case during the Bush administration, called Operation Wide Receiver, in which guns reached cartels.
agents based in Mexico that they were kept in the dark about the operation, that they believed it was allowing guns to reach Mexican cartels, and that they were brushed off when they raised concerns.
But the investigation into Millan Gomez's killing has also revealed the power and reach of the cartel.
But they lost track of about 2,000 guns that probably reached a Mexican cartel.
Clearly, the rise can partly be attributed to the long reach of drug cartels, which have expanded into organized crime, and drawn in nearly everyone they can, including women.
"The internet has not just empowered citizens to exercise their rights, but also enabled and extended the reach of gangs, cartels and organised criminals," reported Igarapé Institute in a June 2012 study on cyber crime, which found cyber-crime threats are highest in countries with the greatest number of online users, including Argentina, Brazil and Mexico.
Under the agreement, reached in Algiers, cartel members would decide at the group's next formal meeting, on Nov. 30 in Vienna, on details of trimming production by up to 700,000 barrels a day, from a current level of just over 33 million barrels a day.
"Organized crime is in control of the state's politics, police and the justice system," he said, explaining the penetrating reach of the cartels.
But the cartel's reach also extends into the United States, says investigative journalist Anabel Hernández, author of Narcoland: The Mexican Drug Lords and Their Godfathers.
Few people know more about the wide reach of the Sinaloa cartel than Guzmán, who first got involved in the trade as a teenage farmer and rose to become one of the leaders of Mexico's biggest drug enterprise.
