Title: Drug cartel | Britannica
Headings: Drug cartel
Drug cartel
Colombian drug cartels
Mexican drug cartels
Other cartels
Narco-terrorists
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Drug cartel

Content: They deliberately undermined the Medellín cartel as it became increasingly unpopular and violent. The Cali cartel went so far as to help Colombian police and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) track down Escobar. Many leaders of the Cali cartel were arrested in the 1990s, and by the next decade the organization had largely disbanded. While other cartels in Colombia filled the void, their power failed to match that of their predecessors. Mexican drug cartels
In the 1960s and early ’70s, Mexico was known primarily as a supplier of marijuana. However, as U.S. efforts in Colombia slowed the flow of drugs from South America, Mexico emerged as a source of cocaine. The Tijuana cartel—created by members of the Arellano Félix family, especially the brothers Ramon and Benjamin—was founded in the late 1980s and became one of the most powerful cartels in Mexico, responsible for shipping hundreds of millions of dollars worth of cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamine into the United States. However, Tijuana faced fierce—and often violent—competition from other drug organizations, notably the Juárez, Gulf, and Sinaloa cartels. Under the leadership of Joaquín Guzmán Loera —commonly known as El Chapo (“Shorty”), the Sinaloa cartel emerged as one of the world’s most powerful drug cartels in the early 21st century; according to various reports at the time, it accounted for the majority of illegal drugs in the United States.