Drug Trafficking

Abstract

In 2010, 3,111 murders were reported in Ciudad Juárez, the Mexican border city to the south of El Paso, Texas. To put this into perspective, London’s population is eight times the size of that of Ciudad Juárez, but in the same year the city’s Metropolitan Police handled 124 murder cases.¹ It is estimated that in the whole of Mexico, around 25,000 people are murdered each year, and there are regular group killings. The bodies of the victims are frequently dismembered or disfigured in some way, and groups of corpses left on display in public places are not unusual; an indicator of the power of the drug cartels and the consequences for those who oppose or betray them.