Let's be honest here. The Italian syndicates are long well established and don't receive the same extent of persecution as the Mexican and Colombians cartel do or ever did. The reason why there is a lot of violence in Mexico related to organized crime is because of the different dynamics the Mexican cartels have to deal with the Italians never had to deal with. First off, the Mexican cartels are not well established compared to their headquarters where they are as well establish if more than the Italians. For example, the Gulf 's cartels headquarters is Reynosa and Matamoros, both are located south of Texas in the border region. The Gulf Cartel for decades operated and pretty much secluded themselves in those two border towns and as a result they are well established. All of the top bosses and captains are located in those two border towns and all of the orders come from there. It's basically the roots and trunk of the organiztion and it's almost near impossible for their enemies like Los Zetas to invade, enter or remain undercover/sleeper cells for a long until they are uncovered by the vast and sophisticated intelligence network, they have created made out of lookouts, municipal police, detective police, state police and the army. As Z-40 or Miguel Angel Trevino has found out the hard way, every time he sends 30 or 40 goons into the Gulf Cartel's headquarters. They never manage to remain there for longs as noted from this video:
(which I will later post because I am tin the library)

This is a supposed video of the Gulf Cartel members dressed in military outfits with helmet and military gear and interrogate Zeta goons caputred in Reynosa or Matamoros(Gulf Cartel HQ). You think these are cartel thugs in that video? I don't think so. Sure both Los Zetas and the Gulf Cartel are known to dress in military and police outfits to confuse the public and enemies when they go out to kill. But those look like professionals to me and not thugs as they want to suggest. It's more likely they are Mexican soldiers and not thugs. The person doing the interrogation is supposed to be one of the higher ranking Metros(Gulf Cartel faction). And this is just tip of the iceberg on how deeply the Gulf Cartel has penetrated and infiltrated the Tamaulipas state government and it's security forces. But all of this protection is just temporarily or virtual reality when you have Gulf Cartel plaza bosses working for the DEA and giving insight info into the organization for both future leneint sentences, operating as long as the DEA offer and keep much of the future net worth he or she has accumulated over the years as a drug trafficker. Once the informant gives as much info to the DEA , the drones takes care of the surveillance for months based on the informant intel and finally they plan a operation against the monitored drug boss. About 600 marines invade Matamoros or Reynosa and perform an operation and perimeter around the alledge location of the drug boss. They start to close in to his location and hours later 30-40 cartel goons are killed and the drug boss killed or apprehended. These type of scenarios or deals create distrust and divisons among the two factions of the Gulf Cartel. Though the Gulf Cartel has been prove resilient from fragmentation and infighting and I give credit to the well established they are in Reynosa and Matamoros, the close knit relationship between the bosses keeping informants to a minimum(several drug bosses and catpians have been waked for being presumed informants, Metro 3 was most probalbly wacked becasue he was being suspected as an informant) and the contacts or steady supply of coacaine and drugs that keep new playeers from rising and taking advantage of the opportunity. If the Gulf Cartel had theri bosses more widespread then it would of surely suffer from divison, infighting and eventually fragmentation like the other cartels (I'm looking at you Sinaloa).

Now the reason why there is so much violence is that the cartels started to scarmble for political connections for protection to move their durgs loads/shipments safely once the 80 rule of the PRI party ended with the election of PAN president Fox in 2001. As the cartels started to expand beyond their headquarters seeking political connections to move their loads and establishing new drug routes, creating competition and conflict for the limited amount of available political connections available and inevitably for wars for those newly established drug routes. (The PRI has always allowed the drug cartels to operate as long as they kept the violence at a minimum. Hundreds died in between the Sinaloa and Gulf Cartel wars but things were about to get much worse with the election of president Felipe Calderon. When Felipe Calderon was elected he sent 60,000 soldiers to combat and dismantle the drug cartels just as the cartels started to expand and barely trying to establish themselves in the new turf. To combat the overwhelming force of the federal government the cartels started to evolve and recruit a lot of people. The cartel's membership exploded from a couple hundred to thousand and thousand over the next couple of years. Just as the local and state cops were being corrupted and infiltrated by the cartels. Eventually the 60,000 soldiers and federal police were being bought off for protection and muscle. Protection and muscle was available for the highest bidder. Some cartels had more protection than others and the cartels used their connections against each other. All of the this creating the shit storm we see in Mexico. Informants, betrayals, past grudges, shady deals with the Mex and US governments, DEA , corrupt cops and politicans siding and betraying some cartels has created instabliliy in the Mexican underworld thus creating a lot of violence in result of that.