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The Mexican drug-trafficking cartels are said to have been established in the 1980s by a man named Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo, also known as “The Godfather”. With the help of Ernesto Fonseca Carrillo and Rafael Caro Quintero, Miguel started the Guadalajara Cartel, which is one of the first to have thrived from association with the Colombian cocaine trade. The two men who helped Miguel Gallardo establish the cartel were arrested, so Gallardo, the single leader of the cartel “was smart enough to privatize the Mexican drug trade by having it run by lesser-known bosses” (The Five Most Famous Drug Cartels”), that he often met with in Acapulco. Eventually Miguel was arrested as well which caused the split of the Guadalajara Cartel into the Sinaloa Cartel and the Tijuana Cartel.
The Sinaloa Cartel was led by Joaquin Guzman who was a most-wanted Mexican drug trafficker worth a billion dollars. Under control of Joaquin, the Sinaloa Cartel became powerful and won the battle against the Juarez Cartel who was a former partner of the group. The battle, caused by want for more routes into the U.S. resulted in 12,000 deaths and led the group to employ gangs such as the Artist Assassins, Genre Nueva, and Los Mexicles to fight against the Juarez Cartel.
The second half of the Guadalajara Cartel, the Tijuana Cartel was started in the 1990s and by the early 2000s became one of the “biggest and most violent criminal groups in Mexico,” as stated by the article, “The Five Most Famous Drug Cartels”. Led by the Arellano Felix brothers, the nephews of Miguel, and later their own nephew, Luis Fernando Sanchez Arellano, the Tijuana Cartel suffered through many deaths and arrests, which made the group smaller, yet still influential.
Another cartel, the...
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...they continue to send troops to regain control of towns and prevent violence and crime in an attempt to make drugs a less prominent factor in their society. All that we as individuals can do to somewhat change the course of the future of the cartels is to educate ourselves on drug abstinence and help stop the spread of the use of drugs.
Works Cited
Beith, Malcolm. “The Current State of Mexico’s Many Drug Cartels.” Insight Crimes. n.p., 25 Sep.
2013. Web. 16 Feb. 2014.
Corcoran, Katherine. “Mexico’s Drug War Strategy Remains Unchanged With New Government.”
Huffington Post. The Huffington Post, 18 Aug. 2013. Web. 16 Feb. 2014.
De Cordoba, José & Lunhow, David. “The Perilous State of Mexico.” The Wall Street Journal. Dow
Jones & Company, 21 Feb. 2009. Web. 16 Feb. 2014.
“The Five Most Famous Drug Cartels.” Drug Abuse. n.p.,n.d. Web. 16 Feb. 2014.
Relevance: Guzman is the leader of one of the largest criminal organizations in the world, thus making him one of the most powerful men in the world.
In the Ted talk called, The Deadly Genius of Drug Cartels, with the speaker Rodrigo Canales, he talks about the following; the violence of the drug cartels, the financial businesses of the drug cartels, and how they're successful with the U.S is involved. First, in the Ted Talk, Rodrigo Canales speaks about the violence of Mexico from the past six years which is caused by the drug dealers. The violence is caused by the drug dealers because it's key to them to have good brand management and having a strong group organization, therefore causing them to be violent. Also, the amount of violence in Mexico was caused by the drug dealers causing 100,000 innocent casualties, which is more deaths than the Iraq war. Next, in this Ted Talk, the speaker Rodrigo Canales explains the financial businesses of the drug cartels and how they're successful and how the U.S is involved with the drug cartels to make the cartels financially stable.
II. Main Point 1: The Sinaloa Drug Cartel was created when a previous powerful drug cartel failed due to the arrest of its leader
Our team presentation focused on three Latino gangs, MS-13 (Mara Salvatrucha), the Mexican Mafia and the Los Surenos gang. My part of the presentation was to provide information on the type of crime these three gangs are known to commit. The crimes committed by the MS-13 gang are varied, violent, and take place all over the country. The FBI even put together a task force called the MS-13 National Gang Task Force in December of 2004 to try to put a stop to this gang’s activities. (www.fbi.gov). Los Surenos or Sur-13, originally based in Los Angeles, has also branched out from turf wars with rival gangs to “for profit”, violent crimes across the country. The Mexican Mafia has a similar story to tell as well in regards to gang crimes, which again range from respect crimes, and retaliatory violence to crimes for profit.
For the 71 years that the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) was in power, Mexico saw great political, social and economic upheaval. This can be seen in the evolution of the PRI party, whose reign over Mexican society came at the expense of true democracy. “A party designed for power, the PRI's mechanisms for success involved a combination of repressive measures. The party professed no specific ideology, enabling it to adapt to changing social, economic and political forces over time. It attached itself virtually all aspects of civil society, and in this way, it become the political extension and tool of the government.” In 2000, however, the PRI’s loss of its monopoly on political power and institutional corruption gave rise to inter-cartel violence that was created in the political void left after the PAN won the national presidential election. These conditions gave rise to the Zetas: a new type of cartel that changed the operational structure of previous drug cartels. The Zetas operate in a new militant structure associated with a higher brand of violence, which has led it to branch out beyond a traditional drug smuggling enterprise common under the PRI government. Simply put, the electoral defeat of the PRI in 2000 was supposed to usher in a more democratic era in Mexican politics. Instead, the PRI party’s defeat created a state of chaos that gave rise to inter-cartel violence and the birth of the Zetas cartel.
