eh. Context. They're "hard" because they can get away with it. It's easy to be hard when you own the state (or significant parts of it). The Mexican cartels, as they currently exist, would never happen outside of a third world shit hole where they can buy or coerce their agenda into realization. I don't know what their current state is, but it seems to me the leaders of the Cartels continue to largely operate with impunity and even when they are caught, charged and jailed, they eventually "escape".
No other organized crime outfit had the soldiers battling it with each other and the government in the streets like the Mexican cartels.
Have you never heard of Pablo Escobar?
