[flagged]

“Terrorists” would tend to not consider themselves such.

I doubt the same is true of cartels and their members.

I'm pretty sure no one else reading the comment has any trouble understanding what is meant when talking about cartels in Mexico. What exactly is ambiguous to you?

A drug cartel is a criminal organization composed of independent drug lords who collude with each other in order to improve their profits and dominate the illegal drug trade.[1] Drug cartels form with the purpose of controlling the supply of the illegal drug trade and maintaining prices at a high level. The formations of drug cartels are common in Latin American countries. Rivalries between multiple drug cartels cause them to wage turf wars against each other. Drug cartels often transport both drugs and narcotics, and most often the term "Narcotics cartel" is not used to describe an organization that transports the latter legally defined set of illegal substances, such as marijuana.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_cartel

It means organized crime focusing on drugs in this context