Tag: mexico

Trump quietly got Mexico to hand over 100 cartel leaders — including El Mencho’s brother — before Jalisco raid

Mexico has quietly shipped nearly 100 suspected cartel drug traffickers to the US to stand trial after President Trump branded the groups foreign terrorist organizations last year — and pressured the Mexican government to cooperate.

The suspects include the brother of Nemesio “El Mencho” Oseguera Cervantes — the brutal Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) leader who was killed by the Mexican army on Sunday.

The Justice Department said many of the 92 defendants released to the Americans had US extradition requests that were not honored during the Biden administration.

“As President Trump has made clear, cartels are terrorist groups, and this Department of Justice is devoted to destroying cartels and transnational gangs,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said of the first round of transfers, which kicked off last February.

“We will prosecute these criminals to the fullest extent of the law in honor of the brave law enforcement agents who have dedicated their careers — and in some cases, given their lives — to protect innocent people from the scourge of violent cartels.”

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Horrific executions of El Mencho’s ‘cannibal cartel’: From hitmen who cut out and ate victim’s heart to mass beheadings and rivals ‘blasted with flame throwers’, how slain drug lord used extreme violence to spread fear

El Mencho’s ruthless cartel has long been considered one of the most brutal in Mexico, with its bloodthirsty leader using extreme torture and violence to instill fear into rivals.

Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) boss Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, 59, was killed on Sunday in a joint Mexican military and US-backed operation in Tapalpa, a town of 20,000 people in the Sierra Madre mountains. 

During his merciless rule, kingpin El Mencho displayed a savagery many deemed extreme even by narco standards. 

In one particularly gruesome act in 2020, CJNG hitmen tortured a half-naked man before standing on his head and cutting open his chest with a knife.

As the victim screamed in agony, a cartel member can be heard shouting: ‘So you can see that’s how we Jalisco people are… we’re going to exterminate you all.’ Another adds: ‘Pure Mencho’s people, we are the Jaliscos’.

The operative who brutally cut open the victim’s chest then began to pull out his organs before eating them for the camera as others around him laughed.

CJNG have also been implicated in a series of massacres, including the torture and murder of 35 people whose bodies were found dumped in the streets of Veracruz during an evening rush hour in 2011.

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U.S. Issues Shelter-in-Place Warnings for Popular Tourist Destinations in Mexico After Major Cartel Leader Is Killed

The United States Department of State has issued shelter-in-place warnings for Americans at several popular tourist destinations in Mexico.

The official alert was issued on Sunday, Feb. 22, for the Mexican state of Jalisco — which includes popular tourist spots such as Puerto Vallarta, Chapala and Guadalajara — as well as the states of Tamaulipas, Michoacan, Guerrero and Nuevo Leon.

“Due to ongoing security operations and related road blockages and criminal activity, U.S. citizens in the named locations should shelter in place until further notice,” the department said.

The alert additionally advised U.S. citizens in the affected areas to “avoid areas around law enforcement activity,” “avoid crowds” and “seek shelter and minimize unnecessary movements.”

The U.S. Department of State and Mexico’s Ministry of National Defense did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment.

The warnings come after the Mexican government initiated a military operation against the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), a major drug cartel in the region, on Feb. 22, per a press release from Mexico’s Ministry of National Defense.  

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La Linea: The Mexican Cartel Controlling the El Paso-Juarez Metropolitan Area

A recent cartel operation sent drones from Mexico into the United States, triggering a national security alert that temporarily shut down the airspace around El Paso, Texas, and Santa Teresa, New Mexico.

While the Department of War disabled the drones, Breitbart Texas reported, it remains unclear how large the drones were or if the cartel aircraft were moving drugs, being used for surveillance, or carrying improvised explosive devices, a tactic that has become prevalent in Mexico.

El Paso is directly north of Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, a city with various criminal organizations present, which remains largely under the control of La Línea, a former faction of the Juárez Cartel that has since become the dominant criminal organization on the Mexican side of the border.

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The Tren de Aragua Expands Its Criminal Structure in Mexico City Controlling Human Trafficking in the Cuauhtémoc Borough, Forcing Foreign Women to Prostitute Themselves to Settle Their Debts

The lax left-wing policies, driven by governments like that of Morena, have opened the doors to transnational criminal organizations that undermine national security.

The Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan gang born in prisons under the Chavista regime, has taken advantage of the porosity of Mexico’s borders to infiltrate Mexico City (CDMX), expanding its criminal network in just two years.

This organization, which has become one of the most violent and profitable in the capital, maintains absolute control over human trafficking on streets like Sullivan and Juan Aldama, in the Cuauhtémoc borough, where it forces foreign women to prostitute themselves to pay debts of between 12 and 14 thousand dollars incurred during their migration from the southern border.

The modus operandi of the Tren de Aragua, detailed in a report from the Secretariat of Security and Citizen Protection (SSPC), reveals a hierarchical structure with at least 26 leaders, headed by figures like Nelson Arturo Echezuria Alcántara, alias «Nelson Yamaha», who was detained in October 2025 along with other members for his alleged involvement in femicides and extortions.

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White House Issues Update on El Paso Air Space Closure

The White House has blamed drone activity from Mexican drug cartels for the sudden closure of U.S. airspace over El Paso, Texas on Wednesday morning.

