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By KELIN DILLON

In a new piece published on Monday, May 20, journalist for the British daily newspaper Financial Times Michael Stott alleged that Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s (AMLO) controversial “hugs, not bullets” approach to confronting organized crime has caused cartel-borne violence to surge nationwide across the course of the federal executive’s six-year term.

“The cartels control more territory than ever before, about a third of the country, according to an estimate by the U.S. military,” read the report. “The outgoing president said that he was going to fight criminal organizations with hugs and not bullets. Five years later, the violence has deteriorated and has become a threat to the country’s security and economy.” 

Echoing the sentiments of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration that Mexico is home to two of the most widespread international crime rings in the world, the Financial Times pointed out that “Mexico’s drug cartels are thriving” under the López Obrador administration and reaping more money in than ever before.

 “As the economic power of the cartels has grown, so has their international reach. Mexico’s two main cartels now run a network of illegal activities that extends across South America and challenges governments and alarms citizens,” added the British paper, highlighting that the Sinaloa Cartel and the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) are Mexico’s “two largest and most powerful cartels.”

The report went on to note that the crime organizations have grown even more powerful due to their recent expansion from exclusively trafficking drugs into other lucrative illegal trades, such as human trafficking, arms trafficking, migrant smuggling, extortion and sex trafficking, among other ventures.

As a result of AMLO’s laissez-faire attitude toward cartel operations, Mexico’s organized crime groups have expanded their control of national territory to unprecedented levels, said Stott’s report.

“The president has painted a picture of an administration doing everything it can to address the problem, while blaming his predecessors for creating it,” concluded the piece.