By Vivian Mateos Zúñiga and David A. Shirk

Scholars and legalization advocates have argued that the legalization of cannabis would help curb drug flows from Mexico and weaken criminal organizations south of the border. However, there is little empirical research examining how the legalization of cannabis for medical and recreational purposes at the state-level in the United States has affected production levels and flows of cannabis from Mexico. To examine the theory that drug legalization reduces the incentives and profits for international drug trafficking organizations (DTOs), the authors draw on a mixed methodological approach that includes descriptive and inferential statistical analysis of data from the U.S. State Department, archival research using primary and open-source documents from U.S. and Mexican government and media sources, and interviews with U.S. officials and security experts to analyze trends in seizures and legalization. Drawing on this information, we employ a series of statistical tests to examine the relationship of greater legal access to cannabis in U.S. states—measured by the percentage of the population living in states with access to legalized medical or recreational marijuana over time—to illegal eradication and seizures of drugs by Mexican government and U.S. border authorities. We use this measurable outcome as a proxy for illicit drug production and transshipment in Mexico. We find a substantial and statistically significant decrease in the amounts of cannabis apprehended by Mexican and U.S. border authorities in relation to the rate of legalization in the United States using our measurements of drug legalization. At the same time, the authors find additional statistically significant evidence that, as legal access to cannabis has increased, flows of other illicit drugs increased simultaneously, suggesting that criminal organizations have diversified into other drugs to remain profitable, particularly heroin and methamphetamine. Our findings do not find any evidence that cocaine has been significantly affected, for reasons we discuss.   

Volume 19, Number 1 January 2022 San Diego: Justice in Mexico, University of San Diego, 2022.

By Laura Y. Calderón

Mexico had the most violent year in its history in 2019, reporting 29,406 intentional homicide cases, resulting in 34,588 individual victims.1 However, violence remains a highly focalized phenomenon in Mexico, with 23% of all intentional homicide cases concentrated in five municipalities and three major clusters of violence with homicide rates over 100 per 100,000 inhabitants. Following the national trend, the state of Guanajuato also had its most violent year in 2019, with one of its largest cities featured in the country’s top five most violent municipalities. This paper will analyze the surge in violence in Guanajuato in 2019, comparing the number of intentional homicide cases with the increasing problem of fuel theft in the state, and describing some of the state and federal government measures to address both issues. II. Background The central Mexican state of Guanajuato is a traditional agricultural-producing region, a major manufacturing hub, and a popular vacation and retirement destination for foreigners. Considered a relatively wealthy state and constituting 4.4% of the national Gross Domestic Product (GDP), Guanajuato boasts the sixth-largest economy in Mexico. The state also holds second place in terms of growth in the manufacturing sector, which makes up 26% of the state’s GDP. Guanajuato is home to economically important industries that attract considerable foreign direct investment to Mexico, including the automobile and chemical industries, among others.2 However, over the last several years, Guanajuato has been one of Mexico’s top 10 most violent states, and two of its largest cities —León and Irapuato— were among Mexico’s top 10 most violent municipalities in 2018 and 2019. The state of Guanajuato also had the highest number of organized crime-related homicides in 2019 with 2,673 cases,  according to Reforma. 3 Additionally, Guanajuato was featured in Milenio’s top five states with the highest number of murders every month in 2019, calculating 2,934 organized crime-related deaths. 4 Furthermore, Guanajuato was tied with Estado de México as the second most dangerous place for elected officials in 2019, according to Justice in Mexico’s Memoria dataset. 5 Guanajuato attracted media attention especially in 2019 because of a dramatic increase in violence. While few available studies are exploring the origins and source of increased violence in Guanajuato, there seems to be one factor that has not been fully studied in terms of violence trends: fuel theft. III. Huachicoleo and Organized Crime Groups Fuel theft is one of the most recent developments in Mexico’s violent crime spectrum, gaining nationwide notoriety in early 2017. Gasoline truck drivers, or chupaductos (pipeline suckers), were the first to adopt the name huachicol to refer to stolen hydrocarbons in Mexico.6 It is still complicated to track the origin of the word, as technically, it refers to an adulterated alcoholic beverage derived from cane alcohol. However, huachicol is also believed to come from the Mayan culture, where the word “huach” or “waach” means “foreigner,” and in some Mayan regions, “thief.”7 This term lead to the colloquial name huachicolero to refer to petroleum thieves. 8 The practice of huachicoleo has been an increasing problem in Mexico, with organized crime groups (OCGs) competing to control its revenues in a manner similar to the way in which they compete over drug-trafficking territories or plazas. Huachicoleo takes place in two different forms: through puncturing gas pipelines, which carry 20% of the country’s supply, or by stealing it on the go from the fuel distribution gas trucks on Mexico’s main highways.9 In socio-economic terms, the increase of fuel theft is partially attributable to the rise of oil prices in Mexico over the last few years, when gas went from an average of 5.00 Mexican pesos per liter (roughly 0.27 USD) in 2000, to 19.40 Mexican pesos per liter (roughly 1.03 USD) by December 2019 as shown in the chart below. 10 The population’s alleged inability or unwillingness to pay such high prices is believed to have created a greater demand for lower-cost gas—a demand that OCGs were willing to fulfill. Highway-side vendors started selling stolen gasoline from 5 to 10 Mexican pesos per liter (roughly 0.27 to 0.54 USD), depending on the distance from actual pipelines. 11 Networks of huachicoleros have established their vending points along major highways throughout Mexico, especially in central Mexico, where some of these vending points are disguised as legal commercial establishments such as tire shops, car repair workshops, coffee shops, restaurants, and other informal businesses.   

