Will Mexico’s Cartel Wars Derail the Global Silver Market?
As the global push for AI and green energy drives demand to record highs, escalating cartel violence in the world's top producing nation threatens to completely sever the fragile silver supply chain.
Forget the sanitized boardrooms where tech executives forecast the future of artificial intelligence and green energy grids. The real bottleneck for tomorrow's technology is currently unfolding in the perilous, cartel-controlled mountains of Mexico. Silver is the unsung hero of the modern industrial age, but the supply chain keeping our solar panels and electric vehicles running has collided head-on with a brutal geopolitical reality.
The human cost of this resource extraction became tragically clear in late January 2026. Ten employees working for Vancouver-based Vizsla Silver (TSXV: VZLA / NYSE: VZLA) were abducted from a gated residential compound near the company's Panuco project in Sinaloa. In the ensuing weeks, Mexican authorities confirmed the devastating news that at least five of these workers were found dead in clandestine graves, with the others still missing. The workers found themselves caught in the crossfire of a vicious, 18-month civil war within the Sinaloa Cartel, as the "Los Chapitos" and "La Mayiza" factions battle for territorial control over the very ground that holds the world's most critical mineral reserves.

