Tag: mexico

Accused Drug Trafficker Resumes Work As Sinaloa Governor Despite Being Wanted by USDOJ

An accused drug trafficker has resumed his post as governor of Sinaloa in Mexico, despite being a wanted fugitive of the U.S. Department of Justice. The move comes as tensions continue to rise between the U.S. Government and Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, who has been actively defending the politician.

On Friday morning, Ruben Rocha Moya announced that he was returning to work after several weeks on leave following the U.S. Department of Justice’s announcement that he had been criminally indicted for his role in the Sinaloa Cartel. In a prepared statement shared on social media, Rocha Moya claimed that he had done what was needed of him and cooperated with Mexican authorities to prove his innocence.

As Breitbart Texas reported, the U.S. Department of Justice announced in April the indictment against Rocha Moya and nine of his closest political allies in the state. They are accused of drug conspiracy and weapons charges. At the time, rather than help with arrest and extradition, Sheinbaum publicly defended Rocha Moya, who is from the same political party — MORENA.

According to Sheinbaum, there is no evidence of wrongdoing by Rocha Moya, and the public indictment was politically motivated by the U.S. far right as a way to damage the MORENA party. Sheinbaum’s move sparked tension with the U.S. government, which has been pushing Mexico to fight drug cartels.

In an apparent move to avoid questions over Rocha Moya’s return to power, Sheinbaum announced on Friday that she was not going to her daily news conference because she was sick with flu-like symptoms.

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Mexican President Rushes to Defend Former President’s Son Over Illegal Fuel Allegations

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum rushed to defend the son of her predecessor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO) after the U.S. Department of State revoked his visa, and various news outlets linked him to the cartel-connected illegal fuel market. Sheinbaum claimed there is no evidence of wrongdoing on the politician’s part and that the visa revocation was carried out for political purposes.

During a news conference, Sheinbaum revealed that Andres Manuel Lopez Beltran was not under investigation in Mexico in connection with the illegal fuel trade known as huachacol. As Breitbart Texas reported, Lopez Beltran recently made national headlines after revealing that the U.S. Department of State revoked his tourist visa. While no reason for the visa revocation was given, the ex-president’s son has been the topic of multiple Breitbart Texas articles for his alleged role in the smuggling of illegal fuel in and out of Mexico through a network that included top Mexican military and naval officials, as well as political figures.

This week, news outlets in Mexico reported that Lopez Beltran was mentioned in two separate statements from cooperating witnesses in connection with ongoing investigations over cartel-connected fuel trade. Additionally, various news outlets, including Latinus, have reported that friends of Lopez Beltran have been recorded claiming to have close relationships with leaders of CJNG.

Since Lopez Beltran is the son of former Mexican President AMLO, Mexico’s political elite, including Sheinbaum, has rushed to his defense, proclaiming his innocence. Earlier this week, Mexico’s Attorney General’s Office released a statement confirming that Lopez Beltran was not under investigation and that news articles tying him to the fuel trade were false, Breitbart Texas reported.

Mexico’s government’s defense of Lopez Beltran is similar to the way Sheinbaum and her government protected Sinaloa Governor Ruben Rocha Moya earlier this year. As Breitbart Texas reported, the U.S. Department of Justice announced the criminal indictment of Rocha Moya and nine of his closest political allies in April, charging them with drug conspiracy and weapons charges for their alleged role in working with the Sinaloa Cartel. Rather than help the United States with arrests and extraditions, Shenbaum publicly claimed that there was no evidence of wrongdoing on Rocha Moya’s part. Despite being a wanted fugitive, the Sinaloa governor continues to live in Mexico and is allegedly being provided with military protection.

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Military Contractor’s Spy Aircraft Quietly Flying Southern Border On Mysterious Mission

The Pentagon says it does not discuss contractor support to particular missions. The gear aboard mimics cell towers.

Private military contractor Metrea has spent months quietly operating two surveillance-equipped aircraft along the U.S.-Mexico border, according to the Arizona Mirror.

The planes have traversed Arizona, New Mexico and Texas, circling at high altitude over border cities including Bisbee and Douglas in Arizona, and Laredo and El Paso in Texas.

Metrea holds multiple contracts with the U.S. military, including a $5.7 million award to support training for U.S. Special Operations Command. The company also conducts simulated training missions for the Marine Corps.

It performs comparable border work overseas, providing what it describes as advanced aerial surveillance to the Australian government for monitoring that country’s border regions.

