So that's what 22 Billion dollars looks like. Now I know what to look for! I wonder if drugs were legal if they'd be as rich.
Actually, that's only 207 million dollars. 22 billion would be, literally, 100 times more impressive.
And I think they certainly wouldn't have had that much money if drugs were legal. The illegality of drugs creates the black market for them, and their willingness to use violence in an unregulated market is what gives them market share. Without drug laws, there would be open competition and prices would fall, cutting profits for the cartels. In this sense, it is prohibition which creates violent drug cartels, the same way it did with bootleggers during alcohol prohibition in the US, where Capone and his gangsters made his riches doing the same thing.
