The cartels have carried out a campaign of violence and terror through out the Western Hemisphere that has not only destabilized countries of great importance to our national interests but has also flooded the United States with deadly drugs, violent criminals, and brutal gangs.
The cartels control nearly all illegal trafficking across the southern border of the United States through assassinations, terror, rape, and brute force. In certain parts of Mexico, they operate as quasi-governmental entities, dominating nearly all aspects of society.
Their activities threaten the safety of the American people, the security of the United States, and the stability of the international order in the Western Hemisphere. Their proximity and incursions into U.S. territory pose an unacceptable national security risk.
Link: https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/designating-cartels-and-other-organizations-as-foreign-terrorist-organizations-and-specially-designated-global-terrorists/
Six Mexican cartels have been designated as terrorist groups by President Donald Trump: CJNG, Cartel del Noreste, Carteles Unidos, Cartel del Golfo, Cartel de Sinaloa, and Cartel de la Nueva Familia Michoacana.
The latter is led by brothers Johny and José Alfredo Hurtado Olascoaga, both accused by the U.S. Department of Justice of trafficking fentanyl from Mexico into U.S. territory.
The power of the Nueva Familia Michoacana lies in the alliances it forms with local gangs in each state it enters, and it imposes mayors. These mayors are not there to work for the general well-being of the citizens of the municipalities they govern. Rather, they are there to protect the criminal operations of the gangs, prevent their arrests, and stop the eviction of properties and buildings seized by the local cartel members.
The Olascoaga brothers are accused by the State of Mexico Prosecutor’s Office of extorting tortilla shops and transporters in the State of Mexico, similar to the Unión Tepito. They are also accused of land seizures in Ixtapa Zihuatanejo, specifically fertile lands for the cultivation of marijuana and poppy.
Their alliance with local cartels in Guerrero, such as the Nueva Sangre Guerrerense, suggests an atomization of criminal cells operating under different names but affiliated with a larger criminal organization.
Sierra de Zirándaro, in the Tierra Caliente region. One of these towns was Guayameo, from where they expelled the local population to take over their homes and properties.
The Familia Michoacana is a criminal group that not only seizes land, properties, and livestock from the local population in various states of the “Tierra Caliente” region but also commits crimes such as kidnapping, extortion of businesses, price control, burning of avocado trucks, illegal logging of lemon trees, and genocide.
