According to this date Russia is actually more corrupt than Mexico. http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2012/dec/05/corruption-index-2012-transparency-international

Now for the replies on this thread, it's hard to measure the power of all these crime groups because it's hard to define what power is. I say this because I am not sure if the Mexican cartels are more powerful than say in 2001 or before that even though they probably made about the same amount of money in profit or at least roughly the same amount. Because back then the Mexican cartels were much different than what they are today, they were much smaller tight knit groups that operated in the shadows and maintained a minimal street presence even in their strong holds or headquarters. But during 2003 or so the Sinaloa Cartel invaded Nuevo Laredo, a bordertown the Gulf Cartel controlled through out their enforcement ring of ex-soldiers called Los Zetas which were made of 30 men or so tops. The Sinaloa Cartel had gang members as enforcers but they also had support of the ministerial police or detective police, so they clashed during that year and the Sinaloa Cartel's enforcers lost and retreated. So throughout out 2003 and 2006 the cartel expanded their muscle and started to exert their power on the streets and along that controlling the criminal rackets that independent crooks, kidnapping rings, street gangs, etc. maintained control for decades. These independent criminals or common criminals had to align themselves with the cartels and now were working directly for them and also provided the muscle to challenge or align the authorities, the public, the government etc.. As they hired more criminals to provide muscle, the cartels started to morphed and get more sophisticated, they exerted their power through these gangs that for years were independents. As the membership grew, the territory grew with it and power struggles within the cartel and their primary enforcement arm and also rivals became a scene for violent confrontations in the streets. Some enforcement arms became independent from their masters and created their own gangs or cartels others kept their loyalty and remained with the cartel etc. So now in current Mexico, street crime is now directly controlled by organized crime and the state is challenged by organized crime something that in Mexico nobody thought would happen and hence the high number of murders of this drug war which a lot of them were street gangs and the cartel members were usually killed in open street fights with the army and the federal police which often times were on the payroll of a rival cartel or sometimes from within the cartel. Not only did the street gangs had to align themselves but also the police and the army, the cartels use their political connections on each other and the army and police provide the proffesional enforcement for the cartels. Which the Sinaloa Cartel is really notorious about doing, they would use their high level connections to send troops and or federal police to clean the streets of the rival's street muscle or street gangs, and once it's "open" or "clean". They would send their captains or members to align or hire the street gangs to work for them. It's a lot more than this but to sum it up. Yes, the cartels at least for me are more powerful today than in 2002 or so and even 2006.