Ciudad Juarez, especially in 2010, was one of the most dangerous cities in the world, and many analysts attribute that to the Sinaloa efforts to take over lucrative drug trading routes into the US from the Vicente Carrillo Fuentes Organization, also called the Juárez cartel. The Sinaloa group has long worked by forming allies, many of whom later become rivals, and that is still the case today in states across the country.
In the state of Veracruz, where some of the worst violence in Mexico is now playing out, analysts believe that the Sinaloa group is trying to take territory away from their rivals, the Zetas. Yet while the Sinaloa group is comprised of outlaws, in some ways they are quietly preferred among Mexicans since they tend to focus on the trade of drugs, while the Zetas, for example, are accused of earning proceeds through kidnapping and extortion.
