drug trafficking organizations

As of 2025, drug trafficking organizations (cartels) operate as global, vertically integrated logistics enterprises that control production through port distribution and employ infrastructure, surveillance, counter-surveillance, and substantial financial and armed resources to protect their routes.

Drug trafficking organizations sometimes use semi-submersible and submersible vessels to transport illicit drugs via maritime routes.

A government framing that classifies non-state drug trafficking organizations as participants in a non-international armed conflict and as 'unlawful combatants' enables the use of military force and detention practices associated with wartime operations rather than standard criminal-law arrests and prosecutions.

Drug trafficking organizations may assign shifts and create specialized roles such as scheduling sales, managing money, serving as lookouts for police, resupplying drugs, and carrying out violence.

Some U.S. officials and administrations have invoked legal authorities originally used for counterterrorism to justify using military force against drug trafficking organizations, and legislators have sought legal opinions and lists of designated targetable groups when such force is used.

The United States has employed lethal maritime strikes to target vessels suspected of trafficking narcotics.

Some U.S. officials and political leaders have characterized drug trafficking organizations as 'narco-terrorists' and compared them to extremist groups such as ISIS and al-Qaeda.

Drug trafficking organizations launder narcotics proceeds through shell companies created in the United States using false social security numbers and other fraudulent documents.