SUMMARY
The Juarez Cartel is one of the major drug trafficking cartels in Mexico currently battling for control over territory and smuggling routes.
Since the late 1980s the drug trade in Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua state has been controlled by the Juarez Cartel led by the Carillo Fuentes family. Juarez is the key corridor for transporting drugs into the U.S. and therefore an important city to control. Their first leader, Amado Carillo Fuentes, also called "Lord of the skies" because of his huge passenger jets used to bring cocaine to Mexico from Colombia, was killed in 1997 during plastic surgery. His brother Vicente Carillo Fuentes inherited the leadership and has led the cartel since 1997.
The Juarez Cartel has been allied with the Sinaloa Cartel for many years, but when Rodolfo Carillo Fuentes was murdered in 2004 and Sinaloa leader ‘El Chapo’ Guzman was suspected to be behind the killing, the alliance began to break down. The final break came in 2007 when Sinaloa leader Ismael Zambada refused to pay taxes to the Juarez Cartel for smuggling drugs through their territory. In 2008 the streets of Ciudad Juarez were ravaged by fights between the Sinaloa Cartel and the Juarez Cartel, and since then the violence in Juarez has reached extreme levels.
Since 2010 the major cartels have reportedly assembled in two loose alliances; the Gulf Cartel, the Sinaloa Cartel, Los Caballeros Templarios and La Barredora on the one side, and the Juarez Cartel, the Tijuana Cartel, Los Zetas, La Familia and the Pacifico Sur Cartel on the other.
The Juarez Cartel controls several gangs that are important in their fight against other drug cartels. Two of the most well-known are La Linea and the Aztecas. La Linea is made up of former police officers and operates mainly in Cuidad Juarez, while the Aztecas primarily operates in other Mexican cities as well as in U.S. cities like El Paso, Dallas and Austin. The cartel has also expanded their activities to include human trafficking, kidnapping and extortion.
In 2010, reports said that the Juarez Cartel had lost the war in Ciudad Juarez to the Sinaloa Cartel, but although the Juarez Cartel has been weakened in recent years, they still seem to fight for their control over this important smuggling route.
The Juarez Cartel has been involved in the non-state category of organised violence.
