Tag: mexico

Agriculture Secretary Announces Update As Flesh-Eating Screwworm Comes Within 70 Miles Of US Border

More than 8,000 traps have been deployed across Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico, targeting the New World screwworm (NWS) flies, Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins said in a Sept. 26 post on X, adding that no additional NWS infections have been detected since last Sunday.

On Sunday, Sept. 21, an announcement was made by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), which said that Mexico’s National Service of Agro-Alimentary Health, Safety, and Quality had confirmed a new NWS infection in Sabinas Hidalgo, Nueva Leon state, less than 70 miles from America’s southern border. The infected animal was an 8-month-old cow.

Earlier in July, an NWS infection had been reported 370 miles south of the U.S.–Mexico border.

In her post, Rollins said that over 13,000 screening samples have been screened, and zero NWS flies have been identified thus far.

In addition, 750,000 sterilized NWS flies are being trucked in and dispersed in the Nueva Leon region twice a week, she said.

Mass-produced, sterile male NWS flies are often used to tackle the spread of wild NWS fly swarms. When these sterile flies are released into a swarm in large numbers, they mate with the wild female flies, which end up laying unfertilized eggs, thus lowering the swarm population.

Tackling NWS swarms is crucial since they pose a major threat to livestock. In an Aug. 15 statement, USDA called NWS a “devastating pest.”

“When NWS fly larvae (maggots) burrow into the flesh of a living animal, they cause serious, often deadly damage to the animal. NWS can infest livestock, pets, wildlife, occasionally birds, and in rare cases, people,” the agency said.

“It is not only a threat to our ranching community, but it is a threat to our food supply and our national security.”

Since May, U.S. ports have been closed to imports of cattle, horses, and bison from Mexico to prevent the spread of NWS flies into the United States.

Rollins accused Mexico of having “failed to enforce proper cattle movement controls and neglected to regularly maintain fly traps as agreed, undermining detection efforts.”

“This is unacceptable,” she said in the post on X. “Mexico must immediately implement agreed-upon protocols, expand surveillance, and restrict cattle movement in infected zones. For the foreseeable future the border will remain closed.”

In a Sept. 22 statement, Mexico’s Secretariat of Agriculture and Rural Development said that the Sept. 21 detection was of an NWS fly in its larval stage, “meaning there is no possibility of the fly emerging.”

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Bodies found in Mexico may be missing Colombian musicians

Mexican authorities have recovered two bodies that match the description of the Colombian musicians reported missing a week ago in the country, the prosecutor’s office in the state of Mexico said on Monday.

Forensic tests were underway to obtain official confirmation of the identities of the deceased, the prosecutor’s office said.

Earlier on Monday, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said that local authorities were investigating the whereabouts of reggaeton artist Bayron Sanchez, known as B-King, and Jorge Herrera, a DJ who performed under the name Regio Clown, after Colombian President Gustavo Petro requested Sheinbaum’s aid in locating them.

In a social media post on Monday afternoon, Petro appeared to confirm the musicians’ deaths by sharing a news article saying their bodies were found, blaming an “international mafia” that he said had been strengthened by the “war on drugs.”

“More young people killed by an anti-drug policy that is not an anti-drug policy,” Petro wrote.

On Sunday, the prosecutor’s office in Mexico City, which borders the state of Mexico, said the two artists were last seen on September 16 in Polanco, a high-end neighborhood in the Mexican capital.

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Indicted House Democrat BUSTED for Dirty Money—AGAIN

In South Texas, a growing scandal involving indicted Congressman Henry Cuellar is exposing just how deep the rot runs in America’s political institutions—and how little Democrats or the media care about election integrity.

Cuellar, who represents Texas’s 28th Congressional District, is under federal indictment for accepting more than $600,000 in foreign bribes from a Mexican bank and a state-run oil company in Azerbaijan. 

Prosecutors allege that Cuellar and his wife personally profited from years of secret deals, using their public positions to advance the interests of foreign entities. 

Adding to the gravity, three of Cuellar’s top aides are now cooperating with the Department of Justice.

Yet despite facing trial, Cuellar was not removed from the 2024 ballot. 

Instead, he ran for re-election and supposedly defeated Republican challenger Jay Furman in a district Donald Trump carried by seven points. 

Somehow, Cuellar won by five points—a shocking 12-point swing.

Furman submitted more than 80 affidavits from voters who said his name was missing from their ballots. 

The Texas Fourth Court of Appeals ordered a forensic review and instructed Webb County Judge Tano Tijerina to conduct it “immediately.” 

Judge Tijerina refused.

The situation quickly escalated from suspicious to outrageous. After blocking the ballot inspection, Judge Tijerina announced his own planned campaign for Congress—entering the same race he had just helped suppress. 

In any functioning democracy, such a conflict of interest would end careers. In South Texas, it simply became another chapter in a growing scandal.

Financial records make the picture worse. 

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Former Mexican President’s Sons Reportedly Tied to Cartel Fuel Investigations

A new controversy spread in Mexico as two sons of the country’s former President, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO) are allegedly being tied to a large-scale cartel-connected fuel theft and smuggling network.

