The Rise of Mexican Drug Cartels and the Surge in Cartel Violence

[Name] EN 1311 [Instructor Name] 10/3/2023 Mexican Drug Lords and Cartel Violence The rise of drug cartels in Mexico in the 1970s brought with it a new form of violence. Consider these cartels as large-scale gangs. "El Cartel de Guadalajara," headed by Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo and El Señor de los Cielos, was among the first to come to mind. They joined forces with Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar, further complicating matters. At the time, Mexico was relatively calm, whereas Colombia was experiencing several troubles. Things were quiet at first when the drug trade began in Mexico, but suddenly, the calmness broke fast like a storm. The prominence of cartel violence changed Mexico's atmosphere and destroyed its beauty. Years went by, and in 1993, Pablo Escobar was murdered in Colombia. He was the main drug exporter to the U.S. at the time, so the drug trafficking business in Colombia fell off; as a result, El Cartel de Guadalajara tried to take advantage, and they became the main drug exporter into the U.S. and the organization started seeing more money, because of that an internal conflict in the Cartel began and the main leaders at the time parted different ways. El Señor de los Cielos stayed with El Cartel de Guadalajara and Hector Luis Palma Salazar, and his peers began his own organization, "El Cartel de Sinaloa." When that happened, cartel-related violence in Mexico became more popular. El Cartel de Sinaloa and El Cartel de Guadalajara started a huge war in those years, which led to a massive number of deaths in Mexico. A couple of years went by, and El Señor de los Cielos passed away when he tried to get plastic surgery so he could go undercover for the Mexican Government and the DEA. Four years after that, Joaquin Guzman Loera, better known as El Chapo, escaped from prison for the first time, and that is when he took over the drug trafficking business, partnering with Ismael El Mayo Zambada. They took over around the year 2001, and they changed many things in Mexico. They were the main organiza