Basic Information
Drug cartels are criminal organizations developed with the primary purpose of promoting and controlling drug trafficking operations. They range from loosely-managed agreements among various drug traffickers to formalized commercial enterprises.
Drug cartels operate in many countries throughout Latin America, including Mexico, Central America and Colombia, and in Afghanistan and South Asia. They are the cause of extreme gangster-like violence and thousands of murders, particularly in Mexico all along the U.S. border. Some cartels are even establishing themselves in U.S. cities like Phoenix, Houston, and Los Angeles.[1]
In many places in South America the cartels are tied into semi-feudal social structures and/or ongoing political conflicts to make them significant power centres over and above their criminal muscle.
See Also
- Drug
- News: Cracking Crime In Brazil
- News: Drug Cartels Target Mexican Army In Brazen Attacks
- News: Mexican Investigators trying to identify 72 bodies found near border
- News: Mexican police ask spirits to guard them in drug war
- News: Police - U.S. teens were hit men for Mexican cartel
- Santa Muerte
Sources
Game and Story Use
- Particularly ruthless organizations of drug smugglers and murderers, the Cartels make dangerous villains in RPGs set in the Modern Day or Twenty Minutes Into The Future.
- These are more or less the direct memetic descendants of the 1920s bootleggers, but trading in a different prohibited substance - use this when converting stories between eras or generally borrowing plot.
- Their power beyond merely being organized crime can make them important pieces in politics - see for example the Iran-Contra affair.