^[38]^[39]^[40]

Federal law enforcement has been reorganized at least five times since 1982 in various attempts to control corruption and reduce cartel violence. During the same period, there have been at least four elite special forces created as new, corruption-free soldiers who could do battle with Mexico's endemic bribery system.^[41] Analysts estimate that wholesale earnings from illicit drug sales range from $13.6 to $49.4 billion annually.^[36]^[42]^[43] The U.S. Congress passed legislation in late June 2008 to provide Mexico with US$1.6 billion for the Mérida Initiative as well as technical advice to strengthen the national justice systems. By the end of President Felipe Calderón's administration (December 1, 2006 – November 30, 2012), the official death toll of the Mexican drug war was at least 60,000.^[44] Estimates set the death toll above 120,000 killed by 2013, not including 27,000 missing.^[45]^[46] Since taking office in 2018, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador declared that the war was over. His comment was criticized, as the homicide rate remains high.

^ Cite error: The named reference mexico.cnn.com was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^ "A new post combating an ever-evolving threat". Australian Federal Police (AFP). May 11, 2018.
^ "Security".
^ "How Mexico's guerrilla army stayed clear of organized crime". www.insightcrime.org. January 9, 2012.
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^ "Las alianzas criminales del CJNG para expandirse en México". 9 October 2019.
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^ "UCDP - Uppsala Conflict Data Program". ucdp.uu.se. Retrieved January 9, 2021.
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^ "Mexico - UCDP - Uppsala Conflict Data Program". ucdp.uu.se. Retrieved June 25, 2020.
^ José Luis Pardo Veiras and Íñigo Arredondo (June 14, 2021). "Una Guerra Inventada y 350,000 Muertos en México". The Washington Post. Retrieved June 19, 2022.
^ "Mexican drug war's hidden human toll includes 61,000 disappeared". Reuters. 7 January 2020.
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^ Dilanian, Ken (17 March 2023). "Drug war cooperation between the U.S. and Mexico is at its lowest point in decades. What went wrong?". NBC News. National Broadcasting Company. Retrieved 19 June 2023.
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[mexico.cnn.com-1] Cite error: The named reference mexico.cnn.com was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

[2] "A new post combating an ever-evolving threat". Australian Federal Police (AFP). May 11, 2018.

[3] "Security".

[4] "How Mexico's guerrilla army stayed clear of organized crime". www.insightcrime.org. January 9, 2012.

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[7] "Las alianzas criminales del CJNG para expandirse en México". 9 October 2019.

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[13] "Why is Honduras so violent". Insight Crime. October 2015.

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[21] "UCDP - Uppsala Conflict Data Program". ucdp.uu.se. Retrieved January 9, 2021.

[22] "UCDP - Uppsala Conflict Data Program". ucdp.uu.se. Retrieved January 9, 2021.

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[26] "Mexico - UCDP - Uppsala Conflict Data Program". ucdp.uu.se. Retrieved June 25, 2020.

[27] José Luis Pardo Veiras and Íñigo Arredondo (June 14, 2021). "Una Guerra Inventada y 350,000 Muertos en México". The Washington Post. Retrieved June 19, 2022.

[28] "Mexican drug war's hidden human toll includes 61,000 disappeared". Reuters. 7 January 2020.

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[33] Dilanian, Ken (17 March 2023). "Drug war cooperation between the U.S. and Mexico is at its lowest point in decades. What went wrong?". NBC News. National Broadcasting Company. Retrieved 19 June 2023.

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