The Mexican drug war began in the 1980s when Colombian cartels partnered with Mexican traffickers to transport cocaine to the US. Over time, the Mexican groups took a larger role in distribution and became major traffickers. Control over trafficking routes has led to violence as cartels fight for power. Currently, the Sinaloa and Gulf cartels dominate cocaine trafficking from Colombia to international markets.

1. By: Danica Lubbers

2.  Is an ongoing armed
conflict taking place
among rival drug
cartels, who fight each
other for regional control
 Mexican government
forces who seek to
combat drug trafficking.

3.  During the 1980s and early 1990s, Colombia’s Pablo Escobar was
the main exporter of cocaine and dealt with organized criminal
networks all over the world. When enforcement efforts
intensified in South Florida and the Caribbean, the Colombian
organizations formed partnerships with the Mexico-based
traffickers to transport cocaine through Mexico into the United
States.
 At first, the Mexican gangs were paid in cash for their
transportation services, but in the late 1980s, the Mexican
transport organizations and the Colombian drug traffickers
settled on a payment-in-product arrangement. Transporters
from Mexico usually were given 35 to 50 % of each cocaine
shipment. This arrangement meant that organizations from
Mexico became involved in the distribution, as well as the
transportation of cocaine, and became formidable traffickers in
their own right.

4.  Early 1980’s- 1990’s; Given its geographic
location, Mexico has long been used as a
staging and transshipment point for
narcotics, illegal immigrants and
contraband destined for U.S. markets
from Mexico, South America and
elsewhere
 Mexican Judicial Federal Police agent
Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo ('The
Godfather'), who in the 1980s controlled
all illegal drug trade in Mexico and the
corridors across the Mexico-USA border.
 He started off by smuggling marijuana
and opium into the U.S.A., and was the
first Mexican drug capo to link up with
Colombia's cocaine cartels in the 1980s

5.  Over time, the balance of power
between the various Mexican cartels
shifts as new ones emerge and older
ones weaken and collapse. A
disruption in the system, such as the
arrests or deaths of cartel leaders,
generates bloodshed as rivals move
in to exploit the power vacuum
 Leadership vacuums sometimes are
created by law enforcement
successes against a particular cartel,
thus cartels often will attempt to use
law enforcement against one
another, either by bribing Mexican
officials to take action against a rival
or by leaking intelligence about a
rival's operations to the Mexican
government or the U.S. Drug
Enforcement Administration (DEA)

6.  Arrests of key cartel
leaders, particularly in the
Tijuana and Gulf
cartels, have led to
increasing drug violence as
cartels fight for control of
the trafficking routes into
the United States.
 Drug cartels in Mexico
control approximately 70%
of the foreign narcotics
that flow into the United
States.

7.  The US State Department estimates that 90% of
cocaine entering the United States transits through
Mexico, with Colombia being the main cocaine
producer—and that wholesale of illicit drug sale
earnings estimates range from $13.6 billion to $48.4
billion annually

13.  Currently, the Sinaloa Cartel and the Gulf cartel have
taken over trafficking cocaine from Colombia to the
worldwide markets.

14. Baja California state
police stand guard at
a captured marijuana
greenhouse in the
basement of a ranch
in Tecate, Mexico on
March 12, 2009

15. A police officer walks
on packages of cocaine
in
Buenaventura, Colombi
a's main seaport on the
Pacific
coast, Monday, March
23, 2009. Colombian
police had seized 3.5
tons of cocaine in a
container of vegetable
grease bound for Mexic

16. Federal police officers
sit aboard an aircraft
while flying to the
border city Ciudad
Juarez in
Mexico, Monday, March
2, 2009. The
deployment is part of a
troop increase of 5,000
men planned for this
city which has been hit
hard by organized
crime related violence