This is a list of Mexico's 37 most-wanted drug lords as published by Mexican federal authorities on 23 March 2009. According to a BBC Mundo Mexico report, the 37 drug lords "have jeopardized Mexico national security."^[1][2]

The list of drug lords is grouped by their drug cartels. As of 2009^[update] Mexico has offered up to 30 million pesos for the capture of each of the fugitives.^[2][3][4] The United States also offers rewards for two of them.^[5]

The most-wanted of the 37 drug lords was Joaquín Guzmán Loera, for whom Mexican and U.S. governments offered a total bounty of US$7 million.^[6] He was captured on 22 February 2014 in Mazatlán, Sinaloa, where he was staying at a hotel.^[7] He escaped on 11 July 2015 through a 1.5 kilometer long tunnel from his cell in the Mexican maximum security prison but was recaptured by Mexican Marines following a gun battle on 8 January 2016.^[8] As of 2024, the single remaining fugitive of the 37 most-wanted drug lords is Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada who has never been arrested and incarcerated.

As of 18 January 2011, Mexico had captured or killed 20 of the 37 in the most-wanted list.^[9] The 21 June 2011 arrest of José de Jesús Méndez Vargas,^[10] a.k.a. "El Chango", brought the total to twenty-one captured or killed.^[11][12] On 4 November 2011, Francisco Hernández García was captured. A leader of the Zetas drug cartel, Raúl Hernández Lechuga was captured on 12 December 2011.^[11][12][13] On 26 September 2012, Iván Velázquez Caballero was captured by Mexican security forces.^[14] The 7 October 2012 killing of Heriberto Lazcano brought this total to 25 captured or killed so far.^[15]

On 15 July 2013, Miguel Treviño Morales was apprehended by the Mexican Marines in a town called Anáhuac, Nuevo León, near the border of the state of Tamaulipas.^[16] Then, the 27 January 2014 apprehension of Dionisio Loya Plancarte,^[17] a.k.a. "El Tío" left the Mexican government with 10 fugitives still on the loose. On 23 June 2014, Fernando Sánchez Arellano was arrested by soldiers of the Mexican Army and federal agents of the Procuraduría General de la República (PGR) at the La Mesa borough of Tijuana, Baja California. On 1 October 2014 Héctor Beltrán Leyva was arrested by the Mexican Army inside a restaurant in San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato. On 9 October 2014, Vicente Carrillo Fuentes was arrested by Mexican authorities in Torreón (Coahuila). On 27 February 2015, Servando Gómez Martínez, the leader of the Knights Templar cartel, was arrested by Mexican security forces in Morelia, Michoacán.^[18] On 4 March 2015, Omar Treviño Morales was captured inside a residence in Fuentes del Valle, an upper-class neighborhood in San Pedro Garza García, Nuevo León, by the Federal Police and the Mexican Army. On 8 January 2016, Mexican Marines captured Joaquín Guzmán Loera after a heavy firefight in the city of Los Mochis, Sinaloa, bringing the total captured or killed to 33.

Mexico offered up to 30 million pesos (about 1.45 million U.S. dollars in 2021) for each of the following:

• List of fugitives from justice who disappeared
• Mexican Drug War
• Timeline of the Mexican Drug War

Policing

• Rurales
• Federales
• Grupo de Operaciones Especiales (Mexico)
• Mérida Initiative
• Attorney General of Mexico (Procuraduría General de la República)

General

• Crime in Mexico
• The World's 10 Most Wanted Fugitives