Drug cartel in the context of "Violent crime"

Smuggling is the illegal transportation of objects, substances, information or people, such as out of a house or buildings, into a prison, or across an international border, in violation of applicable laws or other regulations. More broadly, social scientists define smuggling as the purposeful movement across a border in contravention to the relevant legal frameworks.

There are various motivations to smuggle. These include the participation in illegal trade, such as in the drug trade/drug cartel, illegal weapons trade, human trafficking, wildlife smuggling or wildlife trade, counterfeiting, game of chance, prostitution, kidnapping, heists, copyright infringement (piracy), chop shops, illegal immigration or illegal emigration, tax evasion, import restrictions, export restrictions, providing contraband to prison inmates, or the theft of the items being smuggled.

In international relations, violent non-state actors (VNSAs), also known as non-state armed actors or non-state armed groups (NSAGs), are individuals or groups that are wholly or partly independent of governments and which threaten or use violence to achieve their goals.

VNSAs vary widely in their goals, size, and methods. They may include narcotics cartels, popular liberation movements, religious and ideological organizations, corporations (e.g. private military contractors), self-defence militia, and paramilitary groups established by state governments to further their interests.

The Intelligence field, in simplistic terms, is a collection of the people who gather or sift through intelligence. Those persons popularly called "spies" are a small but important part of the intelligence field. The intelligence field is the top-level field composed of people and organizations and their involvement the systematic espionage, analysis, and dissemination of intelligence to support policymaking and key stakeholder decision-making, primarily in matters related to national security, military affairs, law enforcement, and international relations. Collectively, that process of intelligence is usually called the intelligence cycle. The intelligence field can encompass a range of subfields including; espionage, surveillance, data analysis, and counterintelligence, all aimed at understanding threats, opportunities, and the intentions and power projection of foreign entities. While the act of espionage is illegal throughout the world, espionage is only a single subfield of the intelligence field. There are many subfields of intelligence that are not illegal everywhere, such as Open-source intelligence (OSINT).

Intelligence work can be conducted by government intelligence agencies, police forces, and military intelligence units. This work can also be engaged by private organizations, including; private intelligence agencies, multinational corporations, private investigators, drug cartels, narcotic cartels, terrorist groups, and others. Individuals employed by these organizations can either be fully employed officers of intelligence agencies called intelligence officers, or single and mission-specific solitary contracting agents who are commonly known as "secret agents." Confusingly, the term "spy" has no definition at most intelligence agencies, but is codified in many state judicial systems as an illegal operator.

The Sinaloa Cartel (Spanish: Cártel de Sinaloa) is a large, drug trafficking transnational organized crime syndicate based in Culiacán, Sinaloa, Mexico, that specializes in illegal drug trafficking and money laundering.

The cartel's history is marked by evolution from a small crime syndicate to one of the most powerful and violent drug trafficking organizations in the world. Founded in the late 1960s by Pedro Avilés Pérez in Sinaloa, the cartel initially focused on smuggling cannabis (marijuana) into the United States. Pérez is credited with pioneering the use of aircraft for drug smuggling, laying the groundwork for large-scale trafficking operations. His organization was a training ground for the second generation of Sinaloan traffickers.

An improvised fighting vehicle is an ad hoc combat vehicle resulting from modified or upgraded civilian or military non-combat vehicle, often constructed and employed by civilian insurgents, terrorists, rebels, mobsters, guerrillas, partisans, drug cartels, criminal organizations or other forms of non-state militias and irregular armies. Such modifications usually consist of grafting improvised armour plating and fixed crew-served weapons such as heavy machine guns or antiaircraft autocannons mounted onto the back of a utility vehicle or pickup truck.

Various militias and official militaries have improvised such vehicles ever since the introduction of the first automobiles into military service. During the 1910s and 1920s, the absence of a doctrine for the military use of automobiles or of an industry dedicated to producing them led to a great deal of improvisation in the creation of early armored cars and similar vehicles.

Crime is one of the most urgent concerns facing Mexico, as Mexican drug trafficking rings play a major role in the flow of cocaine, methamphetamine, fentanyl, heroin, and marijuana transiting between Latin America and the United States. Drug trafficking has led to corruption, which has had a deleterious effect on Mexico's Federal Representative Republic. Drug trafficking and organized crime have been a major source of violent crime. Drug cartels and gangs have also branched out to conduct alternative illegal activities for profit, including sex trafficking. Some of the most increasingly violent states in Mexico in 2020 included Guanajuato, Zacatecas, Michoacán, Jalisco, and Querétaro. Some of the world's most violent cities are reportedly within the state of Guanajuato with extortion from criminal groups (such as CSRL and CJNG) now being commonplace. The state of Zacatecas is said to be valuable to multiple organized crime groups (including the Sinaloa Cartel and CJNG) for drug trafficking, specifically methamphetamine to the United States. As of 2021, Michoacán is experiencing increased instances of extortion and kidnapping due to a growing presence and escalation in the armed conflicts between CJNG and Cárteles Unidos on regions bordering the neighboring state of Jalisco. CJNG is also currently battling the Los Chapitos faction of the Sinaloa Cartel in the North Mexican region of Sonora.

Mexico has experienced increasingly high crime rates, especially in major urban centers. The country's great economic polarization has stimulated criminal activity mainly in the lower socioeconomic strata, which include the majority of the country's population. Crime is increasing at high levels, and is repeatedly marked by violence, especially in the cities of Tijuana and Ciudad Juárez, and the states of Baja California, Durango, Sinaloa, Guerrero, Chihuahua, Michoacán, Tamaulipas, and Nuevo León. Other metropolitan areas have lower, yet still serious, levels of crime. Low apprehension and conviction rates contribute to the high crime rate. Since many crimes go unreported, the rates may be much higher than reported by the government. The murder rate in 2023 was 23.3 per 100,000. Most of the crime is committed by a small proportion of the population involved in the drug trade with about half of murders being drug-related.

A drug lord, drug baron, kingpin, or lord of drugs is a type of crime boss in charge of a drug trafficking network, organization, or enterprise. When a group of independent drug lords collude with each other, in order to improve their profits and dominate the illegal drug trade, they form an organization called a drug cartel.