From the evidence above and documentaries it seemed the Medellin Cartel didn't have much control over the retail sales of drugs and the street gangs that plagued Medellin city. The Sinaloa cartel never had high murder rates in their cities or state they always relied on third party support to do their dirty work in other cartel's territory. So what was the cause for all these high murder rates in Medellin city, the headquarters of the Medellin Cartel?

i'm far from an expert on Medellin,so it's hard for me to say.but what I do know is crime there has been bad for a long time.i remember reading that Colombia was one of the pickpocket capitols of the world,back then in the 80s early 90s.and there's a long history of banditry,among the local gangs,and petty crimes.the lure and legend of Pablo Escobar probably fueld more involvement of barrio youth in drugs.and robberies,territorial disputes over drugs could have caused some of the violence. also,i'm sure it's similar to the U.S. barrios,where some members of the small-time local gang members 'graduate' into the big leagues,and get involved in drug cartels.at least they aspire to,having come from poor backgrounds.someone also mentioned here already that the Medillin cartel waged political warfare against the govt,carrying out bombings,assassinations,etc.

Did the Medellin Cartel profit from the retail sales of drugs in city or was it just sold to the gangs because it seems like the Medellin Cartel didn't have much control over the gangs. The reason Juarez had so many murders for a couple of years was because the Sinaloa Cartel wanted the Juarez-El Paso corridor so the Sinaloa Cartel used the local street gangs to wage war against the Juarez Cartel but they also had a street gang as enforcers and drug distributors(Barrio Azteca). Juarez like Tijuana has always been plagued by street gangs so they have always had high murder rates regardless of cartel vs cartel violence but the Tijuana Cartel kinda controlled the gangs in Tijuana and profited from the retail sales not sure about Juarez(Cartel). I say this because there wasn't much tension or turf wars between Medellin and Cali cartel, am I right? So it seems like Medellin cartel didn't have control over the street gangs it seems. To have such high rates of murder in city, it seem chaotic and out of control or lack of control on the streets. The Sinaloa Cartel has always been smart and has used proxy or other groups or gangs to wage their wars, obviously Sinaloa Cartel regional bosses calling the shots while the street gangs do dirty work.

Edit: In Los Zetas and Gulf cartel, the street gangs are the retail salers, extortionists, informants etc of the cartels and those that graduate into the "big leagues" become cartel members which are the captains and gunmen that control those territories in a city. So since they control the streets more directly, they relatively have low murder rates unless a rival cartel tries to infiltrate and mess around. I'm sure the other cartels follow the same formula and that's why in Mexico there are only high murder rates is if a rival cartels tries to encroach on their territories.

Comandante Charro – High Ranking Zeta Decapitated

Well… holy shit. You most certainly don’t see that often. They are decapitating one another in Mexico like there’s no tomorrow, but victims are usually either small fish or complete nobodies. And look what we have here now – severed head of Comandante Charro, henchman very close to the leader of Los Zetas Heriberto Lazcano Lazcano aka El Lazca.

Mexican authorities said that there was an intense shootout between rival drug cartels in Ojo Caliente, Zacatecas after which head of Comandante Chorro was found next to a narcomensaje which bore the following text:


"Ai esta tu pinche mierda del comandante charro lacra de Lazcano, no que muy vergas el wei vamos por todas las lacraz de los Z’s en Zacatecas"

I put it into Google Translate but got complete garbage of a translation:


"Ai’s your fucking shit charro commander scourge of Lazcano, not very cock the wei Lacraz going through all of the Z’s in Zacatecas"

It’s pretty clear that Zetas are losing an upper hand in many of the Mexico’s states and Zacatecas will likely be next. El Chapo Guzman said it himself that he’s gonna get rid of the Zetas once and for all and the witch-hunt for them has been intense. Decapitating such high ranking figure as Comandante Chorro is definitely a sign that the Sinaloa, CDG and CJNG coalition is hell bent on getting the job done.

BTW, he looks more like he had his head ripped off rather than decapitated. You don’t just walk up to someone as high ranking as Comandante Chorro with a machete to behead him. He was probably shot in the mouth which incapacitated him enough for the opposing force to capture his body and finish him off with a beheading

Escobar, essentially, was competing with the state for power...

You should check out cocaine Cowboys, in it they said that the Colombians brought over their own people to sell it in Miami. Cali I think moved a lot in NY, but we're always more low key...

Escobar took on the state while the Cali cartel didn't. Since we are on topic I have reinstate that while there was more murder per capita in Colombia than Mexico. What Colombia didn't have was hours long shootouts between cartel soldiers vs other rival or the military. The Mexicans never took on the state but it was more of survival than anything. I don't know what's worse 4-6 hours shootout on the street between cartels and the military or high murder rates and Escobar targeting the state.