Mexico City, Mexico—Mexican drug cartels are joining forces with white supremacists in the United States in order to smuggle and sell drugs and weapons on both sides of the notorious border.

Members of the Aryan Brotherhood, a notoriously violent Californian white supremacist group, are working as hitmen for the Mexican Mafia and Tijuana cartel.

With the growth of drug cartels in Mexico, new avenues for distribution are also needed, according to Professor Larry Gaines, Chair of the Department of Criminal Justice at California State University.

"What this all means is that as the cartels in Mexico grow, they have to have some kind of retail outlet for the products," said Gaines.

"They’ve got to find wholesalers and new retail markets. The drug business is like any other business—to make money. These relationships are being developed somewhat out of necessity.

"The cartels are looking for partners, bridges, to connect their activities inside the United States, and the supremacists have become an important force on the streets and inside prisons."

African-American gangs may also be in on the act, according to Wes McBride, Executive Director of the California Gang Investigator's Association.

"The Mexican and Central American Cartels has to sell to someone in the states to unload their product so there is some contact, mostly with drug related gangs in the various states. Some of these gangs are street gangs with cliques involved in narcotics, some are simply older more sophisticated narco gangs, some of those are the Mexican Mafia, and/or the Aryan Brotherhood."

A report from the US National Gang Intelligence Center adds that the Aryan Brotherhood is often involved in “murder for hire”.

The Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has also confirmed that its own research shows that drug cartels and white supremacist gangs are collaborating in car thefts and arms trafficking to Mexico, primarily in Texas, California and Chicago.