Tag: cartels

Cartel Gunmen Abduct, Murder Musical Group in Mexican Border City

A group of cartel gunmen abducted, murdered, and incinerated a group of musicians in the border city of Reynosa, Tamaulipas. Desperate relatives held protests, vigils, and even blocked access to international ports of entry in an attempt to get government officials to act and not ignore the case, like the thousands of missing persons cases that have been taking place throughout the state of Tamaulipas in recent years.

The abduction took place early Sunday morning after the five members of a local regional musical group called Fugitivo went to perform at a private party. When they arrived at the venue, they found it closed. They never returned.

Relatives and loved ones quickly sounded the alarm and filed missing persons reports with authorities. They then began holding protests and spreading the information on social media as a way to pressure authorities into action.

Authorities revealed to Breitbart Texas that 24 hours after the disappearance, they were able to locate the group’s SUV, but the trailer where they kept their musical instruments was missing.

In the following days, Tamaulipas State authorities went to a local bar called La Chinit, where witnesses claim the musicians went after finding their original venue closed. There, they found traces of blood and began conducting DNA tests to determine if the blood matched that of the missing individuals.

As part of their efforts to get attention to the case, friends and loved ones held protests, blocking traffic at international ports of entry. These protests forced Mexican authorities to take steps to secure the ports of entry.

Keep reading

Sinaloa Cartel leader with $1M bounty, who was previously aligned with El Chapo’s son, killed in gunfight with Mexican authorities

A Sinaloa Cartel gang member aligned with El Chapo’s son in a gangland civil war was killed in a gunfight with Mexican authorities attempting to take him into custody, according to a government officials.

Jorge Humberto “El Perris” Figueroa, a member of “El Chapitos” faction which is aligned with the ex-Mexican kingpin’s incarcerated son Ovidio Guzman, opened fire on Mexican military members Friday as they attempted to arrest him, according to the Mexican government.

The United States had placed a $1 million reward for any information that would lead to the arrest of “El Perris” on charges of conspiracy to import and distribute fentanyl to the United States.

“As part of the strategy to build peace in Sinaloa, an operation was carried out to arrest Jorge Humberto, alias “El Perris,” Mexico’s secretary of state Omar Garcia Harfuch wrote on X.

“This person is identified as one of the main orchestrators of the attacks on authorities in 2019 in Culiacan, in addition to being related to homicides and kidnappings that affected the peace and tranquility of Sinaloa society,” Harfuch concluded.

Keep reading

Top aides to Mexico City mayor gunned down in broad daylight executions

Two senior staffers in the office of Mexico City Mayor Clara Brugada were shot and killed early Tuesday morning in a broad daylight ambush that investigators believe was a targeted execution.

The victims, Ximena Guzman, Brugada’s personal secretary, and José Muñoz, a longtime adviser, were attacked around 7 am on a main road in the Moderna neighborhood, close to the Xola metro station. Surveillance video from the area shows a man in a white shirt and motorcycle helmet loitering near Guzman’s car before suddenly pulling out a firearm and shooting both victims. He fled the scene on a motorcycle driven by an accomplice.

“It was a direct attack,” said Mayor Brugada at a press conference later that day, according to The Guardian. Dressed in black and visibly shaken, she added, “[Guzman] was a wonderful, tireless, good woman. I’ve known [Muñoz] almost since … He’s one of the most intelligent people I’ve ever met, and extremely responsible.” Brugada said she was “shocked” by the killings and vowed that her administration would “continue its relentless fight against insecurity.”

President Claudia Sheinbaum also addressed the attack during her morning press conference. She expressed her condolences and said federal authorities would support the investigation. She stated that “there would not be impunity” and noted that neither Guzman nor Muñoz had security protection at the time. She also said she had no knowledge of prior threats made against them.

Initial reports say Muñoz had been standing on the sidewalk waiting for Guzman to pick him up when the gunman opened fire. Local residents said the violence appeared sudden and unexpected. “I was right here working when they shot them and I didn’t even realise,” said one nearby shoeshiner. “I’m a little deaf.” His friend, Jose Antonio, who owns a street stall nearby, added, “I actually didn’t hear the shots either. I think it must have been with a silencer.” He added that the shooters “didn’t try to hide it, they did it at rush hour.”

The killings are among the most serious attacks on public officials in Mexico City since an attempted assassination on former police chief Omar García Harfuch in 2020. García Harfuch, who now serves as Mexico’s federal security minister, wrote on X: “We won’t let this cowardly act go unpunished,” and confirmed federal assistance had been offered.

Keep reading

Carlos Lehder reveals: Fidel and Raúl Castro facilitated Medellín Cartel drug trafficking from Cuba in the 1980s.

