i was told by someone that has knowledge of both crime orginizations that the Russian Mob is actually weaker then the mexican/south american drug cartels

he said the Russian mob is disorganized, that the drug cartels are much more powerful

would you guys agree with that

have you seen nikoli raschnik?

its very subjective to label one group more powerful than another, but here is my list based off of money/influence...


#1 Mexican DTO's

#2 Italian OC(mainland italy, not LCN)

#3 Russian OC

so you say the drug cartels are stronger then the russian mob

like five felonies said:its now easy to label one group "most powerfull" because its hard to measure power.especialy for groups like the russian mob, who merged(in parts) with legal economy.

doesn't the russian mob control the goverment

I actually think the government is taking over the mob's operations. Putin don't like competition to his control over everything in that country.

another way of looking at it is this:

#1, what is the single biggest moneymaker worldwide as far as criminal rackets are concerned? drugs.

#2, which country is most corrupt? mexico by a wide margin imo!

this is why i feel the mexican cartels are the #1 criminal enterprise in the world, although they are far from unchallanged!

mexican cartels are the government of mexico!

The real 'Russian' organized crime groups are actually highly overrated. The ones conducting the large weapon trafficking operations and such are actually more like corrupt government officials, politicians,...at least that's what every Russian will tell you.
The 'Russian' crime groups you see all over the news like the Russian & Ukrainian Jews, Chechens, Georgians, Armenians, Azerbaijanis or Yezidis are the ones involved in the drug trade, prostitution, burglary, kidnapping, robbery,...and are indeed not any more powerful than an Albanian, Italian,...clan or even an advanced street gang.
Mexican cartels are having their peak nowadays just like the Colombian cartels had in the 80's. As time goes on the cartel activity will eventually highly decline in Mexico too ( but just as in Colombia, it will probably never fully leave). So nowadays I too think that the Mexican cartels are on top as they profit immensely from the social disorganization that's going on the country right now.

i also think the mexican cartels are the number 1 today, because they are at their peak
russian mafia was at its peak in the 90s, so today mexican cartels are by far more powerful

my current top 4 list is

1. mexican cartels
2. italian mafias
3. chinese triads
4. russian groups

if the russian mob= russian goverment, wouldn't that make them more powerful then the drug cartels, since russia is more powerful then mexico?

i don't think russian mob=russian government, they have some links, but it's not correct to say it
putin is a semi-dictator and he's taking over mob's connections of the 90s
it's like to say italian mob=italian government, just because several politicians are linked with mafia, included berlusconi

100% correct
There are links between them but they're not the same.

Mr Putin is a no shit boss you do not mess with him or Russian state.

Did you ever see when a bomb go's of in Russian within three weeks body's start to come on TV of who ever had part of the bomb plot.

Mexican Cartels are large, highly organized and having a lot of control with the drugs. Thus they are extremely violent. But have they gone more far with the drug trade? Russian criminals, I'm speaking about the highly organized groups, they made money on drugs large time in the 90's. Nowdays they're mostly up to schemes and have gone into legal business also.

Russian Organized Crime is actually having a large influence in the Russian Government. There are some many ex-criminals in the government there that you can start vomiting up.

About the power, my opinion it's like this:
If we compare Russia and Mexico, then it's the Russians as they have a large control on the government and everything, thus they don't have the army or KGB on their asses daily.

If it's about USA, then it's the Mexican Cartels, they have a lot more influence there than the Russians.

This is why in my humble opinion why there is no such thing as an all powerful crime group in the world today. IMO , there are just the very powerful ones, the moderately powerful ones and then it gradually decreases from there down . The reason I say this is because not only is OC hard to measure but a group in one country for instance could be all powerful but in another nation or place could have little presence or none at all. The same would apply for different rackets , even though drugs are the biggest money maker. Furthermore it should be argued how you define powerful (don't quote google as the reality is power does come in different forms ). It could be to Do with money or influence , fear and violence or something like how protected a criminal group is. Even secrecy could be a form of power. In my view the list would go a little something like this , I'm talking global here btw.

Very powerful crime groups in no order or rank

Mexican drug cartels
Italian Mafia's (Not Italo-American )
Chinese Triads
Russian/ Eurasian organised crime (I purposely avoid the word mob although Vor groups are included)
Colombian Cartels

I say these simply because they're reach is strongly felt in two or more continents. This is just my opinion though

Organized crime Ukraine is not on your list in my opinion in top 3 groups in the world today.

That would be included in Eurasian my friend , individually I don't think they stand out much though, IMO.

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.

Might I add there are obviously more forms of corruption than organised crime infiltration , most of it is probably things like bribes and tipping off funds it doesn't necessarily mean that because a country is corrupt, mafia groups should flourish. I mean a lot of corruption in Russia is just political and economical .

corruption and organised crime infiltration are different things, although a more corrupt country is easier to infiltrate for the mafias
but more corrupted it doesn't mean more organized crime

that is a very good point, and a distinction that is often overlooked as evident by the amount of posters here who use the example of how corrupt chicago is as a way to justify there exaggerated claims of how powerful the outfit is

I think the main reason the cartels in Mexico can exert their power like that is because Mexico has a weak central government or the central government for decades has abandoned or stopped exerting their power over the state and municipal governments. A lot of corruption attributed from organized crime in Mexico is within the public security of the country, the municipal police and cartels have for decades formed a mutual relationship and some police officers are really integrated into the network of the cartels and some not don't even get payments from the cartels but it's all up to the individual. So it would be wrong for me to say that all of the police in Mexico are corrupt or have ties to organized crime. There have been cases or cities or states where the police are doing their work or not all of the places the cartels have some presence there is organize crime infiltration. In Monterrey for example, the detective police are doing a good job at dismantling kidnapping, extortion rackets and sometimes they capture people with guns. I think all of or (most of) the local Zetas captains are behind bars in that city and the plaza boss is somewhere hiding in that metropolitan area. From the outside they are controlling the streets but they are also losing the streets to the Gulf Cartel because the Los Zetas there are in hiding and not enforcing their "plaza" or lack of presence from Los Zetas members. So a lot of the street gangs that worked for them as either as drug distributor, lookouts, extortionists, kidnappers per ransom, piracists, auto thieves etc. are getting killed/arrested or just jump ship or align themselves to the Gulf Cartel.

But there are some places in Mexico that are extremely corrupt or have been heavily inflitrated by the criminals gangs, like for example. Matamoros the center of operations of the Gulf Cartels, the municipal and ministerial police have been heavily infiltrated by them and the Gulf Cartel is known to have captains/commanders and bosses that have been law enforcement agents in the past. It is rumored that the military commander stationed near it give protection and act as enforcers for the Gulf Cartel, that's why you never hear of the Gulf Cartel and the military engaging in shootouts. It's always Los Zetas that end up killed in shootouts with the army, especially in the Reynosa(another Gulf Cartel headquarter)-Monterrey road which also heads toward Nuevo Laredo (the headquarters of Los Zetas). There is a low profile war there between the army and Los Zetas, it is rumored that the army goes in looking for Los Zetas members or their collaborates to kill them all behalf of the Gulf Cartel. And about a couple of days ago the Los Zetas left some heads of Gulf Cartel members in the public square saying something along the lines of this "Hahaha not even the army can you protect you pigs".

This is true and that's why I am not pissed off at the local police of Mexico anymore because for decades the cartels have infiltrated them. It's more of infiltration than mere corruption in Mexico although corruption is a huge tool the cartels use on each other.