Leadership Removal in Mexican Drug-Trafficking Organizations

Since President Felipe Calderon took office, over 34,000 murders have been tied to drug tracking organizations (DTO's) in Mexico. In response, the Mexican government-- with assistance from the US--has targeted DTO leaders for removal. This study identifies 25 leadership removals between 2006 and 2010, and analyzes subsequent changes in drug-related murders using autoregressive distributed lag (ADL) regression (OLS) models in a monthly time series of 11 states. Persistence dynamics for longer-term effects are also analyzed. Leadership removals generally precede increases in violence. However, the predicted effects of removal differ by the leadership role that the individual performed. Killing leaders is followed by more violence than capturing them. There is no significant change in levels of drug tracking, as proxied by seizures and retail prices. Public opinion is increasingly dissatised with the Calderon administration's approach. Together, these results suggest the ineffectiveness of DTO leadership targeting.