San Diego:  Justice in Mexico Department of Political Science & International Relations University of San Diego, 2020. 28p,

By Jesús Gorrín,  José Morales-Arilla , Bernardo Ricca

This paper documents how violence resulting from the Mexican Drug War hindered local export growth. Focusing on exports allows us to abstract from demand factors and measure effects on the local capacity to supply foreign markets. We compare exports of the same product to the same country, but facing differential exposure to violence after a close electoral outcome. Firms exogenously exposed to the Drug War experienced lower export growth. Violence eroded the local capacity to attract capital investment, disproportionately hampering large exporters and capital-intensive activities

2021. 60p.

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

Transnational criminal organizations trafficking drugs from Mexico to the United States have existed since the Prohibition era in the United States. But the violence associated with this trafficking—and related movements of other illicit goods as well as undocumented migrants—increased exponentially beginning in the mid-2000s, threatening Mexico’s national security. During the six-year administration of President Felipe Calderón (2006-12) estimates of those killed in drug-related violence reached 70,000, with an additional 20,000 “disappeared.” The upsurge in violence in many areas of the country reflected a combination of fighting between rival drug trafficking organizations seeking territorial control of criminal markets and dominance of lucrative trafficking corridors, as well as clashes between the traffickers and government security forces. By 2010, some Mexican cities registered homicide rates that were among the highest in the world and the public began to seriously doubt the government’s strategy and its ability to guarantee public safety. The scope of the violence and its frequently gruesome and shocking character, and the government’s seeming inability to bring it under control, brought forth memories of an earlier period in Latin America, when Colombia was besieged by the violence of the Medellín and Cali drug trafficking cartels. The Colombian crisis of the 1980s and ’90s involved multiple ways the state was losing ground to guerrilla and paramilitary groups in addition to drug traffickers. But like Mexico, the cost in human lives and government legitimacy was huge Over the course of more than a decade, Colombia’s security situation has improved dramatically. With significant international cooperation, the guerrillas have been weakened militarily and coca cultivation and cocaine production have been reduced. Most analysts agree that at least some of the security crisis in Mexico (as well as Central America) is due to ways that security advances and improvements in state capacity in Colombia forced traffickers to search for new smuggling routes and ways to market their illicit product. This is true even though, as several chapters in this publication indicate, organized criminal groups remain an important source of instability in Colombia, having mutated and fragmented in response to government pressure. Former paramilitary fighters, who demobilized in the early 2000s as a result of peace talks with the government, are important actors in the new manifestations of organized crime. Colombia is now a major player in South-South security cooperation, offering training to over 2,500 Mexican military and police officials between 2010 and 2012, as well as to over 5,000 members of the security forces from Central America and the Caribbean and over 2,000 from South America during the same time period.1 A former director of the Colombian National Police, General Óscar Naranjo, served as an adviser to the administration of Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto. The United States funds some of Colombia’s programs abroad and U.S. officials have expressed satisfaction and pride in Colombia’s success. In a May 2013 visit to Colombia, Vice President Biden paid “personal tribute” to President Santos and “the people of Colombia for the remarkable, remarkable progress you’ve made…” in dealing with the country’s security concerns. Biden went on to mention Colombia’s training of “thousands of law enforcement officers and security officers from over 40 countries since 2009.”  But precisely 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? To reflect on these questions, the Latin American Program commissioned a series of papers from international experts with a wealth of experience on issues of security, violence, and transnational criminal organizations. This publication includes two chapters analyzing the usefulness of comparing Colombia and Mexico’s experiences in combatting organized crime, as well as the potential for using Colombia’s successes as lessons for Mexico’s security strategy. Maria Victoria Llorente of Fundación Ideas para la Paz and Jeremy McDermott of Insight Crime argue that Colombia does not represent a ready template for Mexico’s fight against violence and organized crime, although its long experience may provide insight into Mexico’s future. The second paper, by Raúl Benítez Manaut, a researcher at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), contends that Colombia does offer positive lessons about how reform of the defense sector and professionalization of the police can yield measurable results for Mexico. Commentaries by Marta Lucía Ramírez de Rincón, former Minister of Defense of Colombia, and John Bailey of Georgetown University, deepen and take issue with the analyses provided by Llorente and McDermott and Benítez. .     

,Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, 2014. 128p. Scholars

By Romain Le Cour Grandmaison

This article explores the construction – or reconstruction – of brokerage channels by violent actors in Mexico. It focuses on the construction of the Autodefensas de Michoacán (Self Defense Groups of Michoacán) and studies the process that put illegal armed leaders in active dialogue with the Mexican federal government, but also how they became brokers capable of controlling access to strategic political resources, economic markets, and the connections that tie local citizens and the central state. Through the concept of political inter-mediation, I investigate how coercion, as a skill and resource, has become central to governance in Mexico; and how this leads to consolidating intermediaries that participate in reproducing local, violent political order. This article shall contribute to the understanding of brokerage in contexts of violence, and shed new light on the political logic fueling the dynamics of violence in Mexico’s war on drugs. Keywords: drug cartels, brokerage, Mexico, war on drugs, state, violence.   

European Review of Latin American and Caribbean Studies / Revista Europea de Estudios Latinoamericanos y del Caribe, No. 112 (July-December 2021), pp. 137-158  

By María Calderón 

When it comes to an understanding of political violence in Mexico, there is a risk of solely equating it with criminal groups' activities or exclusively attributing it to such groups. However, the political violence phenomenon in Mexico is complex and diverse, with a particular nexus to locally based illicit economies, for which an all-containing approach is insufficient. About half of the political violence that occurred in Mexico during the 2018 elections was directly attributed to organized crime. During such time, political figures were killed at a rate of one per week. These numbers support the growing concern about criminal groups' involvement in Mexican politics. Criminal groups have used political violence in several ways: directly manipulating and influencing elections, protecting incumbent candidates with whom they have struck an agreement, killing candidates who are perceived as a threat to their interests, intimidating poll workers, and attacking and stealing voting booths, among others. The decrease in the profitability of trafficking heroin and cannabis, the legalization of marijuana in many US states, and increased fentanyl usage have forced cartels to recalibrate strategies and markets. Nowadays, criminal groups have partially shifted towards locally based illicit economies, such as oil theft, extortion, kidnapping, and other illegal activities that require control of local territories. All these variables come into play when understanding that criminalized electoral politics is a predominantly local phenomenon in Mexico. Political violence by criminal groups in Mexico is motivated by multiple factors, including economic interests, political objectives, and vendettas. Criminal organizations often avoid open confrontation when attacking politicians or political candidates, opting for other less visible techniques to minimize the impacts on police and law enforcement agencies, such as corruption. Installing or co-opting candidates at the municipal level has afforded criminal groups direct influence over the actions of local and state police. Access to intelligence on pending arrests or other operations has also proven beneficial for criminal organizations. Political influence has allowed criminal groups to employ local security forces as appendages of their organizations to detain or kill targets and to protect the transportation of illicit goods. Moreover, criminal organizations have tapped into state finances by coopting government employees.

