By María Victoria Llorente and Jeremy McDermott,  Raúl Benítez Manaut , Marta Lucía Ramírez de Rincón , John Bailey

Since the mid-2000s, violence related to drug trafficking and other transnational crime has increased exponentially in Mexico. By the end of the decade the public began to seriously doubt the government’s strategy and its ability to guarantee public safety. The nature and intensity of violence in Mexico brought forth memories of the 1980s and ’90s in Colombia, when the country was besieged by the Medellín and Cali drug cartels. Over the course of more than a decade, Colombia’s security situation has improved dramatically; it has become an “exporter” of security expertise and has trained thousands of military and police personnel in Mexico, Central and South America, and the Caribbean as well as around the world. What aspects of Colombia’s strategy and tactics for fighting organized crime in its own territory offer useful lessons for Mexico? What might Colombia’s steps and missteps offer by way of example or counter-example? What is unique about each case such that comparisons are misleading? What do current security challenges in Colombia suggest about the threat posed by organized crime more generally? In One Goal, Two Struggles: Confronting Crime and Violence in Mexico and Colombia, international experts address the utility of comparing Colombia and Mexico’s experiences and strategy for combatting organized crime and violence more generally.

By Barbara Kelemen | Ján Slobodník

Summary ▪ Mexico’s macroeconomic stability and abundant natural resources have made the country into an attractive destination for Chinese businesses. ▪ The country still suffers from a lack of internal security, most of it stemming from the Mexican Drug War, an ongoing multilateral lowintensity conflict between the Mexican government and a large number of criminal organizations. ▪ In some of Mexico’s states, pervasive violence and instability have resulted in a power vacuum. With the government being unable to guarantee security, non-state actors such as criminal organizations and/or civilian militias seize the opportunity to establish their own rule. ▪ When foreign companies operate in such troubled areas, they inevitably run into problems caused by Mexico’s security issues. ▪ Within this trend of foreign companies operating in Mexico, some level of tacit cooperation has been observed between Chinese businesses and non-state actors. This cooperation is often an outcome of localized security vacuums that are exploited by alternative security providers, such as criminal organizations, that can fill them and provide operational safety for local businesses. ▪ A growing body of research has identified the existence of Chinese illicit networks and their involvement in the trafficking of people, narcotics, and contraband goods, as well as money laundering and illegal arms trade in Mexico. ▪ Concealed under the guise of legal commercial activity, networks of Mexican criminal organizations and their Chinese business partners exploit the dire security situation in some areas of Mexico. ▪ Despite attempts by the Chinese and the Mexican governments to regulate certain sectors that contribute to the existence of the illicit networks in Mexico, there are still substantial opportunities that are ripe for exploitation by the criminal group-legitimate business partnerships.

By Nathan P. Jones and John P. Sullivan

Criminal cartels and gangs dominate the illicit economy in Mexico. These organized crime groups challenge the solvency (specifically capacity and legitimacy) of the state in Mexico. Organized crime in Mexico is involved in a range of activities including extortion, drug trafficking, human trafficking, and petroleum theft. Criminal cartels, often called drug trafficking organizations, have diversified into other illicit activities specifically petroleum theft. This paper provides an overview of the rise of a specialized organized criminal entity: huachicoleros. Huachicoleros specialize in fuel theft and like their narco counterparts use corruption and violence to protect their illicit market. The rise of Cártel de Santa Rosa Lima (CSRL) is discussed as a salient case study. The volatile mix of corruption, violence, and economic instability will be assessed, and government and national oil company (PEMEX) response is discussed

By Jan Slobodník

This study examines the militarised approach of the Mexican government in its struggle against organised crime between 2001 and 2016, focusing on the deployment of the armed forces and the implementation of the so-called kingpin strategy. It argues that the removal of cartel leaders, rather than weakening criminal networks, produced fragmentation, diversification, and militarisation within Mexico’s underworld—a process defined here as zetafication. The thesis uses the rise and evolution of Los Zetas as a case study to analyse how a criminal organisation born from army deserters introduced military tactics, hierarchical discipline, and extreme violence into organised crime, transforming the conflict’s character and the state’s response. Drawing on government reports, interviews with Mexican military officers and civilians, and contemporary scholarship, the study situates this phenomenon within Mexico’s political, legal, and socio-economic context, including the influence of U.S. security policy. It concludes that the use of the military as a policing tool produces short-term tactical gains but undermines long-term state stability, erodes public trust, and perpetuates cycles of violence.