drug cartel
36
5.3
- noun
- /drʌg kɑːrˈtɛl/
- NSFW
:
cártel de la droga
- We have an executive mandate to stop the drug cartel and we're sitting on our hands.
- Mexican drug cartel
He has declared the drug cartels to be foreign terrorist organizations.
- He has declared the drug cartels to be foreign terrorist organizations.
- You get shot every day down there now, you know, drug cartels.
- He immigrated to the United States to evade the Mexican drug cartel.
- You can't bring that person's brother back and it's fueling what's happening with the drug cartels because this is the majority of their business.
- And you won't have the problems that we see and the control that we see by the drug cartels right now.
- But basically, the show is about a a family that launders money for a Mexican drug cartel, right?
- politicians, like, like, yeah, I mean, and in Mexico, you know, there there's a huge capture of, of politics by drug cartels.
- How does a Glasgow boy get that call to kill the biggest drug cartel and the biggest drug Lord?
- That's why I usually refuse to call them cartels or drug cartels.
- It's a an incredible amount and they are the legal powerful drug cartel.
- There are multiple Mexican drug cartels, all right.
Examples
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The Mexican government's campaign to tame its drug cartels has driven Mexican drug traffickers to set up shop in Honduras.
Blog text (11) -
Our contact in Mexico is the head of the Sonora drug cartel.
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I mean, just think about the drug cartels in Mexico.
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And I would walk in and make contact with the owners of drug cartels and begin to talk to them about life and God.
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How does a Glasgow boy get that call to kill the biggest drug cartel and the biggest drug Lord?
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Maybe the Mexican drug cartels will form the basis for the groups that survive.
Blog text (15) -
You know, a drug cartel is going to continue to sell drugs to kill people, commit murder, mayhem and all those things.
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I was just explaining to him about the drug cartels and all the kidnapping that's been going on down in Mexico.
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Yet whoever wins will need to address the foremost challenge confronting the country today: the battle against the drug cartels.
Academic text (2012) -
The drug cartel in Mexico is known for its violent control over narcotics trafficking.
Synonyms
832
2.8
A group of people who commit crimes together
263
7.2
A group of people who work together to do illegal things
210
7.9
A group of businesses that agree to control production and prices to limit competition
34
7.3
A group of people who run illegal businesses together
8
4.5
An organized group of criminals who work together to do illegal things
How Powerful
Surface Forms
Morphology
The noun compound is compositional: a B1 learner who knows 'drug' and 'cartel' can readily infer it denotes a cartel operating in the drug market (an organization controlling production/distribution of drugs). Although extra connotations such as organized violence or corruption are pragmatic additions not strictly encoded by the constituents, the core meaning is directly predictable and cross‑linguistically comparable.
Etymology
Drug cartel comes from the word cartel, which originally meant a group of businesses that join to control the market. With drug, it gives the image of one powerful group that controls the making and selling of illegal drugs and often uses violence or bribes, so it means 'an organized group' that runs the drug trade.