Washington, DC:  Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, 2024  6p.   

By Guadalupe Correa-Cabrera, Charles Lewis and William Yaworsky

This article explains some of the mechanisms through which corruption by high-level Mexican politicians and other organized crime members is facilitated in the United States through money laundering operations. The analysis is based on information contained in court records related to key money laundering cases, as well as in news articles and reports from law enforcement agencies. These materials highlight the interrelationships among U.S. drug use, cartel activities in Mexico, human rights abuses, Mexican political corruption, and money laundering in the United States. This work demonstrates the pervasive use of legitimate businesses and fronts in the United States as a disguise for criminal activity. Finally, it provides recommendations for a reformation of policies and penalties directed toward U.S. institutions and persons that facilitate money laundering.

Journal of Illicit Economies and Development, 6(1): pp. 64–78. 2024

José Carlos Hernández-Gutiérrez

The phenomenon of organized crime in Mexico is not new. However, it is no less true that, for a few years now, violence caused by or related to criminal organizations has been registering higher levels than ever. This has caused, from different spheres, to wonder if indeed the problem facing the country can still be called organized crime. Can non-state armed actors in Mexico qualify as terrorists? Have they evolved into some form of insurgency? The author of these pages, after conducting a bibliographic review on the variants of terrorism and insurgency used by some authors to refer to the Mexican case, affirms that Mexican criminal organizations are not terrorists or insurgents, but rather profit-making organizations that make a tactical use of terrorism and / or insurgency to achieve economic benefits or the goals of their organizations.

2021, Los desafíos de la globalización: respuestas desde América Latina y la Unión Europea

By María Calderón

 When it comes to an understanding of political violence in Mexico, there is a risk of solely equating it with criminal groups' activities or exclusively attributing it to such groups. However, the political violence phenomenon in Mexico is complex and diverse, with a particular nexus to locally based illicit economies, for which an all-containing approach is insufficient. About half of the political violence that occurred in Mexico during the 2018 elections was directly attributed to organized crime. During such time, political figures were killed at a rate of one per week. These numbers support the growing concern about criminal groups' involvement in Mexican politics. Criminal groups have used political violence in several ways: directly manipulating and influencing elections, protecting incumbent candidates with whom they have struck an agreement, killing candidates who are perceived as a threat to their interests, intimidating poll workers, and attacking and stealing voting booths, among others. The decrease in the profitability of trafficking heroin and cannabis, the legalization of marijuana in many US states, and increased fentanyl usage have forced cartels to recalibrate strategies and markets. Nowadays, criminal groups have partially shifted towards locally based illicit economies, such as oil theft, extortion, kidnapping, and other illegal activities that require control of local territories. All these variables come into play when understanding that criminalized electoral politics is a predominantly local phenomenon in Mexico. Political violence by criminal groups in Mexico is motivated by multiple factors, including economic interests, political objectives, and vendettas. Criminal organizations often avoid open confrontation when attacking politicians or political candidates, opting for other less visible techniques to minimize the impacts on police and law enforcement agencies, such as corruption. Installing or co-opting candidates at the municipal level has afforded criminal groups direct influence over the actions of local and state police. Access to intelligence on pending arrests or other operations has also proven beneficial for criminal organizations. Political influence has allowed criminal groups to employ local security forces as appendages of their organizations to detain or kill targets and to protect the transportation of illicit goods. Moreover, criminal organizations have tapped into state finances by co-opting government employees. 

Washington, DC: Wilson Center, 2024. 6p.

