But Economics 101 teaches that in the long term, most cartels are not very effective in raising the price of any commodity above that of what the market would produce.
Most cartels operate in secrecy, destroying documents, encrypting e-mail messages or using prepaid phone cards to erase communication traces.
Most cartel-related arrests in Mexico are followed by celebratory press conferences, and when soldiers hauled Lugo before the media, in December, he looked a lost little boy.
Moreover, unlike most cartel-on-cartel crime, the violence extends to ordinary citizens.
Bertelsmann will acquire a roster of artists, including a schoolboy favourite, Britney Spears, and an ageing Welsh heart-throb, Tom Jones, at a time when the world music market is contracting.Bank robbersEight Austrian banks were found to be involved in the "most shocking" cartel ever uncovered by the European Commission.
The US Treasury department has blacklisted several tequila companies for being fronts for organized crime, specifically the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG in Spanish), one of the fastest growing and most dangerous cartels in Mexico.
American Needle v. NFL provides yet another challenge of one of the most successful cartels in history: The National Football League.
The Arellano Félix organization was a family affair, and was at one time among the most powerful cartels in Mexico.
Few lamented the demise of the Knights Templar and the Zetas — two of the most ruthless cartels in Mexico — but past experience had demonstrated that this would not necessarily bring peace to the territories they once terrorized.
Between 2004 and 2009, during their rapid ascent in the criminal world, the Zetas surprised observers with their dynamic horizontal structure, the cruelty of their attacks, and their capacity of organized resistance against the Sinaloa Cartel, the oldest and most powerful cartel in Mexico.
