So Mexican Air Force needs to strafe Cartels forces.
Hmmm.
Sounds rather like a shadow government or powerful revolutionary group rather than a “drug gang.”
That's basically what these cartels are, they own a good portion of the Mexican government.
When they captured El Chapo senior they got him to the U.S. quickly because they knew the chances of preventing him from escaping again were low due to all the people in the government who worked for the cartels. That was under a different Mexican president I believe and the current one is a raging socialist, I don't know that he'd go along with handing the son over to us. That's what should be done but you never know with these banana republics.
Probably someone in the cartel neglected sending payola to the right government official.