An exchange of statements in late July between a US government representative and the president of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, reignited the debate over the real size and reach of drug cartels based in the Latin American country.
At a hearing in the US Congress, the administrator of the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), Anne Milgram, said that the Sinaloa and Jalisco New Generation (CJNG) cartels total more than 45,000 members, including members , associates, facilitators and representatives in over 100 countries.
Still according to Milgram, the two criminal groups are present in 21 and 19 of the 31 states of Mexico, respectively, and the DEA seeks to map how both are spreading their activities around the world.
The testimony of the DEA administrator was not well received by Obrador, who always seeks to minimize the presence and strength of the Mexican drug cartels. In a press conference the following day, the leftist president said that his government does not have the “information” disclosed by Milgram to US congressmen.
“I don’t know where the DEA lady got that from, I hope they give us more details, because I think she talked about the Sinaloa cartel and the Jalisco New Generation cartel with 40,000 [integrantes] (…). Tell us what evidence she has,” questioned Obrador, who alleged a lack of “coordination” between US government agencies.
The Mexican president did not present his own data on the size of the drug cartels, but argued that his government knows “where they are acting, according to the data on the crimes committed.”
Along these lines, he suggested that these criminal groups were losing power: according to Obrador, “about 70% of crimes in the country have to do with confrontations between criminal groups”, but there was a 10% reduction in the number of homicides in Mexico in 2022 and the projection is for a drop of 17% in 2023.
Obrador had already brushed aside allegations by neighbors to the north that Mexican cartels were operating out of control in March, after a tragic episode: four Americans were kidnapped in Matamoros, in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas, in the border region with the United States.
Two of them were found dead; a Mexican woman was also killed. The other two Americans were found alive. The Scorpions faction of the Gulf Cartel has admitted responsibility for the crimes.
At the time, the US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, said that several regions of Mexico are completely controlled by drug cartels and not by the government, which displeased Obrador. “There is no place in the country that does not have the presence of authorities”, he countered.
The president was also bothered by the request of congressmen from the Republican Party for the United States to carry out military incursions in Mexico to stop organized crime.
Obrador affirmed that the Mexican State “would not allow any foreign government to intervene in our territory, much less that the armed forces of a government [de outro país] intervene”. “In addition to being irresponsible, it is an offense to the Mexican people,” she said.
Even partnerships with the Americans have been ruled out by Obrador: last year, the president dismantled an elite local investigative unit that had worked with the DEA for decades.
President denies responsibility for US fentanyl crisis
However, in addition to the US agency’s figures on the size of Mexican cartels, a report released by the DEA and the European Union Agency for Police Cooperation (Europol) at the end of last year made it clear that the tentacles of Mexico’s cartels extend across Worldwide.
According to the document, these groups are working in partnership with criminal networks based in the European Union (EU) to traffic methamphetamine and cocaine from Latin America to the bloc.
“This new form of criminal collaboration also extends to the production of methamphetamine and cocaine hydrochloride in some EU member states. Although there are no current indications of an EU fentanyl market, the discovery of fentanyl production facilities and seizures of the substance in the EU raise concerns about the development of a fentanyl market,” warned Europol and the DEA.
Last year, fentanyl was responsible for two-thirds of the 110,000 overdose deaths in the United States (a record for the country), and it is known that Mexico is the major manufacturer and the major bridge for the entry of the drug into American territory. Obrador, however, says most of the blame cannot be placed on his country.
“I maintain that more fentanyl arrives directly in the United States and Canada than in Mexico”, he argued.
Despite this posture, in early July, Mexico accepted to be part of an international coalition led by the United States against the trafficking of fentanyl and other synthetic opioids.
China, which sends precursor chemicals to Mexico to manufacture the drug, has not expressed interest in participating. It remains to be seen whether, with Obrador’s denialist stance, Mexican participation will be of great help.
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