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The Good Side to Mexican Cartels

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The Good Side to Mexican Cartels
When I tell anyone around me that I am going to Mexico for a vacation, the first thing I hear is that I am going to get killed. Many people think that anyone who enters the country is at high risk of getting kidnapped or murdered by any cartel affiliated member. Of course, the violence between and within the various cartel organizations receives much of the spotlight and therefore frightens the public. Truth is, the majority of the Mexican cartels are not out hunting to harm tourists or even the locals; their primary focus is the economics and well-being of their drug business. Even though Mexican cartels are depicted as being violent and prone to crimes, their cartel behavior indicates the “business-like” purposes behind what they do. However, people generalize all cartels according to the Zetas ruthless acts of violence, one of the most dangerous cartels in Mexico. Unlike the Zetas, the Sinaloa Federation which consists of the loosely-knotted alliance between the Sinaloa Cartel and Juarez Cartel, is business-orientated and has become the most powerful cartel group Mexico has ever seen. For many decades now, Mexico has been suffering from an on-going drug war that continues to plague the country. The “majority of drug production comes from the western states of Sinaloa, Durango and Chihuahua” which allows the Sinaloa Federation to reign over this territory and dominate the drug trafficking business. The Federation is a group of individual cartels that work together in order to gain more power and further strengthen their personal drug businesses. The main player in the Federation is the Sinaloa Cartel, ultimately controlled by Joaquin “EL Chapo” Guzman. With all the success of the Federation, competition quickly arose. The Zetas, currently the most dangerous cartel in Mexico, partnered up with the Gulf Cartel in their attempt of seeking power because they felt threatened. However, the Zetas didn’t “enter the Mexican drug trade in the same way as the other


Bibliography: Williams, Philip. "Zetas, Los." The SAGE Encyclopedia of Terrorism. Ed. Gus Martin. 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc., 2011. 650-52. SAGE knowledge. Web. 12 Mar. 2013. Sullivan, Colleen. "Narcoterrorism." The SAGE Encyclopedia of Terrorism. Ed. Gus Martin. 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc., 2011. 413-17. SAGE knowledge. Web. 12 Mar. 2013. Thompson, Barnard “The Drug War in Mexico: By Any Other Name It 's Terrorism.” Mexidata. Info, August 9, 2010. http://www.mexidata.info/id2755.html. Burnett, John, Penaloza, Marisa and Benincasa, Robert. “Mexico Seems To Favor Sinaloa Cartel In Drug War” (2010). http://www.npr.org/2010/05/19/126906809/mexico-seems-to-favor-sinaloa-cartel-in-drug-war “Cartel de Sinaloa Emite Narcocomunicado”. Lunes, 27 de agosto de 2012. http://www.blogdelnarco.com/2012/08/cartel-de-sinaloa-emite-narcocomunicado/ Vinson, Tessa. The Sinaloa Cartel: A Study in the Dynamics of Power. http://web.wm.edu/so/monitor/issues/14-2/4-vinson.pdf Longmire, Sylvia. “Why Arresting “EL Chapo” Might Be A Bad Thing”. Small Wars Journals, 31 Oct. 2012. Web. 12 March 2013. http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/why-arresting-%E2%80%9Cel-chapo%E2%80%9D-might-be-a-bad-thing
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