SUMMARY
La Familia was one of the major drug trafficking cartels in Mexico battling other cartels for control over territory and smuggling routes.
The cartel was formerly known as "La Empresa" and served as an ally of the Gulf Cartel. In 2006 the "La Familia" cartel was born when the group became the first Mexican drug cartel to employ the tactic of severing the heads of its victims and then leaving them on public display. The cartel was founded and led by Carlos Rosales Mendoza (arrested October 24, 2004), Nazario "El Chayo" Moreno González, (died May 9, 2014) and José de Jesús "El Chango" Méndez Vargas, (arrested June 21, 2011).
La Familia had a hierarchical leadership structure comprised of between 25 and 50 plaza bosses each of whom had a deputy plaza boss. The cartel had several thousand members many of whom were from the state of Michoacán. La Familia members frequently came from troubled backgrounds and the cartel was known to recruit new members directly from Michoacáns drug-rehabilitation centers.
La Familia was involved in the production, trafficking and distribution of methamphetamine, marijuana and cocaine but also kidnapping, human smuggling, and extortion. The cartel was notorious not only for its brutality but also for its professed radical civic/religious ideology. The cartel frequently professed goals such as eradicating kidnapping, extortion, theft and other already criminal offences from the state of Michoacán, a propaganda tactic which has been widely replicated by other Mexican drug cartels.
La Familia was predominantly active in the state of Michoacán around the states major port city of Lazaro Cardenas where it battled the Zetas cartel during the late 2000s. The cartel was also known to have also been active in the states of Guerrero, Guanajuato, Mexico state and Mexico City, Federal District. The cartel also had an international network with links to Central America, Europe and the United States.
A major 2009-2010 counter-narcotics offensive by Mexican and U.S. government agencies against the cartel ultimately resulted in the arrest of at least 345 suspected La Familia members in the U.S., and the disappearance of one of the cartels founders, Nazario "El Chayo" Moreno González, on December 9, 2010.
The cartel subsequently unraveled and splintered into two smaller groups, the Knights Templar Cartel and a José de Jesús "El Chango" Méndez Vargas led faction which kept the name La Familia. Following the cartels fragmentation in late 2010 and early 2011, La Familia fought the newly created Knights Templar Cartel. On June 21, 2011 José de Jesús "El Chango" Méndez Vargas was arrested by Mexican authorities but the cartel remained active into 2012 albeit in a far less powerful form than previously.
La Familia has been involved in the non-state category of UCDP organized violence.
