Cabrini, retail sales have always been a big moneymaker for the cartels and it is what fuels the violence in Mexico the narco polotics and changes of alliances is what causes the violence obviously government informants play a big role in the division of the cartels. Despite all this there are still a few cartels that control most of the drug trafficking out of Mexico into the U.S. starting with Sinaloa that imports and distributes about 60 percent of drugs into the U.S not to mention South America, Australia, parts of Europe and Asia. The next big exporter is Jalisco Nueva Generation and so on. My point beign is that most of these 22 "mini" cartels don't have the distribution networks in the U S to export drugs here so it's still the 7 major cartels that control the export of drugs into the U.S and some cases other territories(other countries besides the U.S). A lot of these solinter groups are splinter from splinter groups like in Guerrero where there are 4-5 groups all fighti g for local drug trade. Now the Zetas have splinterred in a major way, there are about 3 Zetas organizations now:CDN(Cartel del Noreste) which is basically the Zetas loyal to Trevino or Z40 and his brother Z42, then there is Zetas Vieja Escuela which is made up on bosses that either betrayed by the Trevino brothers or think they were then there is Cartel Zeta which is a splinter group from Zetas Vieja Escuela. I think CDN, the Zetas loyal to the Trevino brothers are the strongest Zeta group and export drugs to the U.S. Also I think people are underestimating the local drug market in Mexico. Now let's not simplify and say the Mexican cartels are "balkanizing", there are changing in alliances and such that sometimes these splinter groups rise in power, territories and control of drug trafficking such as Jalisco Nueva Generation. Their rise in revelency in international drug trafficking has been astanoshing.