Organized crime groups have splintered and diversified their crime activities, turning to extortion, kidnapping, auto theft, oil smuggling, human smuggling, retail drug sales, and other illicit enterprises. Although homicide rates declined during the first two years of Peña Nieto's six-year term, total homicides rose 7% in 2015, 22% in 2016, and 23% in 2017, reaching a record level. In 2017, government statistics from the National Public Security System indicate there were more than 29,000 intentional homicides—a new record that exceeded the previous high in 2011. In Mexico, the violence is not only associated with resolving disputes or maintaining discipline but also has been directed toward the government, political candidates, and the news media. Former President Calderón made an aggressive campaign against criminal groups, especially the large drug trafficking organizations (DTOs), the central focus of his administration's policy. Between 2007 and 2012, as part of much closer U.S.-Mexican security cooperation, the Mexican government significantly increased extraditions to the United States, with a majority of the suspects wanted by the U.S. government on drug trafficking and related charges. The Mérida Initiative, a bilateral anticrime assistance package launched in 2008, initially focused on providing Mexico with hardware, such as planes, scanners, and other equipment, to combat the DTOs. Potential harm from Mexico's criminal groups—or transnational criminal organizations (TCOs), as the U.S. Department of Justice now identifies them—is due in large part to their control of and efforts to move illicit drugs and to expand aggressively into the heroin (or plant-based) and synthetic opioids market. Mexico experienced a sharp increase in opium poppy cultivation between 2014 and 2017; increasingly Mexico has become a transit country for powerful synthetic opioids, such as fentanyl. The U.S. Congress has expressed concern over the violence and has sought to provide oversight on U.S.-Mexican security cooperation. The 115 th Congress may continue to evaluate how the Mexican government is combating the illicit drug trade, working to reduce related violence, and monitor the effects of drug trafficking and violence challenges on the security of both the United States and Mexico. The Morena party candidate, President-elect Andrés Manuel López Obrador (known by his initials AMLO), won with 53% of the vote on July 1, 2018. The scope of the violence generated by Mexican crime groups has been difficult to measure due to restricted reporting by the government and attempts by crime groups to mislead the public. Background on Drug Trafficking in Mexico

Drug trafficking organizations have operated in Mexico for more than a century. The Mexican DTOs are the major wholesalers of illegal drugs in the United States and are increasingly gaining control of U.S. retail-level distribution through alliances with U.S. gangs. DEA warns that Mexican TCOs present an acute threat to U.S. communities given their dominance in heroin and fentanyl exports in its 2017 National Drug Threat Assessment (NDTA). Evolution of the Major Drug Trafficking Groups

The DTOs have been in constant flux in recent years. By some accounts, when President Calderón came to office in December 2006, there were four dominant DTOs: the Tijuana/Arellano Felix organization (AFO), the Sinaloa cartel, the Juárez/Vicente Carillo Fuentes organization (CFO), and the Gulf cartel. Since then, the large, more stable organizations that existed in the earlier years of the Calderón administration have fractured into many more groups. For several years, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) identified the following organizations as dominant: Sinaloa, Los Zetas, Tijuana/AFO, Juárez/CFO, Beltrán Leyva, Gulf, and La Familia Michoacana. In some sense these might be viewed as the "traditional" DTOs. However, many analysts suggest that those 7 groups now seem to have fragmented to between 9 and as many as 20 major organizations. The Mexican government's decision to extradite Guzmán to the United States, carried out on January 19, 2017, appears to have led to violent competition from a competing cartel, the Cartel Jalisco-New Generation (CJNG), which had split from Sinaloa. Accordingly, these analysts contend that the most important tools for managing the problem include long-term institutional reform to replace a culture of illegality and corruption with one of rule of law and respect for lawful authority.
Mexican drug trafficking organizations (DTOs) pose the greatest crime threat to the United States, according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration's (DEA's) National Drug Threat Assessment published in October 2017. These organizations have for years been identified for their strong links to drug trafficking, money laundering, and other violent crimes. These criminal groups have trafficked heroin, methamphetamine, cocaine, marijuana, and, increasingly, the powerful synthetic opioid fentanyl. U.S. overdoses due to opioid consumption sharply increased to a record level in 2016, following the Mexican criminal syndicates expanded control of the heroin and synthetic opioids market. The major DTOs and new crime groups have furthered their expansion into such illicit activity as extortion, kidnapping, and oil theft that costs the government's oil company more than a billion dollars a year.
Mexico's DTOs have also been in constant flux. Early in his term, former Mexican President Felipe Calderón (2006-2012) initiated an aggressive campaign against Mexico's drug traffickers that was a defining policy of his government and one that the DTOs violently resisted. By some accounts, in 2006, there were four dominant DTOs: the Tijuana/Arellano Felix organization (AFO), the Sinaloa cartel, the Juárez/Vicente Carillo Fuentes organization (CFO), and the Gulf cartel. Government operations to eliminate DTO leadership sparked organizational changes, which led to significant instability among the groups and continued violence.
In recent years, larger and more stable organizations have fractured, leaving the DEA and other analysts to identify seven organizations as predominant: Sinaloa, Los Zetas, Tijuana/AFO, Juárez/CFO, Beltrán Leyva, Gulf, and La Familia Michoacana. In some sense, these organizations include the "traditional" DTOs, although the 7 organizations appear to have fragmented further to at least 9 (or as many as 20) major organizations. A new transnational criminal organization, Cartel Jalisco-New Generation, which split from Sinaloa in 2010, has sought to become dominant with brutally violent techniques. During the term of President Enrique Peña Nieto that will end in 2018, the government has faced an increasingly complex crime situation that saw violence spike. In 2017, Mexico reached its highest number of total intentional homicides in a year, exceeding, by some counts, 29,000 murders. In the 2017-2018 electoral season according to a Mexican security consultancy recording political violence, 152 office holders and political candidates (and pre-candidates) were killed, allegedly by crime bosses and others in an effort to intimidate public office holders. If non-elected public officials are included, victims in the 2018 electoral season exceed 500.
On July 1, 2018, Andrés Manuel López Obredor won the election for President by as much as 30 points over the next contender. He leads a new party, Morena, but has served as Mayor of Mexico City and comes from a leftist ideological viewpoint. López Obredor campaigned on fighting corruption and finding new ways to combat crime and manage the illicit drug trade.
U.S. foreign assistance for Mexico in the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2018 (P.L. 115-141) totaled $152.6 million, with more than $100 million of that funding focused on rule of law and counternarcotics efforts. The 115th Congress pursued oversight of security conditions inside of Mexico and monitored the Mexican criminal organizations not only because they are the major wholesalers of illegal drugs in the United States but also to appraise their growing control of U.S. retail-level distribution. This report examines how the organized crime landscape in Mexico has been altered by fragmentation of criminal groups and how the organizational shape-shifting continues. For more background, see CRS In Focus IF10867, Mexico's 2018 Elections; CRS Report R41349, U.S.-Mexican Security Cooperation: The Mérida Initiative and Beyond; and CRS In Focus IF10400, Transnational Crime Issues: Heroin Production, Fentanyl Trafficking, and U.S.-Mexico Security Cooperation.