In a statement to Newsweek the White House said: “Mexican cartel drones breached US airspace. The Department of War took action to disable the drones.

“The FAA and DOW have determined there is no threat to commercial travel.”

Restrictions set earlier by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) have been lifted and authorities said flights would resume as normal from Wednesday.

“The temporary closure of airspace over El Paso has been lifted. There is no threat to commercial aviation. All flights will resume as normal,” the FAA said on its X account.

Democrat Congresswoman Veronica Escobar, who represents El Paso also said on X that she understood there was “no immediate threat to the community or surrounding areas.” 

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Mexican National Couple Sentenced in Counterfeit ID, Passport Scheme

A Mexican national couple sentenced for making and selling thousands of counterfeit identifications to clients throughout the United States, announced U.S. Attorney Clint Johnson.

U.S. District Judge Sara E. Hill sentenced Karina Garcia-Salazar, 47, for conspiracy to transfer identification documents and conspiracy to possess with intent to use or transfer five or more Documents. 

Garcia-Salazar’s co-defendant, Jorge Augusto Prieto-Gamboa, 41, was sentenced in December 2025 for conspiracy to possess five or more documents with the intent to transfer. Judge Hill ordered Prieto-Gamboa to serve 15 months of imprisonment, followed by three years of supervised release.

From August 2020 through their arrest in February 2025, Garcia-Salazar and Prieto-Gamboa worked together to create thousands of fake immigration documents. Court records show that the defendants sold the fake documents in several controlled buys orchestrated by agents. During those buys, agents confirmed that Garcia-Salazar and Prieto-Gamboa were working together to sell identification cards and Social Security cards.

A search warrant was served on their home in Tulsa. 

During that search, agents found at least 67 fake completed documents and seized several electronic devices for further search. After searching their devices, agents found more than 2,000 different identification documents, including Social Security cards, lawful permanent resident cards, state driver’s licenses and ID cards, foreign ID cards, and passports. 

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SHOCK CONFESSION: Mexican President Admits That Mass Migration Is a Tool to Reclaim and Conquer America’s Southwest

Mexican officials, all the way up to the presidency, have openly embraced mass migration as a form of accelerating the “reconquista,” the term used to describe the reconquest of U.S. territory that previously belonged to Mexico.

This is just one of the meticulously documented revelations in bestselling author and Breitbart News Senior Contributor Peter Schweizer’s new book, The Invisible Coup: How American Elites and Foreign Powers Use Immigration as a Weapon.

Radical leftist former Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, commonly known as AMLO, and his protege and current Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum have both publicly embraced the concept of reconquista and actively discouraged Mexican Americans, much less Mexicans illegally present in the United States, from assimilating or in any way embracing American identity, the book reveals. Officials under both presidencies have declared illegal immigrants who send remittances home “heroes” and champion propaganda songs that celebrate rejecting American identity.

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Mexico’s president says it was ‘sovereign decision’ to send cartel members to US

Mexico sent 37 cartel members to the United States at the request of the U.S. Justice Department, with President Claudia Sheinbaum saying Wednesday that it was a “sovereign decision” by her government.

Sheinbaum responded to criticism from analysts and opponents who said that the transfers on Tuesday were the result of mounting pressure from Washington. U.S. President Donald Trump has threatened to take military action on cartels.

Sheinbaum said that although the transfers were made at the request of the U.S. government, the decision was taken by the National Security Council after analyzing what was “convenient for Mexico” and in terms of its “national security.”

“Mexico is put first above all else, even if they ask for whatever they have to ask for. It is a sovereign decision,” she said at her regular morning news briefing.

Sheinbaum, who has been praised for her level-headed management of relations with Trump, has been forced to walk a fine line between making concessions to the Trump administration and projecting strength both domestically and internationally.

Observers say that the Mexican government has used the transfers as a sort of pressure valve to offset demands by Trump and show authorities are cracking down on criminal groups. Tension has only mounted since the U.S. carried out a military operation in Venezuela to capture then President Nicolás Maduro to face charges in the United States in an extraordinary use of force that set leaders across Latin America on edge.

Those sent to the U.S. on Tuesday were alleged members of the powerful Jalisco New Generation Cartel, known by its Spanish acronym CJNG, and the Sinaloa Cartel, which Washington has designated as terrorist organizations, and a number of other groups. It’s the third such transfer of capos over the past year. Mexico’s government said it has sent 92 people in total to the U.S. in total.

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi on Wednesday said that the transfer was a “landmark achievement in the Trump administration’s mission to destroy the cartels.”

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US Air Authority Warns Of ‘Military Activities’ Over Mexico, Central America

US aviation authorities issued notices Friday warning airlines to “exercise caution” in the airspace over Mexico and Central America due to “military activities.”

The Federal Aviation Administration posted a series of messages cautioning about a “potentially hazardous situation,” citing the chance for interference to the Global Navigation Satellite System.

“The FAA issued flight advisory Notices to Airmen for specified areas of Mexico, Central America, Panama, Bogota, Guayaquil and Mazatlan Oceanic Flight Regions, and in airspace within the eastern Pacific Ocean,” an FAA spokesperson said.

The advisory remains in effect for 60 days.

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