Mexican cartels expand to Oceania: DEA detects presence in Australia

The DEA confirmed that the Sinaloa and Jalisco New Generation cartels have expanded their operations to Australia and New Zealand. Mexican drug trafficking no longer only dominates routes in America and Europe but now also colonizes the most distant markets on the planet.

 Meanwhile, the Mexican government can't even manage to control its southern border. The report "Presence and Impact of Mexican Cartels in Australia and New Zealand".

Published in March 2025, it warns about the sophistication of these networks.
Mexican organizations are already working in alliance with local mafias. They use social media to recruit personnel.

Meanwhile, they traffic drugs hidden in products like beer, machinery, and electrical transformers. The profits in that region far exceed those of the Latin American market.

The Mexican drug trade goes multinational

The DEA documented shipments of high-purity liquid methamphetamine camouflaged in commercial products. In a case recorded in New Zealand, a woman died after consuming a can of beer contaminated with drugs. The authorities in Oceania now face an enemy that Mexico itself never managed to control.

The cartels establish temporary presence in destination countries to coordinate logistics. Distribution is handled by local criminal groups, such as biker gangs. The criminal franchise model is now global, with a Mexican stamp.

The Mexican state, incapable and complicit

Meanwhile, the cartels consolidate their expansion, the Mexican government keeps its "hugs" discourse. Fudged figures and institutional simulation.
The containment strategy has completely failed; the drug trade not only governs entire regions, it now exports its model.

Militarization didn't stop the advance. Judicial reforms didn't reduce their power. Meanwhile, the government, more concerned with protecting narratives than enforcing the law, allowed criminal networks to professionalize and globalize.

Today, while international agencies document the expansion of the Mexican drug trade on four continents, the country continues debating whether organized crime exists or is "an invention of the media".

The question is no longer if the drug trade dominates Mexico. The question is how many more countries it will have to conquer before someone in power reacts to the international advance of these criminal groups.