Cartel Jalisco has definitely surpassed Sinaloa in terms of territory in Mexico. They are active in almost every state and have been leading a war against El Marro in Guanajuato, trying to take over Michoacán from the Nuevo familia Michoacán, After Chapo, they cut a deal to get into TJ with old AFO guys. Hence, el cartel Tijuana Nuevo generacion. They have a deal to move product with one of the metros commanders (formerly gulf cartel before the split). Zetas split from gulfos around 2010. Talibanes broke off from them and Z40 a few years later. After Z40 and his brother went down the Zetas basically split by their respective plazas. Ciudad Victoria is old school zetas and nuevo Laredo belongs to the Cartel del Noreste aka the Treviño family faction. So Zetas are nothing like they used to be. Originally, they were 15 or so special forces guys doing security for Osiel. Now, they are an army of cracked out teenagers who make more money of extortion and kidnapping than drug dealing.

As for who has more power....CJNG or Sinaloa. Depends... Every thought Chapo was the singular head of the Sinaloa cartel. Now everyone says it’s been El Mayo all along. To understand how it works think of the “Sinaloa cartel” as a conglomeration of about 15 different families in Sinaloa. Some factions are more powerful than others and each has its own area of influence. There really is no “one” boss. 15 different people split a load that gets captured doesn’t hurt as bad as one guy taking that loss. Are certain factions more powerful than others, yes. In Sinaloa there’s Chapitos, Mayos, y Azules. The children of the major three traffickers who have now taken over.

CJNG basically used to be an enforcement wing of the Sinaloa cartel comprised of ex milenio cartel guys called los matazetas “zeta killers.” They came on the scene years ago by dumping 48 bodies of alleged zetas on a highway in Mx. Nacho Coronel gets killed by the military because he was allegedly trying to break off from Sinaloa. They kill him, but his faction goes to war on one side El Molca and the old milenio guys and on the other side El Mencho, then the Puerto Vallarta plaza boss. Eventually, molca goes down and El Mencho and his faction takes over. When Mencho takes over he kicks all the Sinaloa operators out of Jalisco. He stops taking orders from Chapo and focus his efforts trafficking.

Here’s where it gets interesting. Instead of fighting over every border plaza Mencho and los cuinis (faction head by his wife’s brothers) focus on trafficking to Europe. For a couple years while they’re getting their existing plazas on lock they become billionaires flooding Europe and Australia with meth and other drugs. Then when Chapo goes down the second time they start expanding. That expansion hasn’t stopped, and they have become one of the biggest threat to Mexican national security. They have shot down helicopters, massacred dozens of police, executed politicians, judges, directors of tourism, anyone and everyone. When Chapos children were celebrating in Puerto Vallarta, Mencho has them kidnapped. He sends a guy named El Cholo. Mayo calls mencho to negotiate. A lot of threats a lot of yelling. Mayo tells Mencho if he kills Chapitos, they will kill his son El Menchito who was in Altiplano, the prison chapo escaped from. Mencho backs down after some more negotiations, but Chapitos convince El Cholo to eventually betray Mencho. Now Guadalajara is at war. It’s mencho vs cholo.

So basically, they are equally powerful all things considered. They both have endless supplies of money, and therefore an endless supply of gunman. I think I remember hearing in TJ you can get somebody clipped for like 400 bucks or something absurd. Life is cheap, and with endless funds both organizations can cause a lot of heartache. I think Sinaloa currently has better control of their own territory, but I think that has more to do with the culture of Sinaloa. Everybody in Sinaloa has relatives in this business. Culiacan is basically Park Place in Monopoly. Tremendous advantage for traffickers born there.