Análisis de los grupos delictivos en México
Instituto Mexicano de la Radio (IMER)
Análisis de los grupos delictivos en México
Instituto Mexicano de la Radio — IMER (Radio Interview) April 27, 2021 · Mexico Photo: source pending
The Map Behind the Headlines
In this radio segment with Mexico’s national public broadcaster, I walked through my CIDE map of 148 criminal groups: how I built it, what it shows about regional concentration, and how to read it without alarmism or fatalism.
Photo: Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0)
A Public-Service Frame
The framing mattered as much as the data. The real question: what does this much fragmentation mean for a state that still designs security policy around a handful of named cartels? Strategy and data haven’t caught up with each other.
What the Segment Reported
I walked listeners through the method: a structured search across press coverage and social media that detected 148 criminal groups operating in Mexico between 2018 and 2019. Every state hosts at least one active cartel; concentration peaks in Michoacán, Guerrero, Estado de México, and Mexico City, each with 20 to 24 distinct groups. The Sinaloa Cartel alone controls 11 armed wings, the highest count in my dataset.
My focus: the mechanism by which fragmentation produces violence. “Prácticamente los grupos principales prestan su nombre, prestan la fama que tienen y entonces infunden la violencia.” Regional armed wings borrow a bigger cartel’s name and reputation as both intimidation tool and cover, so “Cártel X” can appear in many places while the actors carrying that name are organizationally distinct and locally embedded, a structure the federal cartel-counting frame can’t capture.
Photo: U.S. Navy (public domain)
I closed on policy: “Hay dos formas para debilitar a los grupos delictivos: uno, limitar su acceso a recursos financieros y dos, su acceso a las armas.” Two levers: financial flows and weapons supply.