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Generation Z protests, which have erupted in different parts of the world in recent months, have now reached Mexico. Young people are mobilizing against cartel violence, disappearances, and a state they see as unable or unwilling to protect them. Their anger grows in parallel with a deepening tension between Mexico City and Washington, where every new incident on the border quickly turns into a political clash.
In October last year, Chilpancingo’s newly sworn-in mayor, Alejandro Arcos Catalan, was beheaded just six days into office, his head dumped on a pickup truck in a cartel show of power. At the start of this month, Uruapan’s mayor, Carlos Manzo, was gunned down in public during Day of the Dead celebrations, a killing that exposed how openly cartels now execute officials.
Meanwhile, with over 130,000 people still missing and new mass graves surfacing across the country, Mexico’s security collapse is no longer a crisis on the margins but a nationwide emergency hitting young people and entire communities.
For the United States and the wider world, Mexican cartels are no longer viewed as a distant or purely local threat. They are central actors in the global narcotics economy and a persistent theme in domestic politics.
During his first term, President Donald Trump tightened border policies and repeatedly framed the cartels as enemies of the United States, a narrative he has continued throughout his second round of campaigning.
Building on a stance he first floated in his initial term and revived on the campaign trail, Trump moved quickly after returning to the White House in January, this time formally designating several Mexican cartels as foreign terrorist organizations.
Lastly, he also spoke openly about using military force against cartel targets inside Mexico, saying he was “OK with it” when asked whether he supported such strikes.
None of this was unexpected. For months, U.S. reports had pointed to unilateral intelligence monitoring of cartel networks and quiet discussions about limited military options, keeping the prospect of American action in the headlines.
But these developments sit inside a much bigger market. Recent analyses drawing on UNODC data suggest the global drug-trafficking economy is worth several hundred billion dollars a year, with some estimates placing it roughly between $400 billion and $650 billion.
At the sharp end of that business sits the Sinaloa Cartel, which has pushed far beyond Latin America, building partnerships with criminal groups in Europe and the Middle East and working with Turkish networks.
For security officials in Ankara and European capitals alike, Türkiye is now a key transit hub on the routes that carry Latin American cocaine into Eurasian markets, and inside the country, this role is increasingly treated as a national security problem and a direct threat to Turkish citizens.
In light of these developments, our interview turns to Special Agent Ray Donovan, a senior DEA figure whose career placed him at the centre of its most sensitive intelligence-driven operations.
Before leading the DEA’s New York Division, he served as a Section Chief in the DEA’s Special Operations Division, where he led the elite task force that hunted Joaquín ‘El Chapo’ Guzman, directing a cross-border manhunt supported by hundreds of agents, analysts and partner units that ultimately ended with his final capture by Mexican marines during the 2016 raid in Los Mochis.
As Washington revisits how far it is prepared to go against Mexico-based cartels, that background makes Donovan an essential voice. It is for this reason that I reached out to him and put a series of questions to someone who has seen this fight up close.
Ray Donovan never expected to spend nearly three decades dismantling drug organizations. When he first entered St. John’s University, he planned to study pharmacy, choosing stability over anything connected to the violent world of narcotics.
That path shifted after a retired DEA agent visited his class and spoke about working undercover around the world. The impact was immediate.
“I switched my major from pharmacy to criminal justice the day after he spoke,” Donovan recalls.
“Hearing his stories made me realize this was my true calling.”
The change was rooted not only in inspiration but in experience. Growing up in the Bronx, he had watched addiction tear through vulnerable, working-class neighborhoods. Drugs were not an abstract problem; they affected neighbors, classmates and members of his extended family. “I saw how drug distribution tore apart communities and affected families I knew,” he says. “I wanted to help solve the problem instead of being part of it.”
From that mix of a chance classroom encounter and the reality of his own surroundings, Donovan built the foundations of a career shaped by duty rather than glamor—a commitment to stand between communities and the organizations that prey on them.
Mexico’s drug war environment has long been shaped by corruption that directly affected law enforcement work. International assessments still place the country in the lower band of global corruption rankings, with little meaningful progress in recent years. For many investigators, these numbers reflected daily reality.
Over the years, state police units, senior officials, governors, state attorneys general, judges, mayors and elements of the Federal Police were repeatedly linked to organized crime, creating an operational landscape where alliances and loyalties shifted without warning.
For agents like Donovan, this was not background noise. It influenced the planning of every investigation, the reliability of intelligence and the risks teams faced when moving against high-value targets.
This environment shaped the pursuit of El Chapo and determined how far investigators could advance before encountering internal resistance. Each of Guzman’s high-profile arrests and spectacular prison breaks became part of that same story, exposing how corruption and a hollowed-out prison system repeatedly undercut the hunt for him.
When I asked Donovan about these challenges, he explained how corruption affected morale inside agencies.
“I believe that corruption can discourage some employees from thinking big and pursuing investigations to arrest major drug traffickers, as these criminals often seem untouchable because of their connections to the government,” he said.
Despite this, he refused to accept a defeatist mindset. “However, I never adopted that mindset. My belief was simple. All we can do is try,” he told me. His motivation came from the people harmed by cartel violence.
