Skip to main content
Support

Mexico Institute in the News: Have the Zetas Replaced the Sinaloa as Mexico's Most Powerful Cartel?

Andrew Selee

While the Zetas now have control in more territory, their power still may not be as strong as the Sinaloa Cartel.

Insight Crime, January 3, 2012

"…Analysts have long considered the Sinaloa Cartel, headed by drug baron Joaquin Guzman Loera, alias “El Chapo,” to be the foremost drug trafficking organization in the country. Their apparent loss of ground to the Zetas calls this into question.

However, even assuming that Salinas’ report is a perfect representation of Mexico’s criminal landscape, the fact that the Zetas are present in more territory does not necessarily make them more influential. As InSight Crime has pointed out, the nature of criminal control varies from location to location. Just because a drug cartel maintains a physical presence in an area does not automatically mean that they exert authority over the local government...

…As Andrew Selee, director of the Washington, DC-based Mexico Institute told the Associated Press in October:"

"The Zetas have certainly gotten bigger since they split with the Gulf, but whether that will amount to a long-term ability to control and defend the territories where they have a presence is a little less clear. In reality, they're much thinner, where Sinaloa is hierarchical and compact."

Find the full article here.

About the Author

Andrew Selee

Andrew Selee

Former Executive Vice President and Senior Advisor to the Mexico Institute;
President, Migration Policy Institute
Read More

Mexico Institute

The Mexico Institute seeks to improve understanding, communication, and cooperation between Mexico and the United States by promoting original research, encouraging public discussion, and proposing policy options for enhancing the bilateral relationship. A binational Advisory Board, chaired by Luis Téllez and Earl Anthony Wayne, oversees the work of the Mexico Institute.   Read more

Latin America Program

The Wilson Center’s prestigious Latin America Program provides non-partisan expertise to a broad community of decision makers in the United States and Latin America on critical policy issues facing the Hemisphere. The Program provides insightful and actionable research for policymakers, private sector leaders, journalists, and public intellectuals in the United States and Latin America. To bridge the gap between scholarship and policy action, it fosters new inquiry, sponsors high-level public and private meetings among multiple stakeholders, and explores policy options to improve outcomes for citizens throughout the Americas. Drawing on the Wilson Center’s strength as the nation’s key non-partisan policy forum, the Program serves as a trusted source of analysis and a vital point of contact between the worlds of scholarship and action.  Read more