(CNN) -- Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman Loera, a 54-year-old drug cartel leader whose nickname means "Shorty," is the most wanted man in Mexico. He's also one of the most wanted men in the United States.



Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman Loera leads the Sinaloa cartel, which is battling for turf along the border.



For five years, the State Department has kept a $5 million bounty on his head, calling Guzman a threat to U.S. security.



Guzman, who leads the Sinaloa cartel, is a key player in the bloody turf battles being fought along the border.



He recently upped the stakes, ordering his associates to use lethal force to protect their loads in contested drug trafficking corridors, according to the Los Angeles Times.



The cartel's tentacles and those of its chief rival, the Gulf cartel, already reach across the border and into metropolitan areas such as Atlanta, Georgia; Chicago, Illinois; Seattle, Washington; St. Louis, Missouri; and Charlotte, North Carolina, Drug Enforcement Administration Agent Joseph Arabit told a subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee in March.



"No other country in the world has a greater impact on the drug situation in the United States than Mexico does," said Arabit, who heads the DEA's office in this year's border hot spot, El Paso, Texas. See where Mexican cartels are in the U.S.



A December 2008 report by the Justice Department's National Drug Intelligence Center revealed that Mexican drug traffickers can be found in more than 230 U.S. cities.



So far, the U.S. has largely been spared the violence seen in Mexico, where the cartels' running gunbattles with police, the military and each other claimed about 6,500 lives last year. It was a sharp spike from the 2,600 deaths attributed to cartel violence in 2007.



Once again, drug war casualties are mounting on the Mexican side at a record pace in 2009 -- more than 1,000 during the first three months of the year, Arabit said.  See who the key players are »



The violence that has spilled over into the U.S. has been restricted to the players in the drug trade -- trafficker-on-trafficker, DEA agents say. But law enforcement officials and analysts who spoke with CNN agree that it is only a matter of time before innocent people on the U.S. side get caught in the cartel crossfire.



"It's coming. I guarantee, it's coming," said Michael Sanders, a DEA spokesman in Washington.



Sinaloa cartel leader Guzman's shoot-to-kill instructions aren't limited to Mexican authorities and cartel rivals; they also include U.S. law enforcement officials, the Los Angeles Times reported, citing sources and intelligence memos. The move is seen as dangerously brazen, the newspaper reported. In the past, the cartels have tried to avoid direct confrontation with U.S. law enforcement.



U.S. officials are trying to stop the violence from crossing the border. The Obama administration committed to spending an additional $700 million to help Mexico fight the cartels and agreed to double the number of U.S. agents working the border.



But $700 million pales in comparison with the wealth amassed by just one target. Guzman, who started in collections and rose to lead his own cartel, is said to be worth $1 billion after more than two decades in the drug trade.



He made this year's Forbes list of the richest of the rich, landing between a Swiss tycoon and an heir to the Campbell's Soup fortune. Popular Mexican songs, called narcocorridos, embellish the myth of the poorly educated but charismatic cartel leader.



"Shorty is the Pablo Escobar of Mexico," said security consultant Scott Stewart, invoking the memory of the colorful Medellin cartel leader who also landed on the Forbes list and thumbed his nose at Colombian authorities until he died in a shower of police bullets in December 1993.



Stewart, a former agent for the Bureau of Diplomatic Security, gathers intelligence on the cartels for Stratfor, a Texas-based security consulting firm that helped document Guzman's worth.



Just a decade ago, Mexican smugglers worked as mules for
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question: how much is the u.s. spending to double the number of agents?, answer: an additional $700 million | question: What amount did U.S. spend to double agents at the border?, answer: $700 million | question: What are the death toll numbers from the current drug cartel turf wars?, answer: 2,600 | question: what is the battle against colombian cartels?, answer: turf along the border. | question: How much is the U.S. spending to double number of agents?, answer: $700 million | question: Gulf cartels battle for what?, answer: turf along the border. | question: What is the U.S. doubling?, answer: agents working the border. | question: What are they battling control over?, answer: turf along the border. | question: Which cartels are battling for control of drug routes?, answer: Sinaloa | question: How much is the US spending on border control?, answer: $700 million | question: How much does the U.S. spend on agents at its border with Mexico?, answer: $700 million