By Vlado Vivoda, Ghaleb Krame and Martin Spraggon

Oil theft refers to the exploitation of crude oil or refined petroleum products for criminal purposes. In Mexico, oil theft—referred to as huachicolero—is endemic and widespread. By framing it within the energy security and transition context, this paper offers a new perspective on the problem of oil theft in Mexico. Focusing on crude oil and refined petroleum, the paper demonstrates that Mexico’s energy security—as framed around the 4As (availability, accessibility, affordability, and acceptance)—has deteriorated over the past decade. Application of the 4As framework in the Mexican context shows that the increasing frequency of oil theft has contributed to this deterioration. The proposed solution to the energy security and oil theft problems is centred on Mexico moving from gasoline and diesel to electrification in the transportation sector. The paper demonstrates that, while transport electrification in Mexico has been lagging behind other countries, recent developments in the country point to growing momentum among the country’s political and business elites, in tandem with US partners, in support for the energy transition. Areas where further emphasis should be placed to accelerate Mexico’s energy transition in the transportation sector are identified. Finally, the feasibility of and potential limitations associated with implementing the transition are evaluated.

Resources 2023, 12(2), 30; https://doi.org/10.3390/resources12020030

By Radha Barooah and Ana Paula Oliveira Siria Gastélum Félix

This brief aims to bring specific local perspectives to the broader global policymaking agenda, and is intended to inform government officials and policymakers, as well as civil society groups working in this field.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY People from all walks of life have disappeared during Mexico’s so-called ‘war on drugs’; many others become victims of the growing global human trafficking industry; migrants go missing as they travel to seek a better life elsewhere, often displaced by criminal groups. Vulnerable youth, particularly young boys, are co-opted by criminal interests and then ‘disappeared’ to forcibly join gangs, often groomed to provide gang ‘muscle’ or traffic drugs.1 Women and children are often trafficked for sexual exploitation and forced labour.2 Many activists, journalists, politicians and whistle-blowers who campaign against organized crime or corruption have disappeared. Disappearances – as we define the phenomenon in this paper – are deployed for various reasons: to silence the voices of social and political leaders, activists and journalists; to assert violent control over criminal territories and illicit markets; or to monetize vulnerable people as a tradeable commodity. In all these cases, criminal groups have a hand, and although organized crime-related disappearances vary in motive and scope, they disproportionately affect the most marginalized communities. Criminal groups therefore instrumentalize disappearances for different objectives. But a fundamental challenge of dealing with this widespread problem is that cases are rarely differentiated and often assumed by law enforcement authorities to be one-off isolated incidents. However, when examining this issue closely, there is a more menacing pattern behind them, namely that they are often perpetrated by organized criminal groups operating in a particular community or controlling a market territory. By not discerning this broader picture of underlying criminal intent, by focusing on the what and ignoring the why, the phenomenon tends to receive limited attention in public policy agendas. There is also inadequate institutional support and investigative work, which has the effect of impeding victims’ access to justice. The international framework designed to address enforced disappearances – the International Convention for Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearances (ICPPED)3 – requires that state involvement in the act (in the form of collusion, authorization or acquiescence) is proven in order to trigger its obligations. Compounding this, the conditions of state involvement and the role of organized crime actors are not clearly set out in the wording of the convention, so cases of disappearances linked to illicit economies tend to be confined to the margins of national and international agendas. Meanwhile, the international human rights discourse on disappearances perpetrated by non-state actors (e.g. criminal groups or networks) has progressed to a certain degree, but it, too, remains ill-equipped to determine the conditions and factors of collusion between organized crime and state actors that would amount to authorization, acquiescence or omission. These imprecisions and gaps in the legal framework result in a general lack of institutional support for victims and their families. Despite this, individuals and communities affected by this crime have developed mechanisms to respond. Since 2019, the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC), through its Resilience Fund, has supported over 50 community-based initiatives and activists searching for people who have disappeared, including relatives seeking justice and journalists investigating disappearances related to organized crime around the world.4 The Resilience Fund has documented first-hand experiences through interviews and dialogues and provided financial and capacity-building support.5 This brief draws from the work and perspectives of such civil society and community members who live in environments that are exposed to disappearances. It assesses this form of organized crime as a serious human rights violation. While informed by the global dynamics of this criminal market, it focuses on contexts in which disappearances occur in Latin America, analyzing in particular the cases of Mexico and Venezuela. The first setting examines how criminal groups strategically deploy disappearances to fulfill various objectives; the other considers how disappearances occur in the mining sector, which experiences a high prevalence of criminality. This policy brief therefore aims to bring these specific local perspectives to the broader global policymaking agenda, and is intended to inform government officials and policymakers, as well as civil society groups working in this field. While some of the evidence in the brief is anecdotal, the authors have corroborated it with open-source data and a literature review. The analysis is exploratory and is designed to add to a small yet growing body of literature on disappearances among vulnerable communities exposed to organized crime and amplify understanding of the pressing nature of the problem in policy circles.