The revelations came to light this week as the news outlet Latinus first reported on a series of “Amparos,” or legal protections similar to an injunction that had been filed on behalf of Andres Manuel “Andy” and Roberto “Bobby” Lopez Beltran, the two oldest sons of AMLO. The amparos were meant to protect the two brothers against arrest, even though it is not publicly known if they are under any investigations.

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Longtime head of Mexican megachurch is indicted in New York on federal sex trafficking charges

The longtime head of a Mexican megachurch who is serving more than 16 years in a California prison for sexually abusing young followers has been charged with racketeering conspiracy and sex trafficking for allegedly victimizing members of the church for decades, authorities said Wednesday.

A federal grand jury in New York returned the indictment alleging that Naasón Joaquín García, 56, and five others exploited the church for decades to enable the systemic sexual abuse of children and women for the sexual gratification of García and his father, who died in 2014.

The newly unsealed indictment said the criminal activity included the creation of photos and videos of child sexual abuse.

García was taken into federal custody early Wednesday in Chino, California, where he is serving a more than 16-year sentence after pleading guilty in 2022 to two state counts

His lawyers did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

García is the head of La Luz del Mundo (The Light of the World), which claims to have 5 million followers worldwide. Believers consider him to be the “apostle” of Jesus Christ.

Prosecutors in California have said that he used his spiritual sway to have sex with girls and young women who were told it would lead to their salvation – or damnation if they refused.

Besides García, one defendant charged in the case was taken into custody in Los Angeles while another was arrested in Chicago, authorities said. Three others were at large.

According to the indictment, two of the defendants and others tried to destroy evidence and prevent victims of the sexual abuse from speaking to law enforcement after García was arrested.

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Mexican cartel was taught drone warfare in Ukraine – media

A powerful Mexican drug cartel has acquired advanced drone warfare skills in Ukraine, the Milenio newspaper reported on Monday.

Moscow has long argued that the Ukraine conflict fuels global instability by spreading weapons and fostering reckless behavior by Kiev in pursuit of its war aims. Foreign fighters have become a key part of Ukraine’s military strategy as authorities face resistance to conscription at home.

Milenio examined propaganda materials released by the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), a major criminal group based in western Mexico, including footage showing a drone-armed hit squad operating with apparent military discipline and tactical expertise. Experts cited by the paper said the group’s methods and armaments bore similarities to battlefield practices in the Ukraine conflict.

Mexican intelligence believes CJNG members received training in drone and urban warfare tactics in Ukraine, sources in the Jalisco state government told Milenio.

The report highlighted the cartel’s use of specific equipment, including DJI Matrice 300 RTK drones commonly employed in the Ukraine conflict. The quadcopter aircraft, marketed for civilian use, can carry payloads of up to 3kg, operate at night, and fly long distances.

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Fentanyl Financiers: Treasury Links Mexican Banks and Chinese Networks to Cartel Money Laundering

The U.S. Department of the Treasury is stepping up its efforts to identify the ways that drug cartels move their funds. Most recently, Treasury officials identified the presence of Chinese money laundering networks that are working with Mexican drug cartels and other criminal entities to move large sums of cash.

In a series of notices from the U.S. Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, authorities warned financial institutions about the methods that criminal organizations are using to launder money. According to FinCEN, investigators reviewed 137,153 Bank Secrecy Act reports from 2020 to 2024, identifying $312 billion in suspicious transactions tied to Chinese money laundering networks.

Of significant concern to FinCEN is the apparent ties between Mexican drug cartels and Chinese money laundering groups. The report comes just weeks after FinCEN and the U.S. Treasury sanctioned two Mexican banks and one brokerage firm that they alleged had been laundering money for various drug cartels and had also been helping funnel money into China to pay for fentanyl precursors, Breitbart Texas reported at the time.

The ties between drug cartels and Chinese groups are fueled in part by currency laws in both Mexico and China, which limit the amount of U.S. dollars that can be deposited and moved in Mexico, as well as China’s control of international currency within its country. Treasury officials claim that money laundering groups from China buy U.S. dollars from drug cartels and then sell them further ahead to Chinese individuals or businesses who are trying to evade China’s cash control laws.

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USDA BANS LIVESTOCK FROM MEXICO BUT IS YOUR “MADE IN THE USA” BEEF ACTUALLY MADE IN THE USA?

For 70 years, the United States has been fighting an invasion at our southern border, but its not the invasion of illegal immigrants we are talking about.

The United States has, for 70 years, been fighting a continuous aerial war against the New World screwworm, a parasite that eats animals alive: cow, pig, deer, dog, even human. (Its scientific name, C. hominivorax, translates to “man-eater.”) Larvae of the parasitic fly chew through flesh, transforming small nicks into big, gruesome wounds. 

The United States government, to prevent the spread of this deadly parasite, blasted flies with radiation to make them sterile and then began intensive campaign of dropping these sterile flies south of the border.

While this effort held the deadly parasite at bay for a time, the containment efforts are now failing:

But in 2022, the barrier was breached. Cases in Panama—mostly in cattle—skyrocketed from dozens a year to 1,000, despite ongoing drops of sterile flies. The