I think crime is a way of life. Period. Its a lifestyle as much for a petty thief as it is for a criminal genius. They want something for nothing, and will fuck you over to get it if you stand in their way;
People forget when they talk about the cartels in America that these are really trans-national enterprise syndicates at heart, and although a fair part, America is the definitely not all of its market; its exports to syndicates in Europe that send their drugs around the world. Dollar for dollar, their drug economies return far more on bad days then the average modern day LCN rackets.
LCN is nowhere near as strong as it was in the early half of the century, thats universally agreed.
Even still, we often read about connected bookmakers in NY running books that bring in hundreds of millions a year. Pretty impressive right? True, in NY at least, the mob is neither dead nor defanged.
Well the cartels bring in billions. Even split into so many factions, a fraction of that profit is still far exceeding the
Cartel guys don't grow up in the life like mafia guys. They don't have making ceremonies or formal ranks. It's leaders are usually better educated than the lower-level guys. The Ochoa's were a wealthy family who got involved because it was the most profitable business out there. Totally different than LCN where people get involved due to lack of other opportunities and because it's what they grew up in. Unlike LCN theese guys make money only from one revenue source. Cartels come and go, in Colombia at least, Mexican cartels, since their on the ditriubtion end and can geographically siutated stay around.
Pablo Escobar was a normal street guy, Griselda Blanco was a prostitute, Chapo Guzman Loera sold oranges on the street corner, Osiel Cardenas was a municipal cop but ended up washing
cars for drug traffickers etc. All of these and more drug trafficking/cartel leaders grew up poor before they went into the life of crime.
Now about the ranks; Mexican cartels do have ranks but obviously they are all structured different. Los Zetas for example have the "halcones"/"falcons" they are the eyes and ears; these guys are the lowest ranking guys and their bosses are called "jefe de halcones" which sometimes are police officers. From there you have the street drug distributors, extortion rackets, piracy racket guys etc. and like the "halcones" they all have a local boss. Now the sicarios/assassins are in charge of protecting the guys above and going to war, they also have a boss which is called "jefe de sicarios". The halcones, racket guys/street distributors, assassins and their respected bosses respond to a "commadante"; the commadante is responsible for all of the cells in a certain part of a city; they too have a boss which is called "jefe de plaza" or plaza boss. The plaza boss is in charge of all the commadantes in the city or municipality; from the plaza boss is the core of the organization; the core group of Los Zetas.
