Criminal organizations in Mexico—including the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG)—will need to recruit 500 people per week by 2027 to offset losses from arrests and homicides and continue operations, according to a projection by anthropologist Elena Azaola.
This figure, which is higher than that originally calculated in a scientific study, implies that the combined ranks of organized crime could exceed 220,000 members in the short term.
Azaola, a researcher at the Center for Research and Higher Studies in Social Anthropology (CIESAS), presented the data alongside journalist Marcela Turati as part of the investigation “El Algoritmo Reclutador” (The Recruitment Algorithm), coordinated by the Latin American Center for Investigative Journalism (CLIP) and published by Quinto Elemento Lab.
The figure of 500 cited in Turati’s report originates from a separate academic work: a study published by the journal *Science* on September 21, 2023, authored by mathematician Rafael Prieto-Curiel alongside Gian Maria Campedelli and Alejandro Hope.
Prieto-Curiel’s team built a model based on four variables: recruitment, arrests, homicides, and member attrition. To populate the model, they analyzed homicide and incarceration statistics from 2012 to 2022, assuming that cartel members accounted for 10% of homicide victims and 5% of the incarcerated population during that period.