Geneva, SWIT: Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime. 2024. 28p.

By C.J. Valaseka , Samantha A. Streuli a, Heather A. Pines , Steffanie A. Strathdeec , Annick Borquez , Philippe Bourgois , Tara Stamos-Buesige , Carlos F. Verac , Alicia Harvey-Verac , Angela R. Bazzi

Background: People who use drugs (PWUD) in the San Diego, USA and Tijuana, Mexico metroplex face high overdose risk related to historic methamphetamine use and relatively recent fentanyl introduction into local drug supplies. The personal overdose experiences of PWUD in this region are understudied, however, and may have been influenced by the COVID pandemic. Methods: From September-November 2021, we conducted 28 qualitative interviews among PWUD ≥18 years old sampled from an ongoing cohort study in the San Diego-Tijuana metroplex. Interviews explored overdose experiences and changes in the drug supply. Thematic analysis of coded interview transcripts explored overdose experiences, perspectives on drug supply changes, interactions with harm reduction services, and naloxone access. Results: Among 28 participants, 13 had experienced an overdose. Participants discussed rising levels of fentanyl in local drug supplies and increasing overdose incidents in their social networks. Participants discussed a general shift from injecting heroin to smoking fentanyl in their networks. Participants’ most common concerns included having consistent access to a safe and potent drug supply and naloxone. Conclusion: Participants prioritized adapting to drug supply changes and preventing overdose compared to other health concerns, such as HIV and COVID-19. Efforts to address overdose in this region could benefit from drug checking services and expanded, equitable delivery of naloxone.

Volume 7, June 2023, 100154, Drug and Alcohol Dependence Reports

by Stephanie Brewer and Ana Lucia Verduzco

Mexico’s federal government is increasingly militarizing civilian tasks within and outside the realm of public security. Previous presidents presented militarization as a temporary measure that would allow time to strengthen civilian institutions—though in practice, military deployment became the permanent model, largely at the expense of prioritizing other security and justice strategies and institutions. The current government, however, promotes a broad militarization of civilian tasks in the long term, including through the militarization of the National Guard. The power and roles of the armed forces are growing without effective civilian controls over their actions. While the levels of serious human rights violations attributed to the military have fallen following the end of former president Felipe Calderón’s term, such violations continue to occur. More broadly, Mexico continues to experience historic levels of violence, and the vast majority of crimes go unpunished. Without minimizing positive reforms and steps forward, access to justice remains a fundamental challenge. In this context, it is crucial to improve criminal investigations and strengthen the capacities and accountability of the country’s police institutions. The military’s growing list of civilian tasks is a trend that will not be easily reversed, but demilitarizing public security and consolidating civilian institutions is the necessary route to strengthen the rule of law. In the meantime, the government must install effective civilian controls over the armed forces.

Mexico: WOLA- Adovcacy for Human Rights in Mexico, 2023, 61p.

By Andres Martinez-Fernandez

Key Points

• Corruption is an urgent challenge in Mexico that undermines political stability, economic development, the rule of law, efforts to combat organized crime, and the effectiveness of public services.

• Corruption in Mexico’s security forces is a key contributor to the sharp rise of organized criminal violence and severely handicaps US-Mexico security cooperation against drug cartels.

