Mexican cartels are multi-billion-dollar industries that have a global reach. Many people think of cartels as only effectuating violence in Mexico, while supplying the United States with an insatiable appetite for drugs. On the surface, this may be the case, but that is a simplified understanding. The U.S. strategy in the war on drugs changed. One of the primary changes includes identifying and targeting Mexican cartels as terror organizations.^[1]apbweb.com/2026/02/the-war-on-drugs-is-evolving At the same time, law enforcement efforts addressing drug crime on U.S. streets are strengthening their approach to include resourcing for integrating treatment addressing addiction and mental health for those affected.^[2]apbweb.com/2026/02/drug-policy-and-enforcement

Addressing the Mexican cartels and their influence in U.S. cities and towns means law enforcement officers must seek an understanding of how these criminal organizations work. Understanding Mexican cartels provides law enforcement officers and agency leaders with more than a general awareness. Knowledge of culture and networks is one more tool to use for targeting criminal operations using intelligence-based methods.

Disrupting illicit operations has always been a core objective in law enforcement. However, to dismantle organizations or operations, it is imperative to understand the business model and drivers for growth of an organization, and devise plans to work with regulatory agencies and private-sector platform operators to effectively address Mexican cartel influence on recruitment.

Mexican cartels and other criminal organizations in Mexico operate eerily like legitimate organizations. There are recruiting efforts: onboarding, socialization, opportunities for growth and retention efforts, group structural behaviors and many job opportunities. Recognizing these parallels allows U.S. law enforcement leaders to better anticipate cartel behavior, disrupt their operations and ultimately dismantle the structures that make these organizations so resilient.

Increasingly, the cartel recruitment infrastructure operates transnationally, directly impacting U.S. communities.

Mexican criminal organizations

In the early 1980s, cartels and organized crime concentrated almost exclusively on drug manufacturing and smuggling. The dominant criminal organization in Mexico was the Guadalajara Cartel, which controlled the cocaine and marijuana drug routes. Little violence existed between federal, state and local law enforcement, and the bribery of officials kept each party satisfied. Following the murder of a Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agent in 1985 and the collapse of the Guadalajara Cartel, fragmentation occurred, leading to a growth of new regional crime groups. Today, there are nine primary cartels but hundreds of regional and local criminal organizations throughout Mexico.

The nine primary cartels include the Sinaloa Cartel, Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), Northeast Cartel (CDN), La Nueva Familia Michoacán (LNFM), Golf Cartel (CDG) and Cárteles Unidos (CU), all of which are designated as foreign terrorist organizations.^[3]apbweb.com/2025/07/six-mexican-cartels-designated-as-terrorist-organizations] The three other influential cartels are Los Rojos; the Carillo Fuentes Organization, commonly referred to as the Juárez Cartel; and the Arellano Félix Organization (AFO), commonly referred to as the Tijuana Cartel.

The CJNG and the Sinaloa Cartel are the two largest cartels in Mexico. Both have recently undergone significant changes. The Sinaloa Cartel is still in a civil war between two factions, each loyal to one of the cartel’s two founders. On February 22, 2026, the founder and head of the CJNG, Nemesio “El Mencho” Rubén Oseguera Cervantes, died. The new leader of the CJNG is El Mencho’s stepson, Juan “El 03” Carlos Valencia González. Complicating matters is that the CJNG is now led by an American, as El 03 is a U.S. citizen.

Recruitment

Mexican cartels function as large-scale, workforce-dependent enterprises that require methods to sustain, maintain and expand workforces as their operations continue. Mexican cartels collectively employ approximately 160,000 to 185,000 individuals, requiring the recruitment of 1,400 people per month to offset attrition, placing them among Mexico’s largest employers.^[4]pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37733856

At this level of needed manpower replacement, Mexican criminal organizations adopt recruitment models similar to those used by industry-leading companies. Mexican cartels use Facebook, X and TikTok to post job offers describing attractive pay, training and even offers of housing. They use targeted marketing toward men as enforcers and toward single mothers with offers of support. Cartels offer brand identities in the forms of emojis, hashtags and associated musical artists.^[5]tinyurl.com/yzsu9e8e The major difference is that many of the job offers are disguised as legitimate business offers, or propaganda is used to entice unsuspecting or impressionable individuals with promises of money, excitement and respect.

Training takes on many forms, but for young men and women, they may be attending a recruitment camp. One such camp, Rancho Izaguirre near Guadalajara, Jalisco, was operated by the CJNG. People replied to a Facebook job posting, were provided transportation and then, before they realized it, were told they’d be working for the cartel — some as hitmen. The camp did not just operate as a recruitment and training facility; it also operated as an extermination camp.^[6]english.elpais.com/international/2025-03-28/mexicos-izaguirre-ranch-high-concentrations-of-ash-suggest-the-presence-of-clandestine-crematoriums.html The camp contained human remains, a crematorium, 400 pairs of shoes and notes left by disappeared persons.

The vulnerable are often targeted for recruitment. Poor, lower-educated and young people are sought after and employed because they are impressionable and expendable. They are drawn to the cartel lifestyle for the income or social status. If the young men live into their 20s, the odds increase for promotion considerations within the organization.

Narcocorridos, songs that glorify cartel leaders, those who work for cartels and the violent criminal exploits of the narcotics culture, are performed by artists and used as propaganda to entice new members. The propaganda intentionally glamorizes cartel culture, making it appear desirable and accessible. Young people see the money, hear the music and watch how cartel leaders present themselves — and many of those people get drawn into wanting to become part of that world.

U.S. recruitment

Increasingly, the cartel recruitment infrastructure operates transnationally, directly impacting U.S. communities. In addition to their recruitment and propaganda operations in Mexico, the cartels use social media platforms, encrypted messaging applications and fraudulent job postings to identify, screen and recruit in both Mexico and in the U.S. The DEA assesses that these techniques enable cartels to expand into every U.S. state. This allows the criminal organizations to recruit drivers, couriers, stash house operators and facilitators in a manner that mirrors decentralized corporate hiring models rather than traditional gang recruitment.^[7]dea.gov/documents/2025/2025-05/2025-05-13/national-drug-threat-assessment

Analysis

As Mexican criminal organizations maintain their core, highly lucrative operations in narcotics production, smuggling and trafficking, and sustain those operations through the continual recruitment and replacement of personnel, they have expanded their operations and increased their revenue into additional criminal enterprises. This expansion is evident across multiple sectors: the extortion of small, family-owned businesses as well as agricultural, manufacturing, retail and mining firms; human trafficking; the theft of fuel and oil for resale; and kidnapping for ransom — all of which generate billions of dollars in additional revenue.

For policymakers, law enforcement strategists and officers, this evolution underscores a strategic shift: cartel recruitment now constitutes a cross-border labor supply chain problem. Without intelligence-driven operations and coordination with regulatory and platform-based support to target recruitment, these networks will not easily be dismantled.