Gulf war - Pressure mounts on Mexico's Gulf Cartel

In December 2006, Mexican President Felipe Calderon launched a major security initiative, designed to crack down on the drugs trafficking networks operating throughout Mexican territory.

Since December 2006, the government has deployed nearly 30,000 troops from both the military and the police force in 10 different states: Michoac?n, Tijuana, Chihuahua, Durango, Sinaloa, Sonora, Nuevo Leon, Veracruz, Tamaulipas and Guerrero. Calderon's long-term aim is to break the grip of the drugs cartels.

The security initiative has put heavy pressure on the operations of the country's drug trafficking organisations, which have retaliated with escalating levels of violence. One of the organisations most hard hit by the offensive is the Gulf Cartel, which had already been under pressure from rival organisations. This group is now in danger of fragmenting, with elements of its previously dominant organisation beginning to act autonomously.

The Gulf Cartel originated in the 1970s as a small-scale operation smuggling contraband, mostly alcohol, up through the Gulf of Mexico to the US. However, it expanded rapidly in the 1980s, when it was taken over by Juan Garcia Abrego, who diversified the group's operations to include cocaine and marijuana. Under Abrego, the organisation gained its reputation for extreme violence, eliminating rival groups in its area of control. The group expanded from its stronghold in Matamoros along the border, taking control of the strategic Nuevo Laredo plaza. Expanding operations along the Pacific coast gave it greater access to cocaine shipments from Colombia, which tended to ship directly from the Pacific port of Buenaventura up the Pacific coast.

Under Abrego, the Gulf Cartel became one of the largest in Mexico, emerging in the 1990s as an increasingly serious rival to the then-dominant Juarez Cartel and Tijuana Cartel. In 1995, Garcia was placed on the FBI's most wanted list, and arrested in Monterrey by Mexican police in January 1996. As he had US citizenship, he was immediately extradited to the US, where he is currently serving 11 life sentences for drug smuggling.

Following Garcia's arrest, the cartel entered a period of confusion as prominent figures struggled to take power. Interim leader Salvador Gomez was murdered in 1999, after which Osiel Cardenas assumed control. Under Cardenas, the cartel reinforced its dominance, expanding further along the US border and battling the emerging Sinaloa Cartel for control of ports in the Yucatan peninsula. Cardenas was arrested in Matamoros in March 2003 and imprisoned, but continued to run the cartel for the next four years. At this time the Sinaloa Cartel began to pressure Gulf Cartel operations, forcing Cardenas to agree a short-lived alliance with the Tijuana Cartel.

However, following his extradition to the US in January 2007, the cartel began to splinter as regional gatekeepers sought to take over the leadership. Taking advantage of this and the federal government's offensive, the Sinaloa Cartel intensified its own attack on the Gulf Cartel's territory, putting pressure on the group's control of Nuevo Laredo.

Unlike the major Mexican cartels of the 1980s and 1990s, the Gulf Cartel has a decentralised structure, which has made it more resilient to concerted attacks by rival cartels and the Mexican security forces. There is a single leader - previously Osiel Cardenas, now presumably Jorge Costilla-Sanchez - who takes strategic decisions in consultation with other high-level leaders. These leaders are in many cases also 'gatekeepers', the heads of groups responsible for running specific trafficking routes. For example, Ezequiel Cardenas was in charge of running the Matamoros-Brownsville plaza, overseeing the transfer of drugs and migrants across the border. The gatekeeper is also responsible for collecting taxes on other illegal activities operating in his group's area of control; non-cartel linked people-smuggling; counterfeit goods and other contraband; and cash flowing either from Mexico to the US or vice versa. The gatekeepers also ensure that money transfers proceed smoothly, by setting up small front businesses along the border and switching business between them as necessary. 647 of 6,841 words