Can someone familiar with drug cartels explain to me how much cooperation are there within one single cartel? For example in Italy Cosa Nostra and Ndrangheta can be seen as organized cartels in the sense that they are confederations of 100 or so clans loosely coordinated by a central committee. Technically, syndicate and cartel are two different forms of organization. A clan is a syndicate because its centralized, the boss of the clan oversees the day-to-day operation, while cartels are confederations that only coordinate in certain key issues such as settling disputes between clans and invest collectively in drug business.

So how does a cartel in Colombia or Mexico work? Are there clans within Medillin or Sinaloa Cartels? I have seen many news of Sinaloa infight, so it seems that they work in a similar way, as they are not really a monolithic entity like the general public usually believes, but a confederation of different drug lord factions who run day-to-day business independently, and only act as one single entity when it comes to drug exportation and wholesale.

I don`t really know much about cartels and the above is what I assumed from the news articles I read, so please correct me if what I said is wrong.