In Guerrero, criminal groups appoint police chiefs because their control has reached the government itself. Simultaneously, violence has increased due to territorial disputes among cartels and drug traffickers that started operating in the state after the federal government took control of Michoacán, according to intelligence reports of the National Security Committee (CNS) and the Attorney General's Office (PGR). 

Currently nine cartels operate in the country: Gulf, Pacific, Arellano Félix, La Familia Michoacana, Carrillo Fuentes, Beltrán Leyva, Los Zetas, Knights Templar and Nueva Generación de Jalisco. 

According to the PGR, four of those cartels operate in Guerrero, the state with the highest number of criminal organizations on its territory, apart from cells that migrated from drug trafficking to extortion and kidnapping: Beltrán Leyva, Pacific or Sinaloa, Knights Templar (intermittently) and Nueva Generación de Jalisco, that also operates in Jalisco, Colima, Michoacán, Guanajuato, Nayarit, Morelos, Veracruz and Mexico City. 

Cells of the Beltrán Leyva cartel have resulted in drug-trafficking gangs such as "Los Granados", that operate in the region of Guerrero known as Tierra Caliente; "Los Rojos", that operate in northern and central Guerrero and Morelos; "Los Ardillos", that operate in the mountains and central Guerrero; the "Cartel Independiente de Acapulco", that operates in the beach resort; "La Barredora" a subdivision of the Pacific cartel that operates in Acapulco and "Guerreros Unidos", that operates in Guerrero, Morelos and the State of Mexico. 

Los Rojos and Guerreros Unidos 

Guerreros Unidos was founded in 2011 by Cleotilde Toribio Renteria, better known as "El Tilde". According to authorities, the drug-trafficking gang has territorial disputes with "Los Rojos", which has contributed to violence in the state, especially in Iguala, Arcelia, Ciudad Altamirano, Taxco, Chilpancingo and Tixtla. 

"Los Rojos", an hegemonic group in Guerrero, weakened after the arrest of seven of its leaders. According to investigations of the Assistant Attorney General's Office for Special Investigations on Organized Crime (SEIDO), the drug-trafficking gang was created by Crisóforo Rogelio Maldonado after he left the Beltrán Leyva cartel. 

After Maldonado was killed in a hospital in Mexico City in 2012, José Nava Romero assumed control of the gang, but he was murdered in June 2013 in Puebla. Leonor Romero Nava took control of "Los Rojos", but he was arrested by the Army in September 2013, so María del Carmen Romero Nava, wife of Maldonado, assumed the leadership, until her arrest on March 5 in Querétaro. 

As for Guerreros Unidos "El Tilde" began his criminal career in 2005, when he joined "Los Pelones", Beltrán Leyva's henchmen commanded by La Barbie. After his capture in 2010, Toribio joined the Cartel Indpenendiente de Acapulco (CIDA), and in 2011 he created "La Barredora" and fought for control of the beach resort with his previous criminal gang. 

"El Tilde" was arrested in 2012 by the Army, and replaced by Mario Casarrubias, known as "El Sapo Guapo", a former bodyguard of the Beltrán Leyva brothers. The new leader was arrested in April this year. 

Gonzalo Martín Souza Neves led the gang for a short time before being arrested in Puebla in July 2014. 

Authorities do not know exactly who leads Guerreros Unidos. Unofficially, they are responsible for the disappearance and death of 43 students Ayotzinapa teachers college in cahoots with Iguala's police. 

According to data from the National Public Security System, Guerrero had the largest number of murders in the country in 2011: 62 per every 100,000 inhabitants, compared to 66 in 2012 and 59 in 2013.