as in syndicates
a number of businesses or enterprises united for commercial advantage
a cartel of oil-producing nations that controls production and influences prices
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Recent Examples of cartels
This designation authorizes the federal government to take further steps to deny people and entities associated with these cartels access to the United States financial system.
—
Steve Weisman, Forbes.com, 12 Apr. 2025
The White House acknowledges that Mexico has become a haven for criminal cartels, enabling deadly fentanyl from China to flow into the United States.
—Mike Garcia, San Diego Union-Tribune, 8 Apr. 2025
Guess who joined the 3 liberal Justices to keep cartels here in America?
—Gordon G. Chang, MSNBC Newsweek, 8 Apr. 2025
To suggest that the cartels might import coca leaves to extract cocaine makes about as much sense as suggesting that someone would import Dom Perignon to secure by chemical processing pure extracts of ethyl alcohol.
—Wade Davis, Rolling Stone, 6 Apr. 2025
Its efficient transport and export system has been used by cartels to move and ship their goods overseas — the bricks of cocaine hidden in boxes of bananas and other goods that then head to the United States, Europe and the rest of the world.
—Abel Alvarado, CNN Money, 5 Apr. 2025
That national threat assessment also had a notable shift, saying that the biggest threat to America was drug cartels, gangs, fentanyl, Islamic terrorists, not Russia and China.
—CBS News, 30 Mar. 2025
The surge is fueled by drug trafficking routes, turf wars, and alliances between local gangs and foreign cartels.
—Abel Alvarado, CNN Money, 29 Mar. 2025
Those orders included renaming the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America and declaring multiple Mexican cartels as terrorist organizations – an act that could pave the way to using American military force on Mexican soil.
—Rafael Romo, CNN Money, 29 Mar. 2025
Steve Weisman, Forbes.com, 12 Apr. 2025
The White House acknowledges that Mexico has become a haven for criminal cartels, enabling deadly fentanyl from China to flow into the United States.
—Mike Garcia, San Diego Union-Tribune, 8 Apr. 2025
Guess who joined the 3 liberal Justices to keep cartels here in America?
—Gordon G. Chang, MSNBC Newsweek, 8 Apr. 2025
To suggest that the cartels might import coca leaves to extract cocaine makes about as much sense as suggesting that someone would import Dom Perignon to secure by chemical processing pure extracts of ethyl alcohol.
—Wade Davis, Rolling Stone, 6 Apr. 2025
Its efficient transport and export system has been used by cartels to move and ship their goods overseas — the bricks of cocaine hidden in boxes of bananas and other goods that then head to the United States, Europe and the rest of the world.
—Abel Alvarado, CNN Money, 5 Apr. 2025
That national threat assessment also had a notable shift, saying that the biggest threat to America was drug cartels, gangs, fentanyl, Islamic terrorists, not Russia and China.
—CBS News, 30 Mar. 2025
The surge is fueled by drug trafficking routes, turf wars, and alliances between local gangs and foreign cartels.
—Abel Alvarado, CNN Money, 29 Mar. 2025
Those orders included renaming the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America and declaring multiple Mexican cartels as terrorist organizations – an act that could pave the way to using American military force on Mexican soil.
—Rafael Romo, CNN Money, 29 Mar. 2025
Cite this Entry
“Cartels.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/cartels. Accessed 25 Apr. 2025.
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