Tijuana, Mexico Claims the Deadly Crown
Walking through the streets of Tijuana today feels like stepping into a war zone where nearly seven people lose their lives every day. Tijuana, Mexico, has been consistently ranked among the world’s most dangerous cities, with reported homicide rates exceeding 100 per 100,000 inhabitants. This equates to nearly seven murders daily in a city with a population of over 2 million. During 2024, there were 1,807 homicides reported in Tijuana, compared with 1,868 the year before. While the numbers might show a slight decrease, the reality on the ground remains brutal for residents trying to live normal lives.
Tijuana, Mexico, continues to rank among the most unsafe cities in the world in 2025. With a homicide rate of 138 per 100,000 residents – the city’s violence stems primarily from territorial clashes between the Sinaloa Cartel and Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), which dominate drug trafficking routes near the U.S. border. These cartels don’t just fight for territory; they fight for control over one of the world’s most lucrative smuggling corridors into the United States.
The Geography of Terror in Tijuana
Crime statistics reveal alarming trends, with hotspots like Sánchez Taboada and Camino Verde witnessing frequent armed clashes. A 72.1 Crime Index (2024) highlights rampant extortion, kidnappings, and carjackings, while four intersections rank among Mexico’s deadliest due to traffic-related fatalities. Residents can’t even drive safely through certain intersections without fear of becoming victims of random violence. That compares to only 99 murders reported in March in Tijuana – a city that has succeeded in toning down the violence since the start of the year through increased patrols in the urban sprawl and a better handle on border security.
The violence isn’t random – it follows a pattern of territorial control where cartels literally draw invisible battle lines across neighborhoods. The city was also among the world’s most violent cities this time last year, and in December, The Washington Post regarded Tijuana as “Mexico’s new fentanyl capital.” Increasingly, however, homicides in the Mexican city bordering California have been achieving levels that are hard for officials to manage. After 25 years of violence in Tijuana, Clark Alfaro said the city has reached “the point of no return.”
Caracas, Venezuela’s Crisis Deepens
The capital of Venezuela continues to earn its place among the world’s most dangerous cities, though recent data shows a complex picture. According to various crime indices, Pietermaritzburg, Pretoria, and Caracas rank among the world’s most dangerous cities based on reported crime levels. In 2023, Venezuela had a rate of 26.8 violent deaths per 100,000 people, according to the Venezuelan Observatory of Violence. While this represents a decrease from previous years, the city remains incredibly dangerous for residents.
The OVV puts the homicide rate for 2013 at approximately 79 per 100,000 and the murder rate in the capital Caracas at 122 per 100,000 residents. Caracas has already been named the most dangerous capital city in the world in 2017. It still falls in the list of the top three most dangerous places in the world. 100 murders in 100,000 residents make it one of the deadliest cities in the world. Economic collapse has transformed daily life into a struggle for survival, where violent crime thrives alongside desperation.
Venezuela’s Complicated Crime Statistics
Understanding Caracas’s true danger level requires reading between the lines of government manipulation. In mid-May, Venezuelan security officials announced that crime indicators had fallen by 25.1% compared to 2023. The Venezuelan government attributes the decrease to large-scale operations conducted by security forces against criminal groups. However, experts paint a different picture of this apparent improvement. Below, InSight Crime explores key factors driving the apparent drop in crime in Venezuela – a country once considered the most dangerous in Latin America. Aside from large-scale security operations, the OVV’s most recent violence report draws a link between the migration of criminal groups and a reduction in crime.
The reality behind Venezuela’s falling crime rates tells a disturbing story of economic devastation. Venezuela’s ongoing economic crisis has squeezed both ordinary citizens and the country’s criminal groups. Economic decline in the labor and commercial sectors has left businesses and citizens unable to pay criminal groups, reducing opportunities for extortion and ransom kidnappings. “Crime is falling in Venezuela because of the destruction of the country’s economy…because of the loss of opportunities for crime,” OVV director, Roberto Briceño-León, told InSight Crime.
Colima, Mexico Tops Global Rankings
While Tijuana grabs headlines, another Mexican city actually leads global homicide statistics with even more shocking numbers. Colima has been reported among the cities with the highest homicide rates globally, with rates exceeding 100 per 100,000 people. Numbeo gives it a crime index of 70.19, with 66.13% of residents fearing home break-ins and 53.61% worrying their car might be stolen. When nearly two out of three people dread a burglary, you know you’re in one of the world’s most dangerous cities. This smaller Mexican city has become ground zero for cartel violence that makes international headlines seem tame by comparison.
What makes Colima particularly terrifying is how normalized violence has become for residents. The most dangerous cities in the world are found in Mexico. Colima tops the list. The city represents Mexico’s broader crisis where drug trafficking organizations have essentially replaced government authority in many areas, creating zones where law enforcement fears to operate effectively.
Mexico’s Unprecedented Violence Crisis
Mexico holds the highest number of cities in the global crime rankings. The crisis stems from a violent drug war, weak policing, and corruption at every level. Cartels operate like shadow governments. This isn’t just about individual cities anymore – it’s about an entire country where violence has reached epidemic proportions. They are, by homicide rate per 100,000 people: Colima; Zamora de Hidalgo; Ciudad Obregón; Zacatecas; Tijuana; Celaya; Uruapan del Progreso; Ciudad Juárez; Acapulco. Most entries in global violence rankings are from Latin American cities, high homicide rates often go hand in hand with property-crime fears.
The scale of Mexico’s violence crisis becomes clear when you realize that eight of the ten most dangerous cities globally are Mexican. Each city tells the same story: cartels fighting for control while ordinary people pay the price in blood. The Mexican government’s strategy of military intervention has largely failed to address the root causes, leaving cities like Tijuana and Colima in a state of perpetual warfare.
Why Traditional Solutions Keep Failing
The persistence of extreme violence in these cities reveals the inadequacy of conventional law enforcement approaches. It is, as such, highly unlikely that falling homicide rates are the result of policing. Indeed, I interviewed over 200 police officers while conducting research for my book, and most believed that the government’s policing initiatives contributed to crime and violence rather than reducing it. In Venezuela, even different police forces fight each other rather than criminals. This distrust has even resulted in police forces coming to blows with each other in the streets on multiple occasions. On Feb. 19, 2020, a section of the Prados del Este highway in Caracas was shut down as officers from Venezuela’s National Police and the country’s investigative police brandished weapons, shoving, punching and wrestling each other to the ground.
The failure of traditional policing has created space for criminal organizations to establish their own forms of governance. Since 2013 the government has negotiated pacts with some of the country’s largest gangs, including a gang confederation led by the infamous El Koki in Caracas and the Belén gang in the state of Miranda. The government agreed to tolerate illicit activities within certain areas and prohibit police from entering gang territory. In exchange, gangs agreed to reduce killings and other highly visible crimes such as kidnapping.
These cities represent more than statistical outliers – they’re warning signs of what happens when societies fail to address root causes of violence. The concentration of extreme danger in specific urban areas shows how quickly civilized life can unravel when inequality, corruption, and criminal opportunity combine. What makes these places truly dangerous isn’t just the high probability of becoming a victim, but the complete breakdown of the social contract that normally protects citizens from chaos.
