Since last year, police from Mexico and the United States have arrested five prominent members of the Sinaloa cartel, the largest drug enterprise in the world. The biggest catch came on Saturday, when they nabbed its leader, Joaquín Guzmán Loera, the New York Times reported.
Even so, Operation Dark Water, as the investigation was called, is unlikely to cause a significant dent in Sinaola's plans, according to the Times. The biggest impact it could have is to create a power struggle if the cartel's other high level operators fight for Guzman's role.
Based on the description of their empire, however, such a struggle seems unlikely to occur. The Sinaola run their organization like a business, which is how they've expanded not only all over the world, but to all of its recesses. Instead of breaking into new territory by violent means, they instead form partnerships with already existing groups, according to the Times.
"What Chapo was able to do was expand by sending representatives to a lot of different areas, settle in, learn the area, identify individuals and government officials he could bribe, if necessary, and build a solid base so that he could funnel drugs into the area and get cash out," Mike Vigil, a former top official with the Drug Enforcement Administration, told the Times.
"Sinaloa has managed to expand in such a way that the business can run itself," said Samuel Logan, an expert on transnational crime. "The entire Mexican state could fall, and the drug trade will continue, as long as there is a demand."
With the stability of the Sinaola believed to be mostly safe, it's unclear what the United States and Mexico seek as a specific outcome of their arrests. Do they want a violent takeover? Do they simply want to slow down/disrupt the operation and hope it slowly crumbles?