Carlos Lehder, co-founder of the Medellín Cartel and former ally of Pablo Escobar, has dropped a bombshell that the left and progressives don’t want to hear: the Cuban regime, led by Fidel and Raúl Castro, was a key ally in trafficking cocaine to the United States in the 1980s.

This truth, revealed exclusively by Martí Noticias, shatters the image of Cuba as a supposed revolutionary model and exposes the corruption and cynicism of a government that conservatives have always denounced.

While progressives in the U.S. and Europe were busy praising Castro, this regime was helping flood the streets with drugs, lining their pockets and betraying their own people.

Lehder is direct in pointing out the culprits. In his memoirs and interviews, he states:

I met with Raúl Castro and Colonel Antonio de la Guardia to negotiate the logistics of these operations.

He details how Cuba opened its doors to the Medellín Cartel, setting up airstrips in Cayo Largo and charging for every kilo of cocaine that passed through the island. And he leaves no doubt about who was in charge:

Fidel Castro had to know; he was the orchestra conductor.

This isn’t gossip; it’s the testimony of a drug trafficker who lived the business from the inside and now exposes the hypocrisy of the Castros.

For Republicans, this comes as no surprise. We’ve always seen the Cuban regime as a nest of opportunists who crush their people while engaging in dirty business. While the left romanticizes Fidel and Raúl, Lehder reveals the reality:

I was allowed to use facilities in Cayo Largo, where airstrips were set up and a payment was agreed upon for each kilo of cocaine transported.

That drug made its way to the streets, killing young people, all under a government that progressives defended as a «victim» of imperialism. What irony.

Keep reading

CARTEL HUNTING SEASON: Two Top Mexican Federal Officials Murdered in the Capital, President Claudia Sheinbaum Confirms

While President Claudia Sheinbaum continues to refuse permission for US forces to go after the Cartels in their territory, and does not act against them, the criminal organizations have opened a veritable hunting season of politicians.

2024 saw a record 661 attacks on people and facilities related to politics, and this year also maintains the horrific pace.

A mayoral candidate in the southern state of Guerrero; the mayor of Cotija in Michoacán state; the mayor of Guerrero’s capital, Chilpancingo, was decapitated; a high-ranking the governing party, was shot and killed in Veracruz; a female mayoral candidate and her daughter gunned down in a livestream – the list goes on.

Now, the hitlist is getting closer and close to the president: a visibly shaken Sheinbaum confirmed today that Ximena Guzmán and José Muñoz, her secretary and advisor, were murdered in Mexico City.

“It is very relevant, that is why we were communicating with the secretary. We had information, but it has already been confirmed. The head of government, Clara Brugada, just issued an informational card.

The government of Mexico City reports that unfortunately, the personal secretary of the head of government, Jimena Guzmán, and José Muñoz, an advisor to the head of government, lost their lives during a direct attack on Calzada de Tlalpan and Napoleon Street in the Moderna neighborhood of the Benito Juárez borough.

Personnel from the Citizen Security Secretariat and the Attorney General’s Office, both of Mexico City, with the support of the government of Mexico.

From the very beginning, Omar gave instructions to ensure they have all the support from the National Intelligence Center, from the Subsecretariat of Intelligence of the Secretariat, and of course from the Secretariat of Defense and Navy, all the support that the head of government needs for the investigation to get to the bottom of this situation, that there is no impunity.

Keep reading

Three American Advisors Gunned Down at a Mexican Taco Stand in Targeted Attack

Authorities in Mexico are investigating the targeted shooting deaths of two security advisors with ties to the U.S. government and the serious injury of a third, following a violent attack in Tlaquepaque, Jalisco, late Friday night.

According to the Jalisco State Attorney General’s Office, the victims were Carlos Amador Chavela and Cesar Gustavo Guzman Gonzalez.

A third man, identified as Pablo Cajigal Del Angel, survived the attack but sustained serious injuries.

All three had been working in Mexico as law enforcement trainers and advisors.

Keep reading

DEA Blames Legal Marijuana States For Inadvertently Aiding Cartels While Also Admitting That Prohibition States Create Illegal Market Opportunities

The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) says that states that have legalized marijuana are providing cover for illicit cultivation operations by foreign cartels—while at the same time implicitly acknowledging that ongoing prohibition in other states creates opportunities for that cannabis to be sold on the illegal market.

The agency’s 2025 National Drug Threat Assessment that was released on Thursday includes a section on marijuana trafficking, claiming that cartels and other organized crime groups “operate under business registrations granted by state licensing authorities in jurisdictions where marijuana cultivation and sales are ‘legal’ at the state level.”

