For years from five in the afternoon onwards a taxi driver has earned a small fortune without transporting passengers. 

He picks up his merchandise at Doctores neighborhood, near the bunker of Mexico City's Attorney General's Office, pays between 20,000 pesos (1,470 dollars) and 40,000 pesos (2,940 dollars) for it, takes it home, keeps it in small bags and hides them inside the spare tire of his Tsuru. 

From Friday night to Sunday, he and four more drivers sell cocaine in Colonia Condesa, one of the most cosmopolitan neighborhoods of Mexico City. When he is asked to deliver cocaine at a bar, restaurant, nightclub or private party, he parks in a dark street, opens the trunk and puts several wrappers in a bag of chips or an empty soda can while pretending to repair his car. 

"I move half kilo (1.1 pounds) [every weekend]. Others sell less," says Mr. T with a conceited smile while sipping a beer at a bar on Tamaulipas street. 

Mr. T misses the "good times" of cocaine in the capital city, in the 80's, when the Sinaloa Cartel controlled all drug sales. He says that back then there was no minimal fee and that dispatchers like him were not killed. They all worked for the same group, and if one of them could not sell all the merchandise in one weekend, no one ended up dead in an alley. 

He explains that in 2002 presumed members of the Gulf Cartel started fighting for the market and that the Zetas joined the battle a couple of years later. In 2010 a Gulf Cartel member killed his boss and his allies invited him to switch sides. 

He calculates that around 100 taxi drivers work for his new bosses in Mexico City. Each driver earns between 3,000 pesos (220 dollars) and 5,000 pesos (367 dollars) every weekend for delivering "goods" to restaurant managers, bar tenders, private security personnel, valet parking workers and street vendors who sell cocaine to students, youngsters, artists and musicians at Mexico City's hipster neighborhood to keep partying until dawn. 

One gram costs 100 pesos (7.3 dollars), even though the price varies depending on quality. In Santa Fe, for example, one gram costs between 400 pesos (29 dollars) and 600 pesos (44 dollars). 

On November 13 Mexico's Lower Chamber approved 50 million pesos (3.6 million dollars) to compensate the families of the 43 missing students of Ayotzinapa teachers training college who were allegedly handed over by local police to a criminal gang (Guerreros Unidos, a splinter cell of the Beltrán Leyva cartel). This is the same amount that drug cartels earn with cocaine business in Mexico City, according to estimates by the NGO Colectivo por una Política Integral Hacia las Drogas (Collective for Comprehensive Drug Policy - CUPIHD).

CUPIHD calculates that there are 85,000 users of illicit drugs such as marijuana, cocaine, amphetamines, methamphetamines and other hallucinogens in Mexico City. 

Carlos Zamudio, a drug specialist and researcher, concurred that things have changed. 

"You can find Sinaloa Cartel members in Morelos neighborhood fighting for the area of Tepito with the Gulf Cartel. The bars of Condesa and Roma are key for crime," he explained. 

He added that La Famila Michoacana sells drugs in the east and south of the city, in areas such as Iztapalapa and Tláhuac, while cells linked to Los Zetas operate in the north of the city, near Cuautepec. 

One June 9 a command executed six members of a family, including two minors, in Cuautepec due to a drug dispute. Two kilos (4.4 pounds) of cocaine were found inside the vehicle of one of the victims. 

However, Mexico City government insists that cartels do not operate in the capital city. Mexico City's Secretary of Government declined to be interviewed for this story.