MEXICAN cartels are advancing at a terrifying pace with industrial-scale meth labs, criminal alliances and a deadly new drug on the market.
The world’s most vicious gangs are evolving with new tactics to expand their bloodthirsty empire across the world.
As their reach spreads far beyond Mexico’s borders, experts warn “unprecedented” levels of violence will follow.
Over the past decade, Mexican criminal groups have expanded their operations far beyond their borders.
While dominating the cocaine trade in Europe, cartels are developing new markets in Australia, New Zealand, Asia, Africa and the Middle East.
But they have turned to the production of a much more deadly drug – a new, potent crystal meth.
Rafaella Liptschitz, criminal network specialist at the New Lines Institute, told The Sun: “Cartels continue to adapt and become more resilient.
“As enforcement pressure intensifies in one area, these groups diversify production, spreading operations so that a bust in one country does little to disrupt the trade as a whole.
“Constant adaptation, be that through supply chains, trafficking methods or production locations, makes keeping up with them extremely difficult.”
‘Super’ meth labs churning out tens of millions of pounds of product have sprung up across Europe and Africa.
Mexico’s most notorious cartels – the Sinaloa Cartel and Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generación (CJNG) – are outsourcing their highly skilled cooks.
The drug chemists partner with local criminal groups and teach them how to create a lethal version of the drug.
Five Mexicans appeared in a UK court earlier this month accused of conspiracy to produce meth after police arrests.
It’s alleged they were part of a criminal syndicate making the drug at a meth lab on a remote farmland near Furnace End in Warwickshire. They all denied involvement.
Meth use in the UK has gone up by 61 per cent between 2021 and 2025, according to the amount detected in the country’s waterways.
The rise coincides with the Taliban’s crackdown on heroin production – leaving room for Mexican kingpins to exploit a gap in the market.
Rafaella said Mexican cartels now appear to be treating Europe as an “operational hub” rather than a “destination market”.
“Europe’s diverse criminal landscape allows cartels to integrate their operations into preexisting ecosystems relatively easily”, she added.
A report by the United Nations in June revealed that global meth trafficking is up by 13 per cent and new routes through Africa have opened up markets.
Police in South Africa have raided at least five meth facilities in the past two years. In each case, they arrested Mexican workers.
Last month, police uncovered a multi-million-pound meth lab on a farm outside Musina, in Limpopo province, near the border with Zimbabwe.
Officers said they found cauldrons filled with chemicals, vats of product ready to heat and drugs worth around £27million, as well as “an undisclosed amount of cash”.
Two Mexicans were arrested, along with two Zimbabweans and a Malawian.
All appeared in court a week later on charges of drug manufacturing, possession and money laundering.
Rafaella said: “Instead of cartels relocating leadership, they transfer production knowledge to local groups.
“This sets up a low-risk, high-reward structure that lets Mexican cartels plug into established criminal networks without owning the operation outright.
“So, a lab bust or arrest does little damage to the organization.
“This is not new, but is becoming more prominent abroad.”
South Africa appeals to Mexican cartels for several reasons, Rafaella said.
The country’s strategic and porous borders allow for easy transportation while busy ports offer access to established trade corridors with little enforcement.
Meanwhile, widespread corruption allows cartels and local criminal networks to operate untouched.
The scale of these meth labs and the frequency they are appearing suggests South Africa has “shifted” from a “transit country” in the global meth trade to “an emerging production site”, Rafaella said.
And it has spread far further across the continent, with similar sites raided in Kenya, and Nigeria, she added.
In May, Nigeria conducted one of its largest ever drug busts, with raids in Ogun and Lagos states.
Ten suspects, including three Mexicans, have been charged with operating an illegal drug lab, producing 2.7 tonnes of meth, and drug trafficking.
The presence of Mexican cartels in Africa demonstrates “the growing prominence of their franchise” and “just how global the drug trade is becoming”, Rafaella said.
Both the Sinaloa Cartel’s and CJNG’s Asian connections have now expanded to Chinese and Indian suppliers of fentanyl.
And in the past decade, the Sinaloa Cartel has formed methamphetamine trafficking routes and money laundering in Canada and the Middle East.
Meth production sites linked to Mexican cartels have also appeared across Europe.
Labs have been raided in the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Poland, Bulgaria, Romania, Spain and Britain.
Rafaella said: “Spain has become a critical node in Sinaloa and CJNG’s European operations, as cartels use the country and its ports as a key gateway for meth and cocaine trafficked across the Atlantic. “
Meanwhile in Australia and New Zealand the Mexican cartels have recently surpassed the long-established Chinese criminal groups.
Around the world, the expansion of drug trafficking gives rise to increased drug use.
To avoid processing huge volumes of cash in many different currencies, cartels pay their local partners in drugs.
At the same time, regional gangs are forced to whip up consumption for profit.
The expansion of meth use across Europe has devastating effects.
Formed into large crystals – highly desirable to addicts – the meth produced by Mexican cartels is incredibly potent.
With little effective treatment, unlike for opioid use, the strain now flooding European markets is tied to horrifying death rates.
In the United States, it has already killed tens of thousands of people.
As Mexican cartels spread across the world, they are leaving a bloody trail of violence.
Rafaella said: “The violence tied to Mexican cartel expansion in South Africa mainly takes the form of targeted killings.
“A crime intel officer set to testify in an ongoing commission looking at police corruption has been assassinated, a state witness was killed in a big cocaine case in the Western Cape, and a businessman is on trial for allegedly financing several assassination attempts tied to police corruption.
“This style of going after witnesses, informants, and officials rather than public displays of violence differs from the often more visible cartel violence seen in Mexico.
“But the underlying dynamic of cartels using violence to discipline local partners and prevent defections is similar to what’s driving some of the low-level violence in Europe’s growing meth markets.”
The Mexican cartels’ arrival often offers local criminal groups with the capacity to increase their firepower.
If established criminal networks feel threatened by the Mexican cartels’ expansion, the competition could erupt into “unprecedented levels of criminal violence”.
“The concern is that as local drug markets expand, that violence could escalate toward the more overt, turf-driven violence we see in Mexico”, Rafaella said.