Joaquin Garcia, a former FBI Special Agent who spent 24 years undercover infiltrating criminal organizations, warns that Mexican cartels pose a greater threat than traditional mafia groups. Garcia's undercover work spanned the Italian Mafia, Latin American cartels, Russian and Asian crime syndicates, police corruption rings, and large-scale narcotics operations.

Garcia's most notable undercover operation involved embedding himself within the Gambino crime family as "Jack Falcone" from 2002 to 2005. Unlike his mafia work, which required cultural immersion and creating a Sicilian backstory, his cartel investigations focused on narcotics trafficking where credibility depended on the ability to move drugs and money rather than heritage. He described cartel operations as more volatile, with unexpected participants appearing during drug transactions.

Garcia emphasizes that while the mafia maintains strict accountability and chain of command, Mexican cartels operate with extreme brutality that far exceeds traditional organized crime. He witnessed cartel members decapitating victims and displaying heads on spikes, hanging bodies from bridges, and threatening entire families. The cartels' international drug trafficking networks generate revenue that dwarfs traditional mafia rackets. Garcia retired from the FBI in 2006 after 26 years of service, later co-authoring the New York Times bestselling memoir "Making Jack Falcone" and receiving the FBI Agents Association Distinguished Service Award in 2024.