Gulf Cartels’ Corporate Structure

Alejandra Terán, Student, Global Security Studies and Leadership

Fortune 500 Structure

• Top managers oversee revenue streams:o Marijuanao Cocaineo Extortion Payments

• Costs nearly $1 million dollars to run a territory

• Money covers recruitment, training, and equipping gunmen.

Sample Cartel Organizational ChartDrug Enforcement Administration

Analysis• Cartel organizational charts resemble Fortune 500

companies.

• Testimonies reveal similarities between drug-trafficking organizations (DTOs) and legitimate corporation[s].o Both seek transnational networks and diversified interests.

• It is all about money and expansion.

Gulf Cartel Los Zetas

• Diversified Interesto Smuggling immigrantso Extortion racketso Border Businesses

• Drug Distributiono Marijuanao Cocaineo Other

• Weapons Trafficking

• Expansiono Extortion racketso Piracy

• Drug Distributiono Marijuanao Cocaineo Other

• Weapons Trafficking

Comments

Gulf Cartel MembersHuffington Post

• Gulf Cartel is one of the oldest cartels.

• Lost influence – backed up by the Sinaloa cartel.

• Leader is Jorge Eduardo Costilla Sanchez, alias "El Coss."

• The U.S. has a $5 million bounty for El Coss.

• Cartel operates from the state of Tamaulipas, with bases in Matamoros.

Los Zetas Cartel MemberHuffington Post

• The Zetas have increased in size in Mexico.

• Leader is the notoriously brutal gangster Miguel Angel Trevino Morales (alias "Z-40").

• Trevino is infamous for human "cookouts” – stuffing people in oil drums and lighting them on fire.

References• http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/jury-in-t

exas-convicts-gulf-drug-cartels-former-right-hand-man-of-supervising-drug-shipments/2012/09/28/b37fc412-09cc-11e2-9eea-333857f6a7bd_print.html

• http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/news/2012/09/29/on-border-mexican-cartels-run-like-corporate-businesses/

• http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/30/mexican-cartel-corporate-model_n_1926664.html#slide=1430017

Contact Information• A. M. Terán amteran@broncs.utpa.edu Global Security Studies & Leadership