Arizona Mirror reports:

One of the major pieces of equipment installed on the aircraft is a DRT 3300, also sometimes referred to as a “dirtbox.” A dirtbox is a piece of equipment that mimics a cell phone tower and acts in a similar manner to “stingray” devices that track cell phones and reportedly can even intercept messages.

It isn’t the only equipment on the aircraft meant for “signals intelligence” either. Signals intelligence refers to the collection of information that is transmitted through the airwaves such as radio, wifi or other electronic means. One of the aircraft lists a “Windjammer System” as a piece of equipment that has been installed.

The Trump administration declined to say what the aircraft are doing over the border, or which agency they are working for.

A DHS spokesperson told the Mirror that Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Homeland Security Investigations and Customs and Border Protection were not flying with Metrea along the southern border. The department did not answer whether the flights support a DHS or a Defense Department mission.

“The Department of War contracts with a number of companies, including Metrea, to provide capabilities in support of military operations across the globe. For operations security reasons, we do not discuss specific contractor support to particular missions or operations,” a Defense Department spokesperson wrote in a statement to the Arizona Mirror. “These activities are governed by Attorney General approved procedures that ensure the activities are conducted in a manner that protects the constitutional and legal rights and the privacy and civil liberties of U.S. citizens.”

Metrea did not respond to repeated requests for comment. Meanwhile, Metrea’s are not the only contractor aircraft working the border. The Mirror reports that a jet belonging to Tenax Aerospace, equipped with high-end mapping technology and previously spotted over the South China Sea and Nigeria, has flown the same route since July.

Civil liberties advocates contend that the secrecy itself is the problem.

“Whatever security rationales are used to justify mass surveillance, whether it is patrolling the border or pursuing the war on drugs, if you’re intent on pursuing those policies you have to do it in a way that respects the privacy and constitutional rights of Americans,” said Jay Stanley, a senior policy analyst with the American Civil Liberties Union’s Speech, Privacy and Technology Project, in a statement to the Arizona Mirror.

“Number one, you need policies that ensure transparency so we know what government agencies are doing with the brand new powers that technology is giving them that humans have never had in history,” Stanley added. “No matter what your position is, you should agree that it is done in the democratic process and not done by government officials behind closed doors.”

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Nevada man pleads guilty to providing 140 firearms to drug trafficking organizations in Mexico

From April 1, 2020, to September 17, 2025, Osorio conspired with co-defendants to purchase firearms, magazines and ammunition on behalf of people affiliated with drug trafficking organizations in Mexico.

The 140 firearms purchased by Osorio included multiple large-caliber and long-range firearms.

Osorio also admitted to harboring people who unlawfully resided in the United States to employ them at a Nevada mining company, according to the DOJ.

“Trafficking military-style firearms and ammunition to drug trafficking organizations in Mexico fuels violence, strengthens criminal networks and threatens communities on both sides of the border,” said Jonathan Sherwin, Deputy Special Agent in Charge for Homeland Security Investigation (HSI) Las Vegas.

“In the world of organized crime and drug trafficking, guns and drugs go hand-in-hand,” said David S. Olesky, Special Agent in Charge of the Drug Enforcement Administration Los Angeles Field Division, which also covers Nevada.

“Firearms trafficking networks feed the violent cartels that terrorize border communities and pump illicit drugs into our neighborhoods,” said First Assistant United States Attorney Sigal Chattah for the District of Nevada. “By cutting off this supply chain and holding this defendant accountable, we are directly disrupting the operational capabilities of these dangerous criminal organizations.”

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Mexico Arrests Former Governor for Alleged Cover-Up of 2014 Student Massacre

Authorities in Mexico arrested a former governor in connection with the cover-up of an infamous massacre where police forces kidnapped 43 education students during a protest. The police turned them over to cartel gunmen who are believed to have slaughtered them and disposed of their bodies.

The arrest took place on Wednesday afternoon in Mexico State when authorities arrested Angel Aguirre, who was the governor of Guerrero in 2014 at the time of the massacre. He is accused of helping to cover up the incident. Soon after the arrest, Mexico’s Attorney General Ernestina Godoy released a video on social media where she provided details of the case and what led authorities to move against Aguirre.

Known as the Ayotzinapa massacre, the kidnapping and murders happened in September 2014, when a group of student stole some buses to make their way to a protest. As Breitbart Texas reported, along the way, Mexican authorities shot at the buses and kidnapped the students, only to turn them over to a local cartel. The cartel gunmen then murdered the students and disposed of their bodies. The case sparked much controversy amid allegations of government cover-ups and false accounts of the students’ fate. In the 12 years since the massacre, only the remains of a handful have been located.

