The group began 25 years ago as a vigilante organization aimed at removing the influence of drug dealers in the state of Michoacán, but it has evolved into a ruthless cartel itself. For years, members of La Familia were allied with the Gulf Cartel, based in Tamaulipas, and fought against the Sinaloan gangs for control of the local police and officials in Michoacán. But that alliance fell apart in 2004, and La Familia has since gone into business for itself. Now it competes with both the Gulf and Sinaloa Cartels, and has become a major exporter of methamphetamine to the United States, officials said.

Image Deputies in San Bernardino, Calif., with drugs and guns seized in a sweep against a Mexican organization known as La Familia. Credit... Reed Saxon/Associated Press

“This is an organization that just recently we started calling a cartel because of how they’ve grown and the violence that they spread,” said Michele Leonhart, the administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration. “And it is the first time we have seen a cartel take on meth trafficking, where they are the direct pipeline from Mexico to the U.S. of multi-hundred-pound quantities of methamphetamine.”

The group first gained attention in 2006 when more than a dozen masked gunmen burst into a nightclub in Uruapan and tossed five heads of drug dealers on the dance floor, with the message: “The family doesn’t kill for money. It doesn’t kill women. It doesn’t kill innocent people, only those who deserve to die. Know that this is divine justice.”

Last July, the cartel’s gunmen tried to liberate one of their lieutenants who had been arrested, and, when their effort failed, they attacked federal police stations in a half-dozen cities. Three days later, on July 14, cartel members tortured and killed 12 members of the Mexican Federal Police.

In the past year, the Mexican authorities have made some progress against the cartel, arresting two capos. But Mr. Moreno González and his top lieutenants have eluded capture.

One of those lieutenants is Servando Gómez Martinez, who was indicted on drug trafficking charges in Manhattan as part of the nationwide crackdown. Though Mr. Gómez remains in Mexico, federal prosecutors in New York have linked him to a cocaine shipment in the city.

After the murder of Mexican federal officers in July, Mr. Gómez gave a recorded statement to a local television station in which he said the cartel was locked in a battle with the Mexican police, the indictment said.