cartels

Criminal cartels and Transnational Criminal Organizations (TCOs) rely on corruption to enable their pursuit of criminal profit and power. Indeed, Mexico’s cartels emerged from the seeds of corrupt police profiting from the narcotics trade. While violence is the public face of criminal cartels and transnational gangs, corruption is the core threat to public trust and state legitimacy and capacity.

Corruption, money laundering and alliances with national and Brazilians’ drug dealers and with the Russian mafia. Mexico’s “El Chapo” Guzmán’s Sinaloa Cartel is in Portugal and has set up a cocaine transhipment base for central and northern Europe. The Mexican drug dealer sons control the cocaine shipment to Portugal. This article was originally published as “A cor do cartel” at the Portuguese magazine Expresso (Lisbon) on 17 August 2019.

While this is presently a one-off (I&W) type incident, more such Mexican cartel FPS type videos posted to social media are now inevitable although the rate at which they will proliferate is unknown. Further, futures projections suggest that an eventual follow on cartel social media TTP to this CSRL GoPro taped tactical action will be the live streaming of such FPS immersive experiences—rather than their posting to social media after the fact.

Mexico’s powerful drug cartels could be using armed drones to attack those impeding their criminal operations, marking the potential expansion of the use of this technology from just transporting drugs or carrying out surveillance.

This incident has the potential to raise the stakes in the contest between the CJNG and the Mexican state following what is essentially tantamount to a CJNG declaration of war.

The provision of such aid—usually a symbolic effort—should be considered a component of ongoing cartel ‘information operations’

The sniper rifle has become a preferred weapon for cartels since a round can penetrate walls, steel, and the sides of unarmored and even moderately armored vehicles.

Cartels are born from greed but they are also byproducts of Mexico’s flawed policies.

A narcotrafficking technique first used in Mexico now expands to other countries in Central and South America.