Mexican Drug Cartels Are Recruiting Members Faster Than They Lose Them, Experts Say

Over the past two decades, drug cartels in Mexico have grown exponentially to the point that in some parts of the country organized crime groups exert more control than the federal government.

To build that power, cartels such as the Sinaloa cartel and the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) have recruited thousands of people into their ranks, either voluntarily or through coercion.

According to mathematician Rafael Prieto-Curiel, criminal organizations in Mexico recruit more members than they lose through arrests or deaths. He estimates that cartels across the country now have more than 180,000 members.

"The cartel is compensating, and it compensates faster than we are able to harm it," Prieto-Curiel said in an interview with Mexican journalist Luis Chaparro. "Ten years ago there were about 112,000 people in cartels. By 2023 we were already at 175,000, and now we estimate about 183,000."

As highlighted by Infobae México, the mathematician's analysis shows that cartel membership rose from about 115,000 in 2021 to nearly 175,000 in 2022. In 2021 alone, cartels recruited about 19,300 people while losing around 12,200 to deaths or imprisonment.

According to Prieto-Curiel, cartels must recruit between 350 and 370 people every week just to maintain their current size.

To achieve this, major drug cartels in Mexico have adopted new recruitment strategies. One of them is forced recruitment, which often involves fake job postings or deceptive offers targeting young people on social media. Those who fall for the schemes are later kidnapped and forced to join the criminal groups. There have also been reports of recruitment taking place inside rehabilitation and addiction treatment centers.

Another way cartels have expanded their ranks is by convincing young people that joining an armed group is the only path to improving their lives, and an easy way for them to do that is through social media.

As previously noted by The Latin Times, Mexican drug cartels prey on vulnerable teenagers through the virtual world.

Social media platforms such as Facebook, Snapchat, and TikTok, along with encrypted messaging apps like Telegram and WhatsApp, are also used to show off wealth, cars, and weapons, as well as to intimidate rival criminal groups by publicizing crimes and issuing threats.

According to data from Mexico's Ministry of the Interior, as of Dec. 2, nearly 7,000 minors and young people up to 29 years old have disappeared in less than a year, and another 505 individuals have been found dead.

For Prieto-Curiel, the key to stopping this is designing better targeted interventions for vulnerable youth in areas with a strong criminal presence. He argues that current universal social programs are too broad and provide relatively small financial benefits, making them ineffective at competing with the money offered by criminal organizations.

Prieto-Curiel also noted that cartel-related violence represents a massive economic burden for Mexico.

According to his estimates, such violence costs the country roughly 18 percent of its gross domestic product, including direct losses from homicides and injuries as well as indirect effects such as reduced investment and tourism.