[26][27] Félix Gallardo divided up his "Federation" by 1987, just two years after the capture and murder of DEA agent Enrique Camarena Salazar when the threat from American law enforcement became much more pressing.

[28] Gallardo was eventually arrested in 1989 and, while incarcerated, he remained one of Mexico's major traffickers, maintaining contact with his organization via mobile phone until he was transferred to a new maximum security prison in the early 1990s.

However, Zambada also used this conflict to his advantage since the Mexican government began to crackdown primarily on the Tijuana Cartel, Mayo used this weakening of his rivals as an opportunity for Sinaloa to step up in the trafficking world.

To accomplish this task he used every means available: Boeing 747 cargo aircraft, narco submarines, container ships, go-fast boats, fishing vessels, buses, rail cars, tractor-trailers and automobiles.

[49] To coordinate operations in the southeast US, Atlanta has emerged as a major distribution center and accounting hub and the presence of the Sinaloa Cartel there has brought ruthless violence to that area.

[58] On 4 July 2019, Juan Ulises Galván Carmona, alias "El Buda", was killed by two hit men in a convenience store in Chetumal, the capital of Quintana Roo state along Mexico's Caribbean coast.

[69] "El Muñeco" is considered to be one of the most important lieutenants of Joaquín Guzmán Loera, evident from his control of the planting, production, and trafficking of drugs in Sonora and in the mountains of Chihuahua, which were sent predominantly to the US.

[81] This also ended an attempt to recruit former high-ranking Mexican drug lords Rafael and Miguel Caro Quintero as members of the Sinaloa Cartel due to the refusal of El Chapo's sons to grant them leadership status.

Locations outside Mexico include Latin America (Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina),[13][102] the Anglo-Caribbean region (Belize, Guyana), Canada (British Columbia, Eastern Canada) the United States (primarily the Southwest, Southern and parts of the Mid-Atlantic)[103][33][104][105][106][107] and recently in the Pacific (New Zealand, Australia, and imports of raw products/chemicals from China) as drug prices for methamphetamines and cocaine tend to be higher in the Pacific than in the United States.

[111][112] Following the discovery by U.S. Customs and Mexican Federal Police, the Sinaloa Cartel began to focus their smuggling operations towards Tijuana and Otay Mesa, San Diego where it acquired a warehouse in 1992.

[114] On 31 May 1993, Mexican federal agents searching for the gunmen found a partially completed 1,500 feet (460 m) tunnel adjacent to the Tijuana airport and crossing under the U.S.-Mexico border to a warehouse on Otay Mesa in San Diego.

It was discovered as Mexican and San Diego officials were discussing the creation of a cross-border airport between Tijuana and Otay Mesa which would have undermined the drug tunneling operations in the area (see History of the Cross Border Xpress).

As seen on image 1 Drug tunnel corridors the close proximity of the former Ejido Tampico to the Tijuana airport and U.S.-Mexico border made it an ideal staging area for smuggling operations into the United States.

[119] As shown image 2 Ejido Tampico comparison between 2000 and 2006, the ejidatarios then proceeded to commercially develop the 79 hectares (200 acres) area at the Tijuana airport by leasing buildings and parcels to trucking and storage companies.

The former Ejido Tampico also continued to expand its unpermitted development and more drug tunnels were discovered operating within its boundary to warehouses located on Otay Mesa in San Diego, California.

In December 2016, one month prior Joaquín 'El Chapo' Guzmán Loera's extradition to the U.S.,[130] two "super tunnels", one in operation while the other was under construction, were discovered by Mexican agents adjacent to the Tijuana airport/Ejido Tampico and the Otay Mesa border crossing.

[citation needed] In May 2009, the U.S. National Public Radio (NPR) aired multiple reports alleging that the Mexican federal police and military were working in collusion with the Sinaloa Cartel.

The report also alleged, with support from an anthropologist who studies drug trafficking, that data on the low arrest rate of Sinaloa Cartel members (compared to other groups) was evidence of favoritism on the part of the authorities.

[165] In the same documentary it is shown that the US Justice Department invoked national security reasons to prevent Humberto Loya Castro, the lawyer of the Sinaloa Syndicate, from being summoned as a witness to the trial against Vicente Zambada Niebla.

[168][169] Other shipments of South American cocaine are believed to originate directly from Cali and Medellín drug-trafficking groups in Colombia, from which the Sinaloa Cartel then handles transportation across the U.S. border to distribution cells in Arizona, California, Illinois, Texas, New York City, and Washington state.

[174][176] The CDS is said to have a longstanding partnership with one of Ecuador's largest and most powerful criminal groups; The Choneros, who are based in the Pacific coast beach town of Manta, although they get their name from the western city of Chone.

[170] Ecuador's purported 2021 "spiral" into increased rates of crime and drug violence supposedly can be traced back to December 28, 2020, when Jorge Luis Zambrano González (alias Rasquiña), leader of the gang was assassinated in a shopping mall cafeteria in Manta.

[177] The country's overcrowded prison system and the COVID-19 pandemic has apparently dominated much of the government's attention and focus recently, thus allowing the gang to more easily grow and consolidate power.

[179][88] Fentanyl is chemically classified as a phenylpiperidine in its molecular structure, unlike the more traditional morphinan poppy-derived opiates such as codeine, morphine and even the closely related hydrocodone and heroin (diacetylmorphine).

"[182] The cartel also manufactures and traffics heroin, a semisynthetic morphinan compound made from the Opium poppy (Papaver somniferum), which is now typically mixed with fentanyl to very cheaply increase its strength.

However, in the subsequent years after this the U.S.'s gradual moves towards recreational legalization in many states, as well as the superior quality of American-grown marijuana significantly began to cut down on the profits of cartels in Mexico.

[196] Similarly to fentanyl, much of meth's industrial-grade precursors sourced from China or India, as well as Germany, arrive in Mexico at ports like Manzanillo, which has caused notable increases of violence in the small coastal state of Colima, as well as in strategic synthetic drug trafficking regions further north like Baja California and Zacatecas.

[197] This transit system allows the Sinaloa Cartel to transport precursor chemicals and the finished product across the northern border with passenger vehicles by far being the most common method for smuggling through the ports of entry.

The struggle for control over strategic trafficking routes and drug-producing regions led to territorial disputes, resulting in increased levels of violence, including confrontations with law enforcement and rival cartels.

[226] In addition to television and film, the cartel's former leader “El Chapo” is a popular point of discussion in rap music, particularly growing notoriety after his 2014 capture after escaping prison in 2001.