Well it's more of a threat relationship than a bribe. If you're a local politician in northern Mexico especially in Tamaulipas state where the Gulf and Los Zetas operate. And receive a envolope with cash it's taken more of as a threat than bribe. It's either the cash or bullets and the poorer the town the less powerful politicians are. Mexico's political power is really centralized on the D.F area and Mexico city. So the local politicians are usually left to fend for themselves and politicians in poor states can't afford to buy guards and if they do either they are killed or corrupted. They can't rely on the local authorities because they don't get a good salary and are corrupted or simply intimidated by the local captains. The cartels don't have to buy everyone they just simply need to corrupt the police in charge of operations and the police chief and maybe a dozen or two police to act as informants. It so bad in Tamaulipas that the some police are lured into the cartel lifestyle and move up the ladder to get more money and power. That's why the Gulf Cartel is so notorious for having AEI in their structure. Now the Los Zeta are having the same luxury as well. The Sinaloa cartel walk a fine line between corruption/bribe and fear. They are more generous to their politicians and give them more money than Los Zetas or Gulf and is more comparable to the Mafia in Italy in terms of political connection. The Caballeros Temolarios are the worst they started to freaking extort the politicians to simply operate in Michoacan. That's why the people revolted against them because they wanted to extort everything. They walked the line when they started to rape daughters and mothers. That's when the people said enough and revolted against them. As a result most of it's leadership got taken down by the federal government because an civilian momevement that was going in Michoacan was more of a threat to the government than the cartels. So they had to step in to take down the bosses as quickly as possible and stop the civilian movement from spreading or gaining influence in other states. The PRI are bunch of power hungry assholes. Sure some drug bosses do have political connections to some powerful people in the federal government but since Calderon put a spotlight on the cartels and declared war on them many of the powerful bosses have gone down with their political connections with them. The newer drug bosses in Los Zetas and Gulf Cartel don't have the same connections. Also most politicians and especially powerful ones don't want to associate themselves with the cartels. It's mainly with the local authorities were much of the organized crime corruption lays. Some powerful politicians like Moreira(the state governor of Coahuila) declared war on Los Zetas and Trevino personally. Moreira was a known powerful politician from the PRI and one of the most known and proven politicians to be corrupted as hell. So there was some natural tension between him and Los Zetas(both of them of power hungry assholes) as he saw his police get corrupted by them. So he financed his own state police called GAFES to take down or simply get rid of Los Zetas from his state. As he arrested some high ranking Zeta bosses that operated in Coahuila(Moreira's state) one of them being a cousin of ex Los Zetas leader Trevino or more known as Z-40. Trevino took it personally so he killed his nephew in retaliation and the bastard Trevino even put a sign saying "Eye for an eye" and that's when shit hit the fan. It was a literary a war between PRI politician Moreira and Trevino. It was amusing to see a powerful known corrupt politician and Los Zetas go to war over power that really got personal. The GAFES and Los Zetas would go at it shooting each other on the streets. I think someone should write a book about it because of the interesting scenario a powerful well known PRI politician vs Los Zetas leader Miguel Angel Trevino aka Z-40.