At the height of its power, the Familia Michoacana’s brutal tactics, strong base of operations and pseudo-religious ideology made it a formidable operation and a point of fascination for outsiders. However, the group has suffered a series of heavy blows, most notably the death of leader Nazario Moreno Gonzalez, alias "El Chayo," in December 2010, and is now thought to have been largely supplanted by a splinter group known as the Caballeros Templarios (Knights Templar).

The Familia and the Caballeros draw on their strategic location in Michoacan state, access to one of the country's most important ports, and sophisticated modus operandi. They use a perverse and self-serving quasi-religious ideology to keep recruits coming. The Familia emerged in the early 2000s as a strange mixture of drug traffickers and former vigilantes, helped by the Zetas, the armed wing of the Gulf Cartel, which has since split and formed its own organization.