Drug cartel

• 1. Introduction

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  A drug cartel is a criminal organization made up of independent drug lords who collude with one another to raise their profits and dominate the illegal drug trade. In Mexico, an academic named Oswaldo Zavala published a book with a blunt title: Drug Cartels Do Not Exist. His target was a single word, and that word now travels from Latin American jungles to the streets of Glasgow and the harbors of Japan. So what does a cartel actually look like from the inside? Who sits at each level, and what does each one do? Why do the groups that form these alliances end up fighting one another? And how far across the world has the name been stretched?

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• 2. Price and Turf

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  Latin American countries are where drug cartels form most often. The logic of an alliance is simple. Independent drug lords agree to control the supply of an illegal drug, and by holding supply in check they keep prices high.

  Alliances do not remove competition between groups. Rivalries among multiple cartels push them into turf wars against each other, and the contested ground has a name inside the business.

  Even the label can mislead. People sometimes speak of a narcotics cartel, meaning a group that sells substances that are illegal, such as cocaine in most places. That phrase is not always accurate, because a cartel can also traffic marijuana in a jurisdiction where it is not illegal. The contested ground is called a plaza, and every plaza has a chain of command.

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• 3. The Chain of Command

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  The lowest rank in any cartel belongs to the falcons, described as the eyes and ears of the streets. They are scouts. Their job is reconnaissance, reporting on what the police, the military and rival groups are doing.

  Above them are the hitmen, the armed group of the organization. They carry out assassinations, kidnappings, thefts and extortions, and they run protection rackets. They also defend their plaza against rivals and against the military.

  Lieutenants hold the second highest position. They supervise the hitmen and falcons inside their own territory, and they may carry out low-profile murders without asking their bosses for permission.

  Drug lords sit at the top. They oversee the entire drug industry, appoint territorial leaders, make alliances and plan the high-profile murders.

  This ladder leaves out many people the business cannot run without. Producers and suppliers are critical operators, and so are smugglers, distributors, sales representatives, accountants and money launderers. Arms suppliers are the odd ones out. They operate in a completely different circle and are technically not counted as part of the cartel's logistics.

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• 4. Mexico's Family Tree

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  The Gulf Cartel is described as the oldest Mexican criminal syndicate, and it began as a gang of bootleggers during Prohibition. From it came splinters. Los Zetas were once part of the Gulf Cartel and are now independent. La Familia Michoacana was a Gulf branch before going its own way.

  Los Zetas later broke apart as well, producing Zetas Vieja Escuela and the Cártel del Noreste. La Familia Michoacana split too, leaving behind the Knights Templar Cartel and La Nueva Familia Michoacana.

  The Guadalajara Cartel is the parent of three others. The Sinaloa Cartel, the Tijuana Cartel and the Juárez Cartel all spawned from it. Sinaloa grew branches of its own, including the Colima Cartel and the Sonora Cartel, which was reformed in 2018. The Jalisco New Generation Cartel is made up of independent remnants of the Milenio Cartel.

  Many of these groups keep their own enforcer squads. Los Ántrax serve Sinaloa, and La Línea serves the Juárez Cartel. Across the border, the U.S. street gang Barrio Azteca was allied with La Línea. As of 2020, the DEA considered the cartels of Sinaloa, Jalisco and Golfo-Noreste-Zetas to be the most influential in Mexico.

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• 5. Violence and the State

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  Some observers argue that in 2010 Los Zetas changed the rules of the game by staging social media demonstrations of torture and sadism in their reprisals. Violence and social instability rose sharply during the presidency of Felipe Calderon.

  Calderon's administration, along with another, worked more closely with American law enforcement and used military forces. The result, according to the account, was confusion among local law enforcement over public security, along with a variety of human rights abuses and corruption.

  The lists of those tied to Mexico's drug trade stretch beyond criminal gangs. They include municipal, state and federal police forces, the Army and the Navy, Mexico City International Airport and the football club Club Xoloitzcuintles. On the American side, U.S. Customs and Border Protection appears on the same list.

