THE MOST VIOLENT DRUG CARTEL IN MEXICO - Los Zetas

For most of the 20th century, the Mexican drug trade was far from what we see in the news today, where cartels are engaged in a virtually permanent bloody war with each other and with the state. No, violence definitely existed, but it was not as widespread, and the illegal market itself was a family business run by several dozen clans that were related to each other in one way or another. They also had very close ties to the state, which acted as their protector. Everything changed in the 1990s when several factors, which we discussed in previous videos about Mexican cartels, interfered with this established order. But most importantly, those who were much more vicious and ambitious, who did not have an impressive list of drug-dealing relatives and were never friends with the federal police or presidents, rose to the top of this world. They were military deserters, sadists, and murderers. And they began to set their own rules of the game, which everyone had to accept, because if you don't respond to violence with violence in the criminal world, sooner or later you will have nothing left. They became the ones who completely changed the world of Mexican drug trafficking, turning it into an endless parade of violence and dismemberment. Meet Los Zetas, on the other side of the law.