“I felt a strong sense of purpose in seeking justice for the many victims against El Chapo and the Sinaloa Cartel, recognizing it as an important mission for both Mexico and the United States. I’ve always viewed the situation through the eyes of the innocent victims who deserve justice and peace.”
That focus shaped the multinational effort that eventually brought Guzman to justice. Donovan described how various agencies worked together to build a team capable of withstanding leaks and political interference.
“To accomplish what many thought was impossible, the capture of El Chapo, we assembled a diverse team of dedicated agents from various agencies, including the Mexican Marines,” he recalled.
For Donovan, the lesson was constant. Progress was uncertain, but persistence remained the only path forward.
While most of the world focused on Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzman, Donovan and his colleagues also tracked the quieter figure who helped keep the Sinaloa Cartel stable. Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada was treated as a high-value target whose capture would test how far the organisation’s structure could bend without breaking.
When I asked Donovan about El Mayo’s capture and the younger Guzman generation, he framed them through self-interest and internal bargaining.
“I think that, as a matter of self-preservation, Joaquín Jr. apprehended Mayo—and of course, there was a $15 million reward for El Mayo’s capture. By doing so, Joaquin put himself in a much better negotiating position regarding his legal case,” he said.
Donovan stressed that Mayo’s arrest stemmed less from U.S. action than from an internal power struggle in Mexico that turned one faction against another.
“No, I think the capture of El Mayo was a long shot. I do not think the U.S. controlled that part of the self-surrender of Joaquin. The Chapitos (Chapo’s sons) did,” he explained.
In recent years, the Chapitos have become the cartel’s most aggressive wing, with Ivan Archivaldo seen as the dominant brother. Their influence showed in 2019, when the attempt to detain Ovidio Guzman sparked street battles that forced the government to release him. He was taken again in a major 2023 clash, this time held.
Looking ahead, Donovan expects power to concentrate rather than fragment. “I think Ivan will consolidate all the power of the Sinaloa Cartel and will continue to grow. However, there is a chance CJNG will start moving in on Sinaloa territory and the faction of Sinaloa under the control of Mayito will continue to fight against the Chapitos,” he noted.
He links the future of the organization to politics in Mexico City.
The future of the cartel depends on the position President Sheinbaum takes on the rule of law. If she is aggressive, the organisation could finally be dismantled; if not, it will continue to endure.
For years, cocaine and heroin defined the main front lines of enforcement. They were tied to fields, harvests and geography. Fentanyl changed that balance. Mexican traffickers began mixing heroin with fentanyl made from precursor chemicals sourced in China and shipped through commercial channels into North America.
Since 2015, fentanyl has been central to Trump’s China, Canada and Mexico drug rhetoric, and in the last five years, over 250,000 Americans have died from fentanyl overdoses, far more than the roughly 6,900 U.S. troops killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The question for Washington was no longer only how to stop a cartel at the border. It was how to deal with a synthetic supply chain that touched foreign industries, banks and online platforms while overdose deaths in the United States kept rising.
When I asked Donovan how he viewed this shift, he pushed the issue beyond classic drug enforcement.
“Yes, I do think we need to pivot away from the synthetic opioids and stimulants as being purely a criminal issue. I do believe it is a national security issue as well,” he said.
For him, the answer had to be broader than arrests and seizures.
“The problem needs to be addressed through legislation from a multi-dimensional approach. National security, supply and demand reduction,” he explained.
Since President Trump brought the border crisis to the center of American politics in his campaign, it has become one of the most dominant and polarizing issues in the national debate. Yet Donovan’s field experience places the issue in a more concrete and practical frame.
To him, the border is not simply a security line; it is a massive economic system that binds two countries together, and that system shapes the limits of what law enforcement can realistically do.
“I think our Border Policy is a key factor in the overall relationship with Mexico,” he said.
In other words, most illicit drugs do not slip through deserts or gaps in fencing. They pass through official ports of entry, moving inside the huge commercial flow that powers the economic connection between the two nations.
Donovan also notes that the same corridors are exploited for the southbound movement of illegal firearms from the United States into Mexico.
This means that the real constraint is not manpower but trade volume.
“The real issue behind the border is commerce …,” he explained, and the scale he describes is overwhelming: hundreds of billions of dollars in legal goods crossing annually, with Mexico now one of the United States’ largest manufacturing and supply-chain partners. Under such conditions, no government can physically inspect everything; the system is simply too large.
Donovan’s approach blends firmness with realism.
“I do believe in a strong Border and upholding federal U.S. laws; however, I recognize Mexico as an important partner,” he said.
In his assessment, policies such as “Remain in Mexico” were operationally effective because they reduced pressure on overwhelmed federal processing systems. But lasting stability requires more than tactical fixes.
As he put it, “Long-term, Congress will have to revamp our immigration laws … ”, a reminder that without legislative reform, enforcement alone cannot keep pace with the pressures on the system.
From Donovan’s perspective, the public debate often obscures the essential truth: walls and slogans do not stop the kind of trafficking hidden inside legitimate commerce. What actually matters is inspection technology, advanced data analysis, interagency intelligence-sharing and the ability to detect anomalies within high-volume trade. The political conversation may simplify the issue, but the operational reality, the one Donovan describes, is far more complex.
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