“However, absent overt evidence such as the trafficking of marijuana across state lines or the commission of non-drug crimes such as money laundering and human trafficking, it can be difficult for law enforcement to immediately identify violations or discover an illegal grow,” the report says. “Asian [Transnational Criminal Organizations, or TSOs] defy restrictions on plant quantities, production quotas, and non-licensed sales, and hide behind state-by-state variations in laws governing plant counts, registration requirements, and accountability practices.”

DEA suggested that cartels are leveraging state cannabis markets by transporting “large amounts of marijuana directly from ‘legal’ states to states that have not legalized recreational use and those where state-level recreational approval is sufficiently recent to not yet have an established, regulated cannabis industry.”

Underlying that analysis seems to be a perhaps inadvertent acknowledgment by DEA that cartels are profiting off ongoing prohibition outside of legal states—indicating that the main demand for illicit marijuana isn’t coming from within states that provide regulated access to consumers but instead those where cannabis remains criminalized.

Implicit in that analysis is exactly what advocates have long argued: Legalization disrupts the illegal market.

Keep reading

Influencer Valeria Márquez is murdered live in Jalisco, sparking cartel rumors, alleged romantic links, and growing public pressure on authorities.

The Jalisco State Attorney General’s Office denied that Ricardo Ruíz, alias “El Tripa,” a known hitman of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), had ordered the murder, according to early investigations.

Authorities stated that, so far, Ruíz Velasco’s name does not formally appear in the case file and has not been mentioned in any of the testimonies gathered.

Nonetheless, despite the Jalisco Prosecutor’s denial, social media users continue to claim that Valeria Márquez had some type of connection to the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), and are calling on the authorities in charge of the case to thoroughly investigate any possible links so that those responsible can be identified and brought to justice.

This omission by the authorities raises serious questions: Are they afraid to take action against organized crime? Are they being threatened by the cartel? Or is there complicity within the very institutions meant to uphold the law?

The lack of solid answers and the apparent inaction only deepen public mistrust and reinforce the perception that the cartels operate under protection and impunity. While Mexico burns in violence, leftist governments seem more concerned with speeches than with taking real action.

The fatal attack took place at 6:30 p.m. at ‘Blossom The Beauty Lounge’, Valeria’s own salon, located in the Real del Carmen neighborhood.

A man posing as a delivery driver entered the salon and shot her three times—in the skull, chest, and torso. The young woman, who had over 90,000 followers on TikTok, collapsed in front of her camera as her fans watched in horror.

Keep reading

Sinaloa cartel leaders charged with narco-terrorism after authorities seize nearly 2 tons of fentanyl

Two leaders of the Sinaloa Cartel were hit with narco-terrorism charges on Tuesday for their involvement in allegedly trafficking “massive” amounts of drugs into the United States, according to federal officials.

Pedro Inzunza Noriega and his son, Pedro Inzunza Coronel, were both named in an unsealed federal indictment on Tuesday and charged with narco-terrorism, material support of terrorism, drug trafficking and money laundering as members of the Beltran Leyva Organization (BLO), which is a faction of the Sinaloa Cartel.

Five other BLO leaders were charged with drug trafficking and money laundering.

The charges come after the Trump administration designated the Sinaloa Cartel as a Foreign Terrorist Organization on Feb. 20.

Prosecutors alleged in court documents that Noriega works closely with his son to both produce and “aggressively traffic” fentanyl into the United States.

Keep reading

Trump ramps up push for U.S. strikes in Mexico as drug cartels fight each other

President Donald Trump has escalated his public calls for military action against the Mexican drug cartels as they face intense infighting and struggle to adapt to his military buildup at the southern border. Though Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has resisted direct American military intervention, Trump has renewed the push as the situation appears ripe for some kind of decisive action.

American troops have not been deployed to Mexico for combat purposes since 1916, in pursuit of Mexican bandit/revolutionary Pancho Villa following his attack on Columbus, New Mexico. Led by Brigadier General John J. “Blackjack” Pershing, the 10,000-strong expeditionary force failed to capture Villa and withdrew in 1917.

Sheinbaum, over the weekend, said that Trump had offered to deploy American military personnel to Mexico to help her combat the cartels, but that she had refused him.

“How can we help you fight drug trafficking? I propose that the United States military come in and help you,” she quoted him as saying. “And you know what I said to him? ‘No, President Trump.’” She further said that Mexican “sovereignty is not for sale” and that she had told him “we can work together, but you in your territory and us in ours.”

Trump himself confirmed that he had made the offer on Monday, but said “she is so afraid of the cartels she can’t even think straight.”

Keep reading