Mexico’s powerful Sinaloa cartel marches on despite the arrest, extradition and now conviction in New York of its notorious leader, Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, and the proof of this lies in huge, multidrug shipments detected on the border in recent weeks.

Those heaping bags of fentanyl and plastic tubs of crystal meth, heroin and cocaine offer no sign that the cartel has been weakened, lost sway over its traditional territory in northwestern Mexico or seen its international reach curtailed by the loss of its leader.