SUMMARY

The outbreak of fighting between different drug-trafficking gangs in Mexico can be understood against the background of changes in the Mexican political landscape during the last decades. During the 1980s, there was a loose network of drug smugglers controlling their own "plaza" for drug trafficking. Governmental authority was highly centralized under PRI (Partido Revolucionario Institucional, Institutional Revolutionary Party) rule and by bribing high officials, the drug smugglers could control their businesses without getting interrupted by the authorities. When single-party rule started to give way to local opposition these networks and relationships were transformed, to the advantage of some actors but to the disadvantage of others. The drug cartels started to fight each other for control over territory and previous alliances fell apart.

La Mochomera originates from the Beltrán Leyva Cartel and was one of several groups that splintered from the cartel after the death of its leader, Arturo Beltrán Leyva, in 2009. La Mochomera challenged the Sinaloa Cartel in the northern parts of Sinaloa state beginning in 2013. La Mochomera posted pictures of their victims on social media on several occasions and left threatening messages, so-called “narcomantas”, next to the tortured and mutilated bodies of members of the Sinaloa Cartel. On these messages the group accused several people in the police force to be corrupt and work for the Sinaloa Cartel.

The non-state conflict between La Mochomera and the Sinaloa Cartel was first included in UCDP data in 2013. In August of that year, clashes between the two groups had resulted in more than 25 battle-related deaths.