DEA warns about Mexican cartels that are threats to the US

• The DEA highlighted two Mexican cartels that are threats to the US.
• They warn of the Sinaloa and Jalisco Nueva Generación cartels.
• They created a unit dedicated to prosecuting and dismantling these two groups.

The United States Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) pointed Friday to the Sinaloa and Jalisco Nueva Generación drug cartels in Mexico as the main threats «to health and communities» in the US. This comes after the kidnapping of four Americans in Tamaulipas, two of whom were murdered, according to Informador and the EFE agency.

In a report on the agency’s foreign operations, the DEA states that in September of last year it created a unit dedicated exclusively to prosecuting and dismantling the efforts of these two transnational organizations to traffic «fentanyl and methamphetamine» to the United States. The kidnapping of four Americans and the murder of two of them in the Mexican border state of Tamaulipas at the beginning of March has revived the debate in Washington about the Mexican cartels.

WILL THEY BE CLASSIFIED AS TERRORISTS?

A group of Republican legislators asked that drug trafficking organizations be classified as terrorist groups, a measure that the State Department has not ruled out and that has been harshly criticized by the Mexican government. Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard even traveled to Washington on March 13 to meet with the country’s consuls in the US and launch a communication strategy to combat the proposal.

The US State Department has classified organizations such as the Islamic State (EI), Hamas and the Colombian National Liberation Army as foreign terrorist groups and it has been said that they want to do the same with the cartels.

DEA threatens Mexican cartels

Regarding the kidnapping of citizens in Mexico, it was recently said that a man who admitted to having bought firearms that he knew would go from the United States to a drug cartel in Mexico was arrested in Texas after it was discovered that one of the weapons was linked to the recent kidnapping of four Americans, according to court documents.

Roberto Lugardo Moreno had an initial appearance Monday in federal court in Brownsville and was assigned a public defender, who did not immediately respond to a voicemail message seeking comment. His detention hearing is scheduled for Thursday. The kidnapping occurred in Matamoros, Mexico, which borders Brownsville.

WEAPONS SMUGGLING

According to a federal complaint filed Saturday, Lugardo Moreno was charged with conspiring to illegally export a firearm. The complaint states that he admitted to buying firearms for people he knew were going to turn them over to a member of the Gulf Cartel in Mexico. Lugardo Moreno told authorities that he received $100 for the purchase of the firearms.

The serial number on a firearm he purchased in October 2019 matches that of a gun recovered by authorities that was linked to the March 3 kidnappings, according to the complaint. Lugardo Moreno said he did not apply for a license to export the firearm from the United States to Mexico and knew it would be exported illegally, according to the complaint.