Comparing the current power of any criminal organization in the USA to a criminal organization in Mexico is apples and oranges really. Mexico's a structural mess and the law enforcement and military over there are an underpaid joke. Even a comparison with Italy is quite off. Sure there's corruption in Italy, and plenty of it as well, but Mexico's a whole different ballgame. The country basically allowed to sit back and watch how cartels took over entire swaths of the country. Such thing is basically impossible in the USA and it will never happen in Italy either.
the only comparison is with italy of the 1980s and early 1990s
Even then, as bad as Italy got in those days, and it got pretty damn bad, the sheer scale of the mayhem organized crime in Mexico is responsible for is unprecedented. Things happen over there, even in public, that are straight out of an apocalyptic horror movie that would get banned from theaters.
