The Use of Social Media by Alleged Members of Mexican Cartels and Affiliated Drug Trafficking Organizations

Abstract

Focusing on Mexican cartels and affiliated drug trafficking organizations, this article examines how self-proclaimed cartel members use social media to further the criminal activities of their organizations. Employing an open-source, intelligence-driven methodology, the authors identified, followed, and mapped the connections between and among 75 alleged cartel members over a period of 4 months. Results indicated that cartel members actively use Facebook to plan, organize, and communicate in real-time. These findings provide tentative validation to the utility of using open-source social media platforms to study the social structure and operations of Mexican drug cartels. Implications for law enforcement, homeland security, and the intelligence enterprise are discussed.

Goffman and the Mafia: shaping YouTube's technological affordances in the war on drugs

“…The member of the New People who posted the video organized activities through comments: "those who want to join us do send me a private message," "peeps working for the New People, please do send me the data I asked you through private messages." This finding is similar to the results of Nix et al (2016) of DTO's use of Facebook.…”

“…The authors state that subscribers to DTOs' platforms are also members of the same criminal organizations. Nix et al (2016) conducted a study on DTOs' use of Facebook and they conclude that this digital platform is used for organizational purposes.…”