Tijuana Cartel

Tijuana Cartel

Areas predominately controlled by the Tijuana Cartel shown in purple.
Founded by	Benjamin Arellano Felix, Ramon Arellano Felix
Founding location	Tijuana, Baja California, Mexico
Years active	1989–present
Territory	Mexico: Tijuana, Baja California, Baja California Sur United States: California
Ethnicity	Mexican
Criminal activities	Drug trafficking, money laundering, People smuggling, murder, arms trafficking, bribery
Allies	Jalisco New Generation Cartel, Juárez Cartel, Guadalajara Cartel, Surenos, Logan Heights Gang, Los Zetas, Los Santos (gang), Beltran-Leyva Cartel
Rivals	Sinaloa Cartel, Gulf Cartel, MS-13, La Familia Michoacana

Tijuana, Baja California,

Jalisco New Generation Cartel, Juárez Cartel, Guadalajara Cartel, Surenos, Logan Heights Gang, Los Zetas, Los Santos (gang), Beltran-Leyva Cartel

The Tijuana Cartel (Spanish: Cártel de Tijuana) or Arellano-Félix Organization (Spanish: Cártel Arellano Félix - CAF) is a Mexican drug cartel based in Tijuana. The cartel once was described as "one of the biggest and most violent criminal groups in Mexico." However, since the 2006 Sinaloa Cartel incursion in Baja California and the fall of the Arellano-Félix brothers, the Tijuana Cartel had been reduced to few cells. In 2016, the organization has become known as Cartel Tijuana Nueva Generación (New Generation Tijuana Cartel) and has begun to aligin itself under the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, along with Beltrán Leyva Organization (BLO) to create an anti-Sinaloa alliance, in which the Jalisco New Generation Cartel heads, creating a possible powershift in Mexico.

Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo, the founder of the Guadalajara Cartel was arrested in 1989. While incarcerated, he remained one of Mexico's major traffickers, maintaining his organization via mobile phone until he was transferred to a new maximum security prison in the 1990s. At that point, his old organization broke up into two factions: the Tijuana Cartel led by his nephews, the Arellano Félix brothers, and the Sinaloa Cartel, run by former lieutenants Héctor Luis Palma Salazar and Joaquín Guzmán Loera, a.k.a. El Chapo.