The report Frontiers of Plunder, published by the organisation GI-TOC, states that the Mexican Sinaloa drug cartel – specifically its Los Salgueiro faction – and its rivals, the representatives of the criminal police officers' group La Línea, which is linked to the CJNG (Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion), sell timber from the Sierra Tarahumara worth 172 million US dollars, making use of indigenous forest concessions.
Drug cartels run the show across much of Mexico
Groups linked to the Sinaloa drug cartel control the illegal timber trade in Mexico's Sierra Tarahumara region; it is worth 172 million US dollars a year, matching the entire legal timber trade of the state of Chihuahua. This is confirmed by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC), whose January 2026 report Frontiers of Plunder names the Sinaloa cartel's Los Salgueiro faction and the CJNG-linked La Línea as the main players in the illegal market.
The illegal timber trade in Mexico is closely bound up with the most powerful criminal cartels, which in recent years have diversified their sources of income, taking control of natural resources alongside the drugs trade. It is estimated that around 70% of the timber on Mexico's domestic market is of illegal origin. The cartels effectively control large areas of forest in Mexico; in many regions their influence is very strong, while local authorities are powerless.
The business model
The model works like this: first the Mexican drug cartels seize control of the so-called comisariados – the elected committees that administer indigenous lands. Forged logging permits are then issued through the state forestry centres. The cartels use sawmills connected to them to falsify documents and launder illegal timber, turning it into a legal product. Armed groups take local community land (ejidos) by force, driving out the inhabitants, among them the Rarámuri and Odami peoples.
It should be stressed that Mexico is one of the most dangerous countries in the world for environmental activists: in 2021 alone, 54 environmental activists who tried to stand in the way of the criminal groups were killed. By comparison, the complaints and hysteria of environmental activists in Europe about their interests supposedly being ignored look utterly unfounded. In Mexico, forests are often cleared not only for the timber, but to make room for poppy and marijuana plantations or illegal airstrips.
Optimism is premature
Between January 2024 and February 2026, Mexico's environmental protection agency PROFEPA opened 176 investigations into illegal logging across 28 states and confiscated more than 11,000 cubic metres of timber; at a single log yard in Chihuahua, for example, more than 500 cubic metres of logs were seized. The head of the Chihuahua office of CONAFOR, the Mexican state agency responsible for the sustainable management, protection and restoration of the country's forests, told GI-TOC investigators that in this state, where timber production worth 3.3 billion Mexican pesos a year accounts for one third of Mexico's total output, "illegal logging definitely exceeds legal logging".
GI-TOC investigators showed that Los Salgueiro, for instance, made 3 million pesos from illegal logging concessions on a single landholding in Baborigame. The illegal trade costs the government of Chihuahua state around 125 million US dollars a year, and the greatest loss of forest stands has been recorded in the municipalities of Bocoyna, Guachochi, Guadalupe and Balleza.
Reporting on the results of a police operation carried out across many Mexican states in February 2026, in which 25 illegal sawmills were shut down and timber confiscated, the head of PROFEPA, Mariana Boy Tamborrell, said: "impunity for those who destroy forest ecosystems is over".
That statement is too optimistic, because the still highly influential Sinaloa cartel, and in particular its Los Salgueiro faction, together with the Juárez cartel, which uses the criminal armed group of former police officers La Línea, remain the dominant "players" in Chihuahua state, while the CJNG still controls illegal logging in the states of Jalisco and Michoacán.
The impact is devastating
Although Mexico is a significant exporter of wood products, reaching 4.6 billion USD in 2024, with most of its output going to regulated markets, the illegal business is driving mass deforestation in the country. In 2023 alone, 208,000 hectares of forest were lost, damaging the region's hydrological system, causing drought and water shortages and creating a serious ecological crisis. The habitats of many rare species are being destroyed, among them that of the thick-billed parrot Rhynchopsitta pachyrhyncha. The economic losses, meanwhile, are enormous. According to US government estimates, the illegal timber trade in Mexico may be worth as much as 978 million dollars a year.
Action by government and international organisations
The Mexican government and the international community have stepped up efforts to curb the cartels' influence in the timber industry, yet the situation remains critical because of budget cuts and corruption.
In 2025, Mexico's Ministry of the Environment, together with the UN Development Programme (UNDP), drew up a national action plan for 2025–2030 to coordinate the fight against illegal deforestation at regional and federal level.
Legislation is also being tightened. At the end of 2025 a new "Law against Extortion" was adopted, adding extortion to the list of offences carrying mandatory pre-trial detention, in an attempt to limit the cartels' ability to control local communities.
Despite the promises, the 2026 budget cut funding for environmental institutions – both the Ministry of the Environment and PROFEPA – by roughly 3–4%, which makes genuine oversight of Mexico's forests harder.
At the end of April the Department of Justice added Mexican criminal organisations to the list of foreign terrorist organisations, extending the application of the *Lacey Act to any importer in the United States that has bought timber from supply chains controlled by drug cartels. This classification broadens scrutiny under the **European Union due diligence rules, about which questions still remain as to how they apply to criminal supply chains operating outside official export channels. According to Mexican federal data, over an eleven-month period in Chihuahua state, for example, there were only 19 arrests for illegal logging and two convictions. GI-TOC investigators point out that an enforcement record like this has had no effect whatsoever on the volume of the illegal timber trade.
* The US Lacey Act: in 2025 the US Department of Justice imposed additional sanctions on Mexican criminal organisations, classifying them as terrorist. This means that US importers face criminal liability if cartel-controlled timber is found in their supply chain. The United States, Mexico and Canada are cooperating under the USMCA agreement to improve timber identification methods, such as DNA analysis, so that it can be determined quickly during border checks whether timber comes from protected areas
** The new EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) also came into force at the end of 2025, and much is expected of it despite the problems with its implementation that have already been identified. Mexico is classified as a standard-risk country, which means that companies importing timber from Mexico into the EU must provide precise geographical data certifying that the timber does not come from areas deforested after 2020.