According to Godoy, the investigation into the case revealed that Aguirre ordered the destruction of evidence in the case that showed that Mexican police forces had been responsible for the initial kidnapping of the students. Godoy claimed that the surveillance cameras of the city hall in the town of Iguala captured the moment when police forces stopped a bus that the students had stolen and proceeded to kidnap them. During the investigation, government officials claimed there were no video recordings of the incident. The new investigation revealed that there was a video of the kidnapping.

As part of the investigation, authorities interviewed a cooperating witness who revealed that the videos from Iguala were taken by a government official and given directly to Aguirre. A second witness told authorities that during a meeting with high officials, Aguirre had ordered the destruction of any evidence that connected government officials with the kidnapping in Iguala.

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Mexican Town Set Ablaze After Military Arrests Terrorist Cartel Leader

Members of the United Cartels set fire to a town in the Mexican state of Michoacan following a military raid where authorities arrested one of the top leaders of the terrorist organization. That leader had previously been a top official within the Michoacan state police forces and still held sway over local law enforcement.

The riotous acts of destruction took place over the weekend in the town of Los Reyes and nearby communities, when cartel gunmen set up numerous blockades and torched vehicles and buildings in response to a military raid targeting their leader, Alfonoso “Poncho La Quiringa” Fernandez Magallanes. Fernandez is a known drug lord wanted by the U.S. Department of Justice, which offered a $5 million reward for his capture.

The raid took place on Saturday afternoon, when Mexican military and federal police forces arrested Fernandez and several of his close allies with Carteles Unidos. Soon after the arrest, his gunmen set up blockades, torched vehicles and buildings throughout Los Reyes and surrounding communities in an attempt to pressure Mexico’s government into releasing the man known as La Quiringa. While the tactic had worked in the past, this time, Mexico’s federal government did not budge.

Soon after, Mexico’s top security official, Omar Garcia Harfuch, announced Fernandez’s capture. On Sunday, his staff released additional information about the wanted drug lord and his organization. According to authorities, La Quiringa has been one of the leaders behind the hiring of Colombian terrorists and guerrilla fighters, as well as the use of drones to drop explosives on their rivals and military forces.

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Israel protects Mexican official wanted for mass kidnap-murder, along with accused sex criminals and fraudsters

Israel has become a haven for international criminals. Many are dual-nationals who have taken advantage of their ability to move seamlessly between Israel and their second country of citizenship to commit crimes and, in some cases, evade justice.

The scale of the criminality, and the volume of cases (relative to the population of Israel), is astonishing.

Among the most notorious accused criminals being protected from justice by Israel is Timur Mindich, the ultimate financial beneficiary of the Ukrainian drone maker Fire Point. Mindich fled to Israel last year, just days before being charged as the mastermind behind a $100 million embezzlement scheme involving Ukraine’s state nuclear power company. Mindich also happens to be the co-owner of Kvartal 95 Studio, the production company founded by Volodymyr Zelensky.

Mindich, like many in this article, has taken advantage of Israel’s controversial Law of Return which allows any Jew in the world to claim Israeli citizenship without having to renounce their home country passport.

Some of those accused and charged have made minor or international headlines, some haven’t, but the scale of the issue was such that I thought it would be useful to document my research here.

In some cases, Israel has refused to extradite the wanted person despite requests from the country in which the crimes were committed.

Staying on Ukraine and refused extradition requests, we have Oleksandr Dubilet, the former Chairman of the Board of Ukraine’s PrivatBank. Dubilet is currently a fugitive in Israel and the subject of multiple criminal investigations and extradition requests for his role in embezzling at least $100 million dollars following the 2016 privatisation of PrivatBank. To date, Israel has refused to extradite him.

Israel as a bolthole for financial fraudsters is a common theme. One of the most significant SEC fraud cases in recent years involved over 150 Israelis (some with dual US-Israeli nationality, others not), wanted for their role in conducting binary options fraud worth upwards of $100 billion.

Binary options are a type of financial bet where the outcome is essentially all-or-nothing. Instead of buying a stock or currency, you bet on whether the price of a stock or currency will be above or below a certain level at a specific time. While not illegal, the Israeli companies were accused of rigging and manipulating prices and expiry times and using fake identities.

For a decade until 2017, Israel was the global centre for the online binary-options industry. The Israeli police failed to investigate, so hundreds of cases were filed in Israeli courts by people from dozens of countries who had been defrauded.