• President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s emphasis on combating money laundering and his empowerment of Mexico’s Financial Intelligence Unit are positive developments for the government’s anti-corruption efforts. However, an increasingly hostile stance to US-Mexico security cooperation, the politicization of investigations, neglect of independent institutions, and inattention to cartel corruption are all concerning.

• The US should use a combination of diplomatic engagement, expanded cooperation against money laundering, and unilateral enforcement actions to restore trust and the effectiveness of bilateral security and anti-corruption cooperation while pushing Mexico to address its anti-corruption blind spots.

Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute, 2021. 32p.

By International Crisis Group

What’s new? Mexico’s criminal groups use social media to garner popular support, denigrate rivals, glorify narco-culture and coordinate violence. Social media is also crucial for providing timely information about flare-ups of violence, particularly since journalists face major threats to their safety, which heavily circumscribes their ability to report from many crime-affected municipalities.

Why does it matter? These criminal groups are recruiting and spreading disinformation online, making them stronger and creating a glut of unverified information that puts civilians at greater risk. Platforms have struggled to respond appropriately.

What should be done? Platforms should boost resources for online monitoring, especially when violence is spiking. Given social media’s importance in disseminating information, platforms should modify their algorithms to demote posts supporting criminal groups and work with civil society to identify trusted accounts, including anonymous ones. Mexico’s government should also invest in protecting journalists.

Brussels: Crisis Group, 2024

By The International Crisis Group

The number of women active in Mexico’s criminal organisation has risen steadily in recent years. Women often view joining criminal groups as a way of protecting themselves from gender-based violence and acquiring the power and respect they lack in law-abiding society. Searing personal accounts, media reports and data analysis of the prison census all point to the conclusion that Mexican women are joining criminal outfits in greater numbers. Frequently from poor backgrounds and broken families, young women offenders report that they drifted into criminality through their partners or connections they forged at drug use hotspots. Male crime bosses tend to value women for their perceived competence, respect for hierarchy and ability to evade police attention. Women’s presence in illegal groups has strengthened these organisations. It has also more deeply embedded crime in the fabric of Mexican society and within families. Deterring women and children from lives of crime will require the state and non-governmental organisations to provide alternative pathways to earning a living through initiatives in, for example, jails, drug rehabilitation centres and schools. The ascent of women in Mexican crime groups represents a striking departure from how they have traditionally intersected with these organisations. Women and their bodies have long been targets of Mexican criminal outfits. When these organisations battle for turf, they often commit femicides and “disappearances” of women – namely, killing them and disposing of the remains – in part to demonstrate dominance in a geographical region. Witness how crimes against women have increased in areas where illegal organisations jockey for control: killing sprees erupted in the border city of Ciudad Juárez in the 1990s and more recently in Zacatecas, Puebla, Veracruz, the State of Mexico and other places where criminal groups are vying for power. But increasing numbers of women are attracted to the benefits they can reap from joining a criminal organisation. Gender-based violence is rife in Mexico, and judicial redress is virtually non-existent. Young women interviewed for this report almost uniformly experienced abuse in their homes and communities. Most noted that the support of criminal groups and the status they acquire within them can offer protection, recognition and even dignity – in addition, of course, to income.

Brussels: International Crisis Groups, 2023. 39p.

By Roxana Gutiérrez-Romero and Nayely Iturbe

When does organized crime resort to assassinating politicians? In narcocracies, criminal groups co-opt political elites through bribery in exchange for protection to traffic illegal drugs. When criminal groups compete, they may also resort to political violence to influence which candidate wins local elections in strategic areas and retaliate when state action threatens their survival. Using new data on political assassinations in Mexico during 2000–21, we show that political candidates are more likely to be assassinated in areas close to oil pipelines used by drug trafficking organizations for oil theft. Former mayors of areas near oil pipelines remain at high risk of assassination. In municipalities where at least one mayor has already been killed, the arrest of a member of organized crime significantly increases the chance that an incumbent mayor will be killed. Political violence is directed at politicians, not voters, so it has a negligible impact on voter turnout. 

WIDER Working Paper 2023/7 . Helsinki: UNU-WIDER, 2023. 43p.

