Mexican cartel violence likely to increase in 2024, experts say

EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – The next president of Mexico will face ongoing economic and migration challenges and will have to tackle increasing drug cartel violence brought about by the fracturing of existing transnational criminal organizations and corruption at every level of government, security and border experts say.

“With this election coming up, you may see the cartels not get their way. And if they can’t pay off the politicians, they’ll coerce them with violence. We have seen they are certainly capable of that,” said Mike Ballard, director of Intelligence for Global Guardian, a Virginia-based security firm. “There may be issues with influence and power struggles. That can start at the top and have second- and third-order effects down to the state, city or neighborhood level.”

Global Guardian recently published its 2024 Global Risk Assessment. It lists Mexico as a high-risk country on par with Haiti, Venezuela and Ecuador, where criminal gangs went on a rampage last month, taking over a television station at gunpoint and capturing and executing police officers and soldiers.

“There’s a lot of cartel violence, especially in border states,” Ballard said. “The violence is rampant. We are seeing clashes frequently. On social media, we’re seeing footage of clashes between CJNG (the Jalisco cartel) and the different factions within Sinaloa [….] I know some parts of the country have been hit worse by the cartel violence. Zacatecas and Colima have extremely high murder rates. In Guanajuato, security forces are being targeted at an almost unprecedented rate.”

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Mexico has recorded tens of thousands of murders in the past five years, as cartels fight for territory and control of criminal activities ranging from extortion and kidnapping to fuel theft and highway robbery. What makes it more of a powder keg this year is the growing split within its largest criminal group: The Sinaloa cartel. The sons of jailed drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman are in a “tussle” that is threatening to become a war with Guzman associate Ismael “Mayo” Zambada.

A man passes by a burnt truck on a street a day after an operation to arrest the son of Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, Ovidio Guzman, in Culiacan, Sinaloa state, Mexico, on January 6, 2023.(Photo by JUAN CARLOS CRUZ/AFP via Getty Images)

“You will continue to see them clash. And if it becomes a war of attrition, you may see them split with the territory they control along with other groups,” Ballard said. “I would not be surprised to see the violence continue and even get worse if you end up with two distinct transnational criminal organizations.”

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The June 2 election in which favored ruling party candidate Claudia Sheinbaum faces opposition coalition challenger Xochitl Galvez and single-party candidate Jorge Alvarez is likely to alter any under-the-table arrangements between organized crime and local government officials; it’s also likely to be influenced by groups trying to impose local candidates willing to favor them, experts say.

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“Next year we expect to see major disruptions to the organizational structures and continued diversification of their operations. This shifting criminal landscape could lead to surges in violence. In the election year, political assassinations, and threats against candidates to make them (quit) will rise,” according to a report released last month by the Center for the United States and Mexico at Rice University’s Baker Institute.

Center director Tony Payan told Border Report the cartels will play an aggressive role in the June elections by intimidating and coopting candidates for public office.

“Every time there is a major election, organized crime begins to calculate their position and what police agents they can buy and who is going to be mayor so they can continue to cooperate,” Payan said earlier.

The experts say impunity and deficiencies in Mexico’s legal and prison system make reining in the cartels a difficult proposition. Some Latin American countries, like El Salvador, have brought about swift reductions in crime through hardline tactics against gangs. But Ballard doesn’t believe Mexico can replicate that and Payan adds it may not want to do that after a 2006 crackdown by former President Felipe Calderon led to a huge increase in violence.

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“We have seen that work somewhat in El Salvador, basically rounding up somewhat extrajudicially anyone that may be a gang member,” Ballard said. “It’s unknown if some of these larger countries have the infrastructure and capability to carry out something like that. Certainly, I don’t think Mexico would be in a position to do something similar.”

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