One of the most notorious fraudsters was Lee Elbaz, the CEO of Yukom Communications, a dual US-Israeli national. She was arrested in 2017 when on holiday in New York and eventually convicted of wire fraud and sentenced to 22 years in prison.

Other prime Israeli movers in the binary options fraud business were Yossi Herzog and Yakov Cohen, both connected with Yukom and other binary options front companies. They were charged with $140 million fraud in 2019 but despite being under a DOJ criminal investigation the US choose not to pursue their extradition, while other Israeli co-conspirators in the Yukom case have joined Elbaz in serving jail sentences.

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Report: Cartel Rifles Seized in Mexican Border State Tied to U.S. Department Of State

At least four rifles seized in the Mexican border state of Tamaulipas during cartel arrests are allegedly linked to the U.S. Department of State. A report by Mexico’s El Debate revealed that the rifles were part of various weapons seized during several cartel raids since late 2004.

The Tamaulipas Attorney General’s Office is investigating the seizure, claiming the weapons are linked to the U.S. State Department’s Diplomatic Security Service. The report does not reveal if the weapons were stolen or lost. The first seizure took place during the Biden administration in Nuevo Padilla in October 2024, the second one in November 2024. The other two seizures took place during the Trump Administration, with one in March in Ciudad Victoria and one in April in Miguel Aleman. The report did not provide additional details as to the type of weapons or the specifics of each seizure.

The report by El Debate comes at a time when Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum has been trying to blame the United States government for not doing enough to stop the flow of weapons south. As Breitbart Texas has reported, Sheinbaum has been hiding behind a nationalistic rhetoric in an attempt to deal with the pressure from the Trump Administration to fight drug cartels.

Earlier this year, the U.S. Department of Justice announced the criminal indictment of Sinaloa Governor Ruben Rocha Moya and nine of his closest allies on federal drug trafficking and weapons charges for allegedly working for the Sinaloa Cartel. Rather than help with the arrest and extradition of the individuals, Sheinbaum has publicly defended Rocha Moya, who is from the same political party by claiming that there is no evidence of wrongdoing and that the U.S. government is trying to damage her political party, MORENA. As Breitbart Texas reported, Sheinbaum’s response has triggered international tensions with key members of the U.S. government, while U.S. President Donald J. Trump has publicly stated that Mexico is controlled by cartels.

Tensions have continued to escalate this year as the U.S. Department of State has revoked the visas of several MORENA politicians, including at least three sitting governors, several mayors and various other federal officials, Breitbart Texas has reported.

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Another Mayor Killed in Lawless Mexico – Ruling Party Politician Had Survived a Previous Assassination Attempt

Mayor Valentin Lavin was gunned down inside the city hall.

The security situation in Mexico continues to deteriorate, with even elected officials hunted down and killed at an alarming rate.

Since Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum took office back in October 2024, at least 14 sitting mayors have been assassinated.

Of those, three mayors were killed just in the first half of 2026.

In the latest chapter of this horrific saga, a small-town mayor in central Mexico was shot dead inside the town hall after surviving a previous assassination attempt.

CBS News reported:

“The town of Temoac is located in the state of Morelos, a region close to Mexico City where several drug cartels are active.

Mayor Valentin Lavin, who was allied to President Claudia Sheinbaum’s leftist party, had already survived an armed attack in January, according to local media reports.”

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Mexican State Police Carrying Out Raids on Behalf of Terrorist Cartels

Two high-ranking police officers in the Mexican State of Michoacán have been carrying out raids on behalf of the terrorist organization United Cartels. One of those officers had been investigated for his cartel ties but is now back on the job, carrying out raids and alleged abductions with complete impunity.

Breitbart News Foundation has obtained a series of photographs that appear to show Michoacan State Police officers carrying out raids on homes suspected of being used by criminal organizations that are rivals of United Cartels and their allies, including the Knights Templars. The raids are reportedly led by Commanders Marco Tulio Vertiz Rodriguez and Romualdo Albiter Rebollar. The two police leaders are allegedly working under orders of a cartel figure named Carmelo Alvarez Espinoza.

One of those raids took place this week in a rural area near the city of Apatzingán, Michoacán. In the photographs, the officers are seen pulling up to a home and raiding the property.

In response to the raids, Apatzingan has seen a series of banners posted throughout town denouncing the two police commanders for working with organized crime. The banners are addressed to Michoacan’s Governor Alfredo Ramirez Bedolla, asking him to do something. In the banners, the two police officials are accused of working with a local police chief in an attempt to use police forces to push out rival criminal organizations and regain territories that had previously been lost by the Knights Templar cartel.

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