By  Lorenzo Rodrigo Aldeco Leo, Jose A. Jurado, Aurora A. Ramírez-Álvarez

  This document studies the effect of the homicide rate on internal migration in Mexico. Reduced form evidence shows that net migration of skilled workers decreases into local labor markets where homicide rates increased after 2007, suggesting workers prefer destinations with lower homicide rates. This result is due to lower inflows, without effects on outflows, pointing to the existence of moving costs. To quantify the welfare cost of increasing homicides, we use workers' migration decisions and a spatial equilibrium model. Skilled workers' average willingness to pay to decrease the homicide rate by 1% is estimated at 0.58% of wages. The welfare cost is in the order of several points of GDP per year, depending on the assumptions. Workers who do not migrate bear the largest share of the overall welfare cost

Working Paper, 2022: 11 Mexico City: Banco de México 2022. 53p.  

By  Vanda Felbab-Brown

  This paper explores the trends, characteristics, and changes in the Mexican criminal market, in response to internal changes, government policies, and external factors. It explores the nature of violence and criminality, the behavior of criminal groups, and the effects of government responses. • Over the past two decades, criminal violence in Mexico has become highly intense, diversified, and popularized, while the deterrence capacity of Mexican law enforcement remains critically low. The outcome is an ever more complex, multipolar, and out-of-control criminal market that generates deleterious effects on Mexican society and makes it highly challenging for the Mexican state to respond effectively. • Successive Mexican administrations have failed to sustainably reduce homicides and other violent crimes. Critically, the Mexican government has failed to rebalance power in the triangular relationship between the state, criminal groups, and society, while the Mexican population has soured on the anti-cartel project. • Since 2000, Mexico has experienced extraordinarily high drug- and crime-related violence, with the murder rate in 2017 and again in 2018 breaking previous records. • The fragmentation of Mexican criminal groups is both a purposeful and inadvertent effect of high-value targeting, which is a problematic strategy because criminal groups can replace fallen leaders more easily than insurgent or terrorist groups. The policy also disrupts leadership succession, giving rise to intense internal competition and increasingly younger leaders who lack leadership skills and feel the need to prove themselves through violence. • Focusing on the middle layer of criminal groups prevents such an easy and violent regeneration of the leadership. But the Mexican government remains   deeply challenged in middle-layer targeting due to a lack of tactical and strategic intelligence arising from corruption among Mexican law enforcement and political pressures that makes it difficult to invest the necessary time to conduct thorough investigations. • In the absence of more effective state presence and rule of law, the fragmentation of Mexican criminal groups turned a multipolar criminal market of 2006 into an ever more complex multipolar criminal market. Criminal groups lack clarity about the balance of power among them, tempting them to take over one another’s territory and engage in internecine warfare. • The Mexican crime market’s proclivity toward violence is exacerbated by the government’s inability to weed out the most violent criminal groups and send a strong message that they will be prioritized in targeting......

Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 2019. 29p.

By Jens Beckert and Matías Dewey

From illegal drugs, stolen artwork, and forged trademarks, to fraud in financial markets - the phenomenon of illegality in market exchanges is pervasive. Illegal markets have great economic significance, have relevant social and political consequences, and shape economic and political structures.Despite the importance of illegality in the economy, the field of economic sociology unquestioningly accepts the premise that the institutional structures and exchanges taking place in markets are law-abiding in nature. This volume makes a contribution to changing this. Questions that stand at the centre of the chapters are: What are the interfaces between legal and illegal markets? How do demand and supply in illegal markets interact? What role do criminal organizations play in illegal markets? What is the relationship between illegality and governments? Is illegality a phenomenon central to capitalism? Anchored in economic sociology, this book contributes to the analysis and understanding of market exchanges in conditions of illegality from a perspective that focuses on the social organization of markets. Offering both theoretical reflections and case studies, the chapters assembled in the volume address the consequences of the illegal production, distribution, and consumption of products for the architecture of markets. It also focuses on the underlying causes and the political and social concerns stemming from the infringement of the law.

Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2017. 315p.