Mexican drug trafficking doesn’t stop at the border. For more than a decade, large criminal organizations—such as the Sinaloa Cartel and the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG)—have woven a criminal network that spans continents.
What began in the 1980s and 1990s as small alliances with Colombian criminal groups to move cocaine to the United States evolved into the establishment of strategic alliances with European mafias, chemical brokers in Asia, American gangs, and armed groups in South America.
But what about the often invisible actors tasked with securing routes, laundering money, protecting shipments, and opening new markets?
Mexican drug trafficking alliances in the United States
In the United States, groups like the Sinaloa Cartel and the CJNG don’t operate directly as they do in Mexico. Instead, they delegate key tasks to gang networks, prison mafias, and local groups that operate as partners, distributors, or protectors of their interests.
This strategy allows them to maintain a low profile, reduce risks, and ensure the steady flow of drugs—primarily fentanyl, methamphetamine, heroin, and cocaine—to the country’s main urban markets.
Various news reports indicate that Los Sureños (Sureños 13) and the Mexican Mafia (La Eme) are two of the Sinaloa Cartel’s oldest and most trusted allies, especially in California.
Sureños 13 is a Latino gang network from Southern California with a presence throughout the United States. They control local drug distribution, extortion, and prison protection operations.
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For its part, La Eme is an extremely powerful prison organization. He acts as an arbiter of alliances and conflicts between Latino groups in California prisons.
One of the most dangerous alliances on the southern border of the United States is with Barrio Azteca, a violent gang based in El Paso, Texas, with a strong presence in Juárez, Chihuahua.
This group has been linked to La Línea, part of the Juárez Cartel, and is implicated in murders, arms trafficking, and drug distribution on both sides of the border.
Other gangs such as MS-13, Florencia 13, the Bloods, Crips, Aryan Brotherhood, and even the Latin Kings have been used by various cartels, sometimes temporarily or depending on the city.
Some of these cells maintain contact with the four-letter cartel, which has attempted to expand its influence within the country through emissaries and more aggressive distribution networks.
Mexican Drug Traffickers in Canada
Mexican cartel alliances in Canada have gone unnoticed for years, but in the last decade they have become increasingly evident, especially with the growth of fentanyl, cocaine, and methamphetamine trafficking.
Although Canada is not traditionally a center of operations for cartels like the United States, it has become a key market, a transit point, and a strategic location for money laundering and distribution.
Unlike in the United States, where Mexican cartels rely primarily on prison and street gangs, in Canada they have established ties with a combination of local mafias, ethnic gangs, criminal motorcycle gangs, and Asian networks, many of them with global reach.
InSight Crime reports that a key player is The Wolpack, a criminal coalition that includes elements of several gangs involved in the distribution of cocaine, methamphetamine, and, more recently, fentanyl.
The Mexican Drug Network in Central and South America
Far from operating solely from Mexico northward, the major Mexican cartels have built a deep and well-articulated criminal network in Central and South America, which fulfills key functions: production, transportation, armed protection, chemical supply, and, above all, strategic alliances with local actors.
In Colombia, the heart of the cocaine supply chain, the Mexican cartels do not directly control drug production.
Reports from the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) indicate that the Mexican cartels maintain operational agreements with the Gulf Clan, some dissident groups within the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), and lesser-known criminal networks.
Cartel Alliances in Europe
Europe is no longer just a final destination for drugs produced in Latin America: it is also a key territory in the value chain.
There, Mexican drug trafficking has consolidated alliances with European mafias, international brokers, port logistics networks, and local distribution gangs, which has allowed them to turn the continent into a stable source of million-dollar profits and silent expansion.
One of the most important alliances is the one that authorities themselves have identified between the CJNG and the ‘Ndrangheta, a mafia originating in Calabria, southern Italy.
Unlike Cosa Nostra (Sicily) or the Camorra (Naples), the ‘Ndrangheta has a more closed and familial structure, which has made it difficult for authorities to infiltrate.
In the 1970s and 1980s, it began expanding into international drug trafficking, particularly with cocaine from South America. Today, it is considered the richest and most globalized Italian mafia.
Reports from Europol and DEA highlight that the ‘Ndrangheta is the Mexican cartels’ main European partner in cocaine trafficking.
According to the report “Complexities and Expenditures in International Drug Trafficking,” prepared by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and Europol, Mexican cartels involve a diverse range of actors in their criminal networks.
Along these lines, foreign authorities identify at least five key actors:
Cooks. Mexican criminal actors involved in the production of drugs, such as methamphetamine, in illicit production facilities. They often work independently with producers based in Europe.
Brokers. Criminal facilitators based in the EU, North and Latin America, or other regions of the world, responsible for connecting Mexican drug suppliers with wholesale distributors abroad.
Envoys. Mexican cartel members who travel abroad to facilitate and secure drug transactions.
Intermediaries. Criminal facilitators responsible for drug purchases, transportation, and logistics.
Money laundering providers. Illicit financial services providers based abroad, responsible for repatriating millions of dollars or euros in drug proceeds to Mexico.
RMV.
Source: milenio
