Mexico Drug Cartels

Do Now Why did Mexico become a center for staging and transporting drugs from central and South America? Which president used the military as weapon to fight the drug war? Where do most of the guns the cartels use come from? How many people have died between ?

Background Mexico has served as staging and transshipment point for narcotics between Latin America and U. S. Markets 1960’s Mexican smugglers started to smuggle drugs on a major scale During the 1970s and early 1980s Pablo Escobar formed partnerships with Mexico based traffickers Sinaloa Cartel and the Gulf Cartel currently run most of the trafficking of cocaine from Colombia

Origin Of Cartels Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo was born on Jan 8,1946 in Bellavista Sinaloa and was known as el padrino Created the Guadalajara Cartel in the 1980’s and served as primary trafficker for the Colombian Cartel Met with different drug traffickers and gave them control of parts of Mexico He was arrested Apr , is currently serving a 40 year sentence

Actions by the Mexican Gov’t During the 70 year rule of the PRI party cartels expanded their power and corruption Felipe Calderon part of the PAN party takes over for Vincente Fox and announces military action against the cartels in Michoacan President Nieto continues military strikes against the cartels in Mexico with the aid of the U.S.

Map of Control

Los Zetas 1999 Gulf Cartel’s leader Osiel Cardenas Guillen hired a group of 37 corrupt former elite military leaders to work for him After Guillen arrest Heriberto Lazcano became the leader of the group and branched out to form Los Zetas Los Zetas are involved in drug trafficking, human trafficking, oil theft, and extortion Criminal network reaches as far as Central America, the U.S., and Europe

Sinaloa Cartel Sinaloa Cartel is alliance of some of Mexico’s top Capos It started off with small farming families in Sinaloa who would later move on to drug trafficking Pedro Aviles was one of the first leaders but would later passed down the power to Joaquin El Chapo Loera Currently at war with the Zetas

La Familia Cartel A group known as El Milenio, ally of the Tijuana Cartel, controlled the Michoacan area at the end of 1990s The group rebelled against the cartel and aligned itself with the Zetas Milenio group creates its own rebel known as the Familia group against the Zetas The group is known for violent deaths and drug trafficking

Juarez Cartel Juarez Cartel is one of the oldest and most powerful organizations in Mexico It focuses on drug trafficking, human trafficking, kidnapping, and extortion Used commercial and parcel traffic to move thousands of tons of Colombian cocaine into Mexico It created the Linces a group made up of 80 special Army’s forces

Weapons Cartels use various types of weapons such as AK-47, grenade launchers, machine guns, shotguns, and bolt action rifles Most guns come from the United States and Central America Grenade launchers have been used against the police and army

Violence More then 160,000 people have died between In the past year homicides have increased by 7.3 percent There have been 27,600 people who have part of a force disappearance