Decapitating cartels? Mexico leans into ‘kingpin strategy’ but at a cost

Monterrey, Mexico – In July 2024, following the arrest of cartel leader Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada in Texas, activist Maria Isabel Cruz and her colleagues started to notice a troubling trend.

Zambada was the cofounder of the Sinaloa Cartel, one of the most powerful criminal networks in Mexico. Authorities in the United States applauded his capture as a "direct strike" in their campaign to dismantle the cartel.

But for Cruz and her fellow activists at Sabuesos Guerreras, a collective that searches for missing people in Culiacan, Sinaloa, it was the start of a gradual rise in disappearances.

On September 9, that trend accelerated. A power struggle broke out within the Sinaloa Cartel, causing a surge in murders, femicides and missing-person reports.

Homicides in Sinaloa rose from 44 in August of that year to 142 in September. The swell of violence continued into the following year. In 2025, 1,657 people were killed.

Meanwhile, Sabuesos Guerreras estimates that the number of disappearances has reached 5,800 since July 2024, though that is likely an undercount.

For Cruz, whose own son disappeared in 2017, the spike in deaths and disappearances raises questions about attacking cartel leadership alone.

“I don’t know if there’s really a strategy," Cruz said. "They're fighting the leaders, but everything at the bottom remains, and it’s the ordinary people who pay the price."

It will be 20 years this December since Mexico declared its "war on drugs", deploying thousands of troops to confront the cartels.

In that time, four successive administrations have struggled to dismantle Mexico's criminal organisations. Nevertheless, the “kingpin strategy” — the targeting and removal of cartel leadership — has remained the most prominent approach.

Critics, however, are sceptical about the long-term effectiveness of the strategy. “What’s the point of fighting the leaders if the roots remain?” Cruz asked.

Bernardo Leon Olea, a former security commissioner in Morelia, Michoacan, argues that the "kingpin" approach leads to fragmentation within the cartels, which then generates more violence, as factions battle for power. He also questioned the benefit for civilians.

“You don’t stop paying extortion. Drugs are still being sold near your home. There’s still crime, corruption," Leon explained. "Because you’re not dismantling the criminal organisation."