The Mexican federal government seems to be fairly independent. All the various high-profile corruption cases prove this out, as they generally seem to have been

The Mexican federal government seems to be fairly independent. All the various high-profile corruption cases prove this out, as they generally seem to have been singular installations and conversions of corrupt officials from below, however numerous. I think the problem in Mexico is the sheer inability of the federal government to effectively project its power across the country, both because of lack of resources and because of systemic corruption at the local level. Sometimes this seems to rise to the level of complicity, but I think it's more a reflection of the fear that exposing their impotence through failed enforcement operations would only worsen the situation. By contrast, the allegations are that Bulgarian political leadership isn't simply in the pocket of the mafia, they are the mafia leadership. It's sort of like in a military coup where the General-cum-President installs all his lieutenants into government office and otherwise changes the system so that the military controls all the levers. That's a quite different situation than in Mexico, and I'm not aware of any analogous situation anywhere else unless you play semantic games--e.g. consider as "mafia" the oligarchs and aristocrats of kleptocratic regimes. Such gross equivocations are great for manipulating outrage, including diversionary outrage--e.g. whataboutism--but not particularly constructive.