Mexican cartels have seen a surge in growth in their participating members over the last decade, according to a new study, to the point where they have effectively become the nation’s fifth-largest employer.
Researchers created a mathematical model using homicide, missing persons and incarceration data to track cartel recruitment. Their study, published Thursday in the journal Science, found that some 175,000 people in Mexico are employed by 150 different cartel groups.
The researchers said they hope their study can help analysts and governments who “have long struggled to understand cartels” and find a “better way out of this cycle of violence.”
In the last ten years, 37 percent of known cartel members had been killed or incarcerated, and yet the size of cartels grew. The researchers found they must have recruited nearly 20,000 members a year to make up for losses.
An unrelated report released by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration in July estimated that the two largest cartels, Sinaloa and Jalisco New Generation, employed more than 44,800 people. The study’s author, Rafael Prieto-Curiel, a former Mexico City police officer, said his model showed a similar number of 46,000 cartel members in those two groups.
Neither of those numbers might be fully representative of the total number though, the Thursday report said.
“The model only accounts for those directly involved in work that puts them at risk of violence, and not members—such as bankers—who help move and launder cartels’ money,” it stated.
Victoria Dittmar, a researcher for Insight Crime who did not take part in the study, told The Guardian that the numbers depend on the definition of a cartel and what constitutes membership.
“It can be very difficult to say who is a member of a criminal organization and who isn’t,” Dittmar said. “What about a politician that receives money? Or someone who cooperates with the group just once?”
Other researchers have said Prieto-Curiel’s July study is a breakthrough because previous attempts to fight organized crime by the cartels have failed — and the study has shown combatting the crime starts with decreasing the cartels’ ability to recruit new members.
“At least we know we have to focus on that question rather than just sending more money to armed forces and building prisons,” said Carlos Gershenson, a computer scientist at Binghamton University who did not participate in the research. “You need to cut the source of the problem rather than dealing with the consequences.”
Mexico is completely bonkers to me. How do you even salvage this country without outside intervention?
I mean as someone from the US I'm not sure anyone here agrees that we're on a good path (though the right path we may disagree on). I'd wager most countries could say the same.
Maybe once we figure it out at home we can think about what it might mean to salvage another country.
Its economy is booming. It’s not like there aren’t other jobs, or tax revenue. The main problem is that they are ideally situated up against the largest drug market in the world: the US. Until people in the US stop wanting drugs, this will continue. In large part, the US is content to let it continue, because it keeps the underworld activity mostly outside our borders. However it’s gone a bit far, with the cartels virtually taking over the entire country, and contributing to a refugee crisis of epic proportions.
The only solution is for the US to decriminalize drugs and take the entire industry legitimate. It’s well underway with marijuana. The issue is that there are way worse drugs involved now. Meth, fentanyl, and worse. Those aren’t so easy to legalize as weed, which is pretty harmless.
Cartels are also getting into legal businesses already and pretty much own politics. If you're outspoken in fighting cartels and corruption, you'll die - likely in a very gruesome way too.
Well if the cartels become legit businesspeople and own politics, then Mexico will not be that far off from the US.
Polemic and whataboutism.
Hardly. Just pointing out that commerce isn’t born from some divine source. It arises out of chaos through force of arms to establish the stable conditions for business. Terror often comes with the bargain. Ask the Native Americans. It’s just the way. We’re not going to stamp out the cartels but we could bring them into the economic order.