  On the 16th of October 2024, Genaro García Luna, the former head of Mexican law enforcement, was sentenced in the Eastern District of New York. The case concerned his role in Sinaloa Cartel associated drug trafficking in the United States.

  Zavala reads all this differently. He argues that academics, officials, journalists and writers are mistaken to call these gangs cartels, because the drug trade is too competitive and the groups lack a hierarchical structure. In his view, the Mexican state perpetuates the label to justify a militarised response.

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• 6. The Cocaine Corridor

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  Colombia is the largest producer of cocaine in the world, and production there reached an all-time high in 2017. The United States is the world's largest consumer of cocaine and other illegal drugs. Between them lies a long route.

  Colombia's historical cartels were the Medellín Cartel, the Cali Cartel and the Norte del Valle Cartel. Active groups include the Clan del Golfo, the Oficina de Envigado and Los Rastrojos.

  Venezuela has historically served as a path to the United States for drugs originating in Colombia. From there they move through Central America and Mexico, and through Caribbean countries such as Haiti, the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico. According to the United Nations, cocaine trafficking through Venezuela has increased since 2002.

  In 2005, Venezuela severed ties with the DEA, accusing its representatives of spying. That same year the DEA expanded its partnership with Colombia. Venezuela then became more attractive to drug traffickers. Its rank for cocaine seizures slipped from fourth in the world in 2008 to sixth in 2012.

  In 2008, Wilber Varela, leader of the Colombian Norte del Valle Cartel, was found murdered in a hotel in Mérida, Venezuela.

  In May 2015, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing United States officials, that trafficking in Venezuela had grown significantly as Colombian traffickers moved across the border under law enforcement pressure. One Department of Justice official described the higher ranks of the Venezuelan government and military as "a criminal organization". National Assembly President Diosdado Cabello was among those accused.

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• 7. Sicilians in Caracas

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  The Cuntrera-Caruana Mafia clan made Venezuela an important hideout. The clan bought hotels and founded businesses in Caracas and Valencia, and it acquired an extended ranch in Barinas, near the Colombian border. Italian police said: "Venezuela has its own Cosa Nostra family as if it is Sicilian territory." They added that the structure and hierarchy of the Mafia had been entirely reproduced there.

  The clan had direct links with the ruling Commission of the Sicilian Mafia, and the American Cosa Nostra acknowledged it.

  In 1992, Pasquale, Paolo and Gaspare Cuntrera were expelled from Venezuela. The account says they were "almost secretly smuggled out of the country, as if it concerned one of their own drug transports." Secrecy mattered because, in the same account's words, "It was imperative they could not contact people on the outside who could have used their political connections to stop the expulsion."

  A commission of the Venezuelan Senate ordered the expulsion. It was headed by Senator Cristobal Fernandez Dalo and his money laundering investigator, Thor Halvorssen Hellum.

  The three men were arrested in September 1992 at Fiumicino airport in Rome. In 1996 they were sentenced to 13-20 years.

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• 8. Beyond Latin America

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  Italian immigrants to the United States in the early 19th century formed small-time gangs. Those gangs gradually evolved into sophisticated crime syndicates that dominated organized crime in America for several decades. Government crackdowns and a less tightly knit Italian-American community have largely reduced their power, though they remain an active force in the underworld.

  The yakuza of Japan resemble the Italian mafias in that they originated centuries ago and follow a rigid set of traditions. Their full-body tattoos and fairly open place in Japanese society set them apart. Many yakuza groups are umbrella organizations, with smaller gangs reporting to a larger crime syndicate.

  The Triads are a popular name for Chinese criminal secret societies that have existed in various forms over the centuries. Tiandihui is one example. Not every Chinese gang follows those traditions, since many non-traditional criminal organizations have formed in China and in the Chinese diaspora.

  The Russian Mafia, or mafiya, is a blanket term and a somewhat inaccurate one. Gangs gained power and international reach during the transition to capitalism, emerging from the 15 former republics of the USSR. Members are not necessarily ethnically Russian, and they do not necessarily uphold ancient criminal traditions.

  Balkan organized crime gained prominence in the chaos after the communist era. Two forces drove it: the transition to capitalism and the wars in former Yugoslavia.

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