Investigators from the US and Guatemala believe that the two biggest Mexican cartels, the Sinaloa and Gulf gangs, are spreading their tentacles across various departments; the Gulf cartel’s notorious armed wing, Los Zetas, is held responsible for a spate of massacres in the country in the past year. Many economists believe that a major reason for the quetzal’s strength against the dollar in recent years has been the amount of drug money laundered through the Guatemalan financial system.