The Cartel, after being under the control of the Fellowship of the Order, for a decade, was brought to ruin. Due to the Order's ideals and decadance, the once proud and sinful Cartella planets were in debt, their cities in shambles, and everything completely gone once the Suisen Empire and it's allies, like EarthGov and the Tsivrixsh Empire, freed them. So Loki, the sole leader of the Cartella Systems, did the only thing he could - he joined the Suisen Empire so that they could have to pay to fix everything, and became their major source of tourist attractions.
Within the last past few years, the Cartel planets have come back to their glory of gambling, paradise planets, the best women on the market - that offer themselves freely again. They are making a huge profit for themselves, and the Suisen Empire, and all is well for them again. And the pirates they were once for now has been squashed while Athena was in control briefly as Empress, and again while Iro and Lenneth.
Loki, while always shady, figured it was a small price to pay for the Empire picking up a tab of billions in repair work. Now come see Jarivan.