As a final additional note, we could summarize what I wrote above by stating that: 1. the cartels by no means stay safe from state level actors in their activi

As a final additional note, we could summarize what I wrote above by stating that: 1. the cartels by no means stay safe from state level actors in their activities or protection of their operators. The contrary, they're fully in the eye of a never-ending storm. This means nearly constant, active, life-and-death threat for every single one of their members. 2. However, they do survive in an institutional sense, as organizations, but only because both their leadership structures and overall street-level manpower are apparently highly fungible. Small consolation that to any individual member of said cartels hoping to life a long, healthy life of crime while evading the law; knowing that leader or foot soldier, he or she can almost certainly look forward to a bloody death or prison existence within a decade or less, even if the organization he/she belongs to may indeed survive institutionally. Very few people seeking to build a wealth-seeking illegal organization while avoiding the state would want to emulate such an existence.