Mexico has a long history of cartels the deaths, drugs and weapon trafficking is in all time high increasing year by year. “Mexico's gangs have flourished since the late 19th century, mostly in the north due to their proximity to towns along the U.S.-Mexico border. But it was the American appetite for cocaine in the 1970s that gave Mexican drug cartels immense power to manufacture and transport drugs across the border. Early Mexican gangs were primarily situated in border towns where prostitution, drug use, bootlegging and extortion flourished” (Wagner). They keep themselves armed and ready with gun supplies shipped from the U.S, taking control of the drug trades. The violence is spilling so out of control that they overthrew the Mexican government.
Over the last several decades, violence has consumed and transformed Mexico. Since the rise of dozens of Mexican cartels, the Mexican government has constantly been fighting an ongoing war with these criminal organizations. The cartel organizations have a primary purpose of managing and controlling illegal drug trafficking operations in Central America and South America to the United States. Violence on a massive and brutal scale has emerged due to the nature of the illegal drug trade. Because the drug trade is vastly widespread, cartels are often fighting one another and competing in business. Mexican authorities count at least 12 major cartels, but also talk of an untold numbers of smaller splinter groups. (Taipei Times). Five cartels from Mexico have risen to become the extremely powerful amongst all the drug organizations operating in Mexico. The Guadalajara Cartel, the Sinaloa Cartel, the Tijuana Cartel, the Juarez Cartel, and the Gulf Cartel. These organizations, along with other distinguished Mexican cartels, have plagued Mexico with violence, terror, and fear due to the essence and nature of illegal drug trafficking.
Have you heard about the Mexican drug cartels? In the fallowing paragraphs I will tell you about one drug cartels and its leader. His name is Joaquin Guzman, better known as El Chapo. As you may be aware, he was recently arrested for his major role in the drug cartels. It has been suggested that El Chapo be transferred to the state penitentiary in Florence, Colorado. The penitentiary in Florence holds the world’s most dangerous felons, including serial killers, drug dealers, and mass murderers.
Mexican Mafia also knows as la Eme is the top organized gang in the United States. It was formed in 1957 by Luis "Huero Buff" Flores. When he formed the gang Mexican Mafia he was incarcerated in Deuel Vocational Institution located in Tracy, California. He first formed the gang to protect Hispanics from other gangs in the California prison system. The gang quickly grew in number and strength so the California prison system moved Mexican Mafia members to other prisons such as San Quentin. The effort to break them up did not work instead there influence started to spread in the California prison system and quickly to the streets. Their symbol is the black hand of death or the number 13. Their ranking structure is paramilitary. When you first join the gang you become a soldados and you are able to move up in the ranks through loyalty, hits and proving himself a good soldier. After Soldado, you become a lieutenant, then captain and finally the top is the general. Their territories expand from Los Angeles, San Fernando Valley, San Bernardino, San Diego and cities across the central California region. They consist of 9, 000 members and mostly consist of Hispanics. They have an alliance with the Aryan Brotherhood, Surenos, and other various forms of
In the 1980s, the second generation of drug traffickers in Sinaloa were led by Roberto Moreno, Ernesto Fonseca Carrillo, Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo and Aviles Perez's nephew Joaquin Guzman Loera Para 1990 la organization was divided into two: the Tijuana cartel, run by the Arellano Félix brothers and the Sinaloa cartel, led by Hector Luis Palma Salazar, Adrian Gomez González and Joaquin Guzman Loera. The Sinaloa cartel was one of the first to discover a tunnel system to smuggle the drug
Since it’s beginning, the war on drugs has been a series of lost battles. Failed expectations in Panama, Colombia and Bolivia provide glaring examples.
The cartel all started with small families that farmed went from being in the contraband trade to being involved into the trafficking of drugs. In the late 1960s moving in the 1970s, the trafficking of marijuana in bulk had begun. This was the beginning of what was going to become Mexico’s most powerful gang and cartel. It is all looked over by one man, who goes by the name of “El Chapo” Guzman. Who is considered the most wanted man on the planet by the U.S. government and they have placed a $5 million reward for a lead to his arrest. As anyone would assume just from reading on how wanted their leader is, this cartel is a force to be reckoned with.Most of their murders either involve the beheading of the people they intend to murder of placing the bodies in acid to leave no evidence at all. In recent memory, they have had a lot of bloodshed over the control of territory of Ciudad Juarez against the Juárez Cartel.
... Washington, DC. Congressional Research Service. Marosi, Richard. A. (2011, July 26)
The Mexican War on Drugs is an ongoing conflict that is taking place in, as the name suggests, Mexico. This conflict involves both the Mexican government and various drug cartels. One of the cartels of note is the Sinaloa Cartel. While the Mexican government is struggling against the cartels, the cartels themselves fight amongst each other for power. The basis is the government wanting to take down the drug cartels, although over the years, they have leaned more to trying to support a particular cartel possibly because the devil you know is better than the devil you do not. If they had one cartel in power that kept the others in line it would be better because the dynamics of the cartel power balance are constantly changing and when some leaders are killed or imprisoned a sort of vacuum is formed and more people are killed. Counting from when the Mexican Military got involved, this conflict has been occurring since 2006 (Mexican Drug War). But most notably the conflict between cartels started
If the president of the United States, and the president of Mexico could bind together and sign an agreement to get this somehow under control it could prevent it from coming to the U.S. The U.S. president could station our troops that are overseas around the border of Mexico to prevent drug from coming in is one way to help this problem. Also another good