Headlines!

MEXICO CITY — The Mexican police found nine bodies hanging from an overpass Thursday alongside a drug cartel banner threatening rivals, and seven more corpses hacked up and dumped by the road nearby. Just down the road were three more bodies, for a total of 19.

Courtesy of the NYT. 

Maps from a BBC article.

The Sinaloa cartel

Founded in the late 1980s, the Sinaloa cartel headed by Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán has long been considered Mexico's most powerful criminal organisation.

Having outfought several rival groups, the Sinaloa cartel dominates much of north-west Mexico and makes billions of dollars from trafficking illicit narcotics to the United States, Europe and Asia.

The Jalisco New Generation

Sinaloa's strongest competitor is its former armed wing, the Jalisco New Generation cartel. Formed around 2010, the Jalisco cartel has expanded rapidly and aggressively across Mexico and is now challenging Sinaloa for control of strategic areas, including Tijuana and the port of Manzanillo. 

The Jalisco cartel is blamed for a series of attacks on security forces and public officials, including downing an army helicopter with a rocket-propelled grenade in 2015. Mexico's Attorney General Raul Cervantes declared it the nation's largest criminal organisation in 2017. 

What happened to Mexico's other major players?

In eastern Mexico, the Gulf cartel and their fearsome former allies Los Zetas have been weakened by killings and arrests of top leaders, leading to splits within both groups. 

In western Michoacán state, the pseudo-religious Knights Templar and La Familia cartels have been largely vanquished by vigilante groups, although the region remains contested by their remnants and several newer gangs.

To the north, the once mighty Juárez, Tijuana and Beltrán-Leyva cartels have all been weakened by Sinaloa cartel offensives.

Are things better or worse than they were?

The level of violence dropped after the election of President Enrique Peña Nieto in 2012, but it has shot up dramatically in the last two years, with 2017 on course to be the worst year on record.

Activists and journalists are routinely murdered, while corruption and impunity remain rampant.

How violent are the cartels?

Mexico's cartels are notorious for their extreme violence. Beheadings and torture have become commonplace over the past decade. Victims are sometimes hung from bridges or dissolved in barrels of acid. Some cartels post graphic execution videos on social media to intimidate their enemies.

How many people have died?

Mexico registered more than 200,000 murders from January 2007 to December 2016, according to government records. More than 30,000 people are classified as having disappeared in that same timeframe.

2017 was the most violent year in two decades, with more than 25,000 murders, official figures suggest.

Curtesy of the BBC- 27 March 2018 

Below is an article I found from the New York Post. Published Jan 30.

Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador declared the end of his country’s “war” on drugs Wednesday — saying his administration would no longer prioritize the prosecution of kingpins.

His statement came as US prosecutors urged jurors in Brooklyn to convict infamous Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman.

“There is no war, officially there is no more war,” López Obrador said in response to a question from a reporter regarding the lack of kingpin arrests since he took office, according to AFP.

“We want peace, we are going to get peace. We haven’t detained capos, because that is not our principal mission. The principal mission of the government is to guarantee public security.”

Guzman, 61, was extradited to the US in January 2017 — when López Obrador’s predecessor, President Enrique Peña Nieto, was in office — where he is on trial for his role as a leader of the notorious Sinaloa Cartel.

When Mexican authorities recaptured the notorious cocaine smuggler a year earlier, Peña Nieto lavished praise on the law enforcement officers who made the collar, saying they were “a source of pride” for the nation.

But López Obrador said law enforcement will now instead focus on reducing homicide rates.

Guzman’s defense during his trial in Brooklyn has largely focused on the claim that he is merely a “scapegoat,” while his partner in crime, Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, remains at large and is believed to be hiding out in Mexico.

Witnesses and lawyers have also made allegations of government bribery and corruption, with prosecutors claiming in court documents that the Sinloa Cartel paid off a former campaign associate of López Obrador during his first failed run for the presidency in 2006.

Government witnesses have also testified that the cartel paid Peña Nieto $100 million in 2012 — although the ex-president denies those allegations.

The above articles are not my own and I have given credit to the places they came from.