The rapid spread of one crime group in Mexico is revealing a shifting power base for the country's illicit drug trade. Prior to 2010, most Mexican crime groups that emerged from the rural region known as Tierra Caliente worked as subsidiaries of powerful Sinaloa- and Tamaulipas-based syndicates such as the Gulf cartel and the Sinaloa Federation. However, the expansion of Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion (CJNG), one of Mexico's most powerful crime syndicates, reflects the gradual breakdown of organized crime in Sinaloa and Tamaulipas states since 2010, which has made way for the spread of Tierra Caliente groups into other parts of Mexico.
The CJNG originates from the organization led by a Sinaloa Federation lieutenant, Ignacio "El Nacho" Coronel Villarreal, who was killed by federal troops in July 2010. After continuous infighting and years of aggressive pursuit by the military and law enforcement, Sinaloa and Tamaulipas groups began to lose control of organized crime in Tierra Caliente, leading to the expansion other independent groups.
Now the CJNG is rapidly expanding. In Baja California state, the cartel has allied with crime groups derived from the Arellano Felix Organization (also known as the Tijuana cartel or the Cartel de Arellano Felix) to seize control of the Tijuana plaza, the Tijuana-based investigative journal Zeta reported June 15. If the report is accurate, the CJNG is apparently seeking to end the dominance that Sinaloan groups have had around Tijuana since at least the 1980s. Meanwhile, in San Luis Potosi state, the group appears to be attempting to wrest control of towns from several other drug trafficking operations: the Velazquez network (also known as Los Talibanes or the Gulf cartel) and possibly Los Zetas.
As with all organized crime networks facing persistent law enforcement pressure, the CJNG is doomed to one day decentralize, a fate all the more inevitable after the Mexican government vowed to dismantle the group earlier this year. But for the time being, the cartel will remain the fastest-expanding crime group in Mexico. And as it spreads, it will cement the status and influence across Mexico of criminal groups that originated in the Tierra Caliente region.
