Drug Cartels
View of the front pages of Mexican newspapers showing the news of the capture of Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada, in Mexico City, Mexico on July 26, 2024. Mexican authorities reported that they had no participation in the arrest of Ismael "Mayo" Zambada, co-founder of the Sinaloa cartel, and of a son of Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, carried out on July 25 in Texas by US authorities. Rodrigo Oropeza/Getty Images

Arrests of U.S. citizens in Mexico due to connections with organized crime skyrocketed over the past year, a new report shows.

Concretely, local outlet Animal Politico cited FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) requests, open-source data and interviews with local authorities to show that between 2018-2024, under the Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador administration (2018-2024) 2,500 Americans were arrested for crimes such as drug trafficking. The figure represents a 457% increase compared to the tenure of his predecessor, Enrique Peña Nieto, when there were 449 such arrests.

That number could increase over the next six years, the duration of President Claudia Sheinbaum's term. According to the analysis, the first-female Mexican president may be on track to beat her predecessor's number, having seen the arrest of 185 Americans during her first two months in office. That figure amounts to three arrests per day, while Lopez Obrador saw an average of 1.1 arrests per day throughout his presidency.

Those arrested in Mexico for connection to cartels and organized crime often carried, transported, or unloaded "material" between the U.S. and Mexico. That includes weapons, money, drugs or people. Americans often do it willingly, looking for an additional source of income, while others are coerced into that kind of activity.

"The truth is [Americans] aren't being recruited as sicarios," Eduardo Guerrero, a Mexican security analyst, told The Guardian using the slang term for gunmen. "But there are a lot of things that cartels buy in the southern United States... the technology of war that is used by the cartels. And for all those purchases, well, yes, it's very useful to have a gringo that can easily come and go into the country."

Guerrero also noted that some of those Americans recruited by Mexican cartels may be drug users who end up indebted to the cartels.

"To pay off their debts, the organization asks them to start selling," Guerrero said. "They start out as clients and consumers and end up being employees without a way to escape the criminal organization."

Americans have also become the victims of murder and disappearance in Mexico. According to the study, reports of disappearances of Americans also increased 120% in three years, between 2019 and 2023, with 800 disappearances. Meanwhile, between 2022 and 2023 alone, almost 307 Americans were murdered in Mexico.

Under Sheinbaum, enforcement actions against drug gangs have escalated, as has cooperation with U.S. law enforcement officials targeting the cartels and their finances. According to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, the amount of fentanyl seized by the U.S. on the southern border plunged last year by roughly 20% and the potency of fentanyl pills also declined sharply, according to NPR.

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