Tijuana's Cartel Landscape

Baja California state, with its lucrative port of entry into the United States in Tijuana, is among the most sought-after territory for Mexico's drug cartels. For years the state was controlled by the Arellano Felix Organization until that group's disintegration and the rise of perhaps Mexico's most powerful cartel, the Sinaloa Federation. Learning from its past experience, the Sinaloa Federation has moved over the past year to decentralize control among autonomous cells in order to prevent any single faction from becoming too dominant, and breaking off to form its own rival cartel, which has already led to a more stable security environment in the region.