Juárez Cartel
The Juárez Cartel (Spanish: Cártel de Juárez), also known as the Vicente Carrillo Fuentes Organization, is a Mexican drug cartel based in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, across the Mexico—U.S. border from El Paso, Texas. The cartel is one of several drug trafficking organizations that have been known to decapitate their rivals, mutilate their corpses and dump them in public places to instill fear not only in the general public but also in local law enforcement and their rivals, the Sinaloa Cartel. Its current known leader is Juan Pablo Ledezma. The Juárez Cartel has an armed wing known as La Línea, a Juárez street gang that usually performs the executions and is now the cartel’s most powerful and leading faction. It also uses the Barrio Azteca gang to attack its enemies.
| Founded | 1970 |
|---|---|
| Founded by | Rafael Aguilar Guajardo, Pablo Acosta Villarreal, Amado Carrillo Fuentes, Vicente Carrillo Fuentes |
| Founding location | Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, Mexico |
| Years active | 1970–present |
| Territory | Mexico: Chihuahua, Ciudad Juárez Various Mexican cities including: Aguascalientes City, Tijuana, Saltillo, León, Guadalajara, Monterrey, Puebla City, Cancún Sierra Madre Occidental states: Nayarit, Jalisco, Aguascalientes, Sinaloa, Zacatecas, Durango, and Sonora United States: Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Oklahoma |
| Ethnicity | Mexican |
| Criminal activities | Drug trafficking, human trafficking, smuggling, money laundering, racketeering, extortion, murder, arms trafficking, bribery. |
| Allies | La Línea (lead faction) Beltrán-Leyva Cartel (defunct) Barrio Azteca Los Zetas Oaxaca Cartel (defunct) |
| Rivals | Sinaloa Cartel MS-13 Jalisco New Generation Cartel Gente Nueva Knights Templar Cartel Gulf Cartel La Familia Michoacana Tijuana Cartel |
The Juárez Cartel was the dominant player in the center of the country, controlling a large percentage of the cocaine traffic from Mexico into the United States. The death of Amado Carrillo Fuentes in 1997 was the beginning of the decline of the Juárez cartel, as Carrillo relied on ties to Mexico's top-ranking drug interdiction officer, division general Jesús Gutiérrez Rebollo.