Today Mexico is a major producer and supplier to the U.S. market of heroin, methamphetamine, and marijuana and the major transit country for cocaine sold in the United States. According to the Department of State's 2009 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report , as much as 90% of the cocaine entering the United States now transits through Mexico. A small number of Mexican DTOs control the most significant drug distribution operations along the Southwest border. The criminal activities of these Mexican DTOs reach well beyond the towns and cities of the border, extending along drug trafficking routes into cities across the United States. The Mexican DTOs have exhibited many characteristics of organized crime such as being organized in distinct cells and controlling subordinate cells that operate throughout the United States. In the U.S. Justice Department's National Drug Threat Assessment 2009 (published in December 2008), Mexican drug trafficking organizations were identified as the greatest drug trafficking threat to the United States worldwide. Today's situation arose with the closing of the Caribbean route through which drugs, and particularly cocaine from Colombia, was channeled to the United States in an earlier era. With increased U.S. efforts to interdict narcotic smugglers in the Caribbean and Florida in the late 1980s and 1990s, the Colombian drug cartels began subcontracting with Mexican DTOs to smuggle cocaine into the United States across the Southwest border. By the late 1990s, Mexican DTOs had pushed aside the Colombians and gained greater control and market share of cocaine trafficking into the United States. Mexican DTOs now dominate the wholesale illicit market in the United States. The Mexican DTOs, often referred to as "drug cartels," have become increasingly violent. The National Drug Threat Assessment states that Mexico's DTOs now "control most of the U.S. drug market," with distribution capabilities in 230 U.S. cities. Mexican President Felipe Calderón began his assault on organized crime shortly after he took office in December 2006 and made combating the DTOs a centerpiece of his policy. The Calderón government has devoted billions of dollars to the offensive against Mexico's entrenched drug trafficking organizations, and deployed 45,000 soldiers and thousands of federal police in nearly a dozen of Mexico's states in the fight. More than 5,600 people died in drug trafficking violence in Mexico in 2008, more than double the prior year. This escalation in the level of violence was matched by a growing ferocity. Beginning in early 2008, there was an increase in assassinations of high-level law enforcement officials, gruesome murders including beheadings, violent kidnappings, use of a growing and varied arsenal of high-powered weapons, and one incidence of indiscriminate killing of civilians. The battle for control of the multi-billion dollar drug trade has been—and continues to be—brutal. While the U.S. and Mexican media began to shift their attention away from the sensational crimes allegedly committed by the Mexican DTOs in late spring, the high numbers of killings have continued, exceeding an estimated 2,000 thus far in 2009. For many years, the export of illegal narcotics to the United States, which shares a nearly 2,000-mile border with Mexico, was tolerated by the Mexican government. The Mexican government pursued an overall policy of accommodation, according to numerous accounts. Under this system, arrests and eradication took place, but due to the effects of widespread corruption, the system was "characterized by a working relationship between Mexican authorities and drug lords" through the 1990s. In the 1980s and 1990s, U.S.-Mexico counternarcotics efforts were often marked by mistrust. Beginning in 1986, when the U.S. President was required to certify whether drug producing and drug transit countries were cooperating fully with the United States, Mexico usually was criticized for its efforts leading to increased Mexican government criticism of the U.S assessment. Reforms to the U.S. drug certification process enacted in September 2002 ( P.L. 107-228 ) essentially eliminated the annual drug certification requirement, and instead required the President to designate and withhold assistance from countries that had "failed demonstrably" to make substantial counternarcotics efforts. In the aftermath of these reforms, U.S. bilateral cooperation with Mexico on counternarcotics efforts improved considerably during the administration of Vicente Fox (2000-2006), and combating DTOs has become a priority of the current Calderón administration. The election of President Fox in 2000 ended 71 years of one-party rule in Mexico by the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), shifting Mexico toward a more democratic political system. Fox, of the conservative National Action Party (PAN) believed that a more democratic regime could lower internal security spending, a policy he pursued during his term in office. Some critics argue the Fox administration's lack of steady focus on the drug problem led to "lost years" in the battle against the DTOs. Others point to more effective antidrug policies that began under Fox to build the institutional capacity for an effective counterdrug strategy. Under President Fox, the federal police force was purged and reorganized and a more aggressive approach was taken in fighting the DTOs including more arrests, increased seizures of drug shipments and the extradition of major drug kingpins to the United States. These counternarcotics successes, however, led to a wave of violence as arrests of DTO leaders resulted in bloody turf battles over territory, resources and manpower. When President Felipe Calderón, (also of the center-right PAN party), won office in December 2006 with a very narrow victory, he made combating the drug cartels a top priority. He called the increased drug violence a threat to the Mexican state and sent thousands of soldiers and federal police to combat cartels in drug trafficking "hot spots." Soldiers and federal law enforcement officials have been tasked with arresting traffickers, establishing check points, burning marijuana and opium fields, and interdicting drug shipments along the Mexican coasts. Many have lauded President Calderón's determination to make battling the DTOs and the pervasive corruption they engender as a hallmark of his new administration. In 2008, the government's crackdown, and rivalries and turf wars among Mexico's DTOs, fueled an escalation in violence throughout the country, including in northern Mexico near the U.S.-Mexico border. In an effort to control the most lucrative drug smuggling routes in Mexico, rival DTOs have been launching attacks on each other, as well as on Mexican military and police. The violence, as described in more detail below, has continued in 2009 and is posing a serious challenge for Mexico's security forces. Since coming into office in December 2006, President Calderón has deployed some 45,000 troops and 5,000 federal police along the U.S.-Mexico border and throughout the country's interior. Over that time, approximately 10,000 people have been killed in the violence. (For a detailed map of the drug killings since 2007 and other data about the drug war in Mexico, see graphic in the Washington Post at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/graphic/2009/04/01/GR2009040103531.html ). The major DTOs in Mexico are all polydrug operations (handling methamphetamine, marijuana, cocaine and heroin). Figure 1 shows the approximate areas of influence of the major Mexican DTOs as of May 2009. The recent heightened violence suggests there has been a realignment of control of national markets and transport routes. The seven major cartels that once controlled Mexico have reconfigured. The major criminal organizations that now are reported to dominate the market are described below: Sinaloa Federation and Cartel —By 2008, a federation dominated by the Sinaloa cartel (which included the Beltrán Leyva Organization and the Carillo Fuentes or Juárez cartel) broke apart. The federation reportedly had controlled a majority of the cocaine passing through Mexico to the United States. The Sinaloa cartel itself remains strong and effective in smuggling cocaine from South America to the United States, but it has lost control of territory in Mexico to its competitors as the result of the inter-cartel battles during 2008. It is headed by Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, probably the most wanted drug smuggler in Mexico. Gulf Cartel —A year ago, the Gulf cartel was considered the most powerful DTO in Mexico, but it has been a steady target of the government campaign and now it is "an open question…whether the cartel is intact." The cartel's headquarters is the northeastern Mexican state of Tamaulipas. The suspected leader of the cartel, Osiel Cardenas Guillen, was arrested in 2003. However, he was not extradited to the United States until 2007. The Gulf cartel no longer controls Los Zetas, formerly their paramilitary enforcement arm. The relationship today between the Gulf cartel and Los Zetas remains unclear though it is likely they still cooperate. Beltrán Leyva Organization —Until last year, this syndicate was a part of the Sinaloa federation. As part of the Sinaloa federation, it controlled access to the U.S. border in Sonora state. It has become independent of the Sinaloa federation and has grown to be one of the most powerful drug trafficking organizations in Mexico, still controlling large areas of the country. It is believed to be responsible for the May 2008, assassination of acting federal police director Edgar Millán Gomez in Mexico City, and has gone after other high-ranking government officials. This organization has quickly secured narcotics transport routes in the states of Sinaloa, Durango, Sonora, Jalisco, Michoacan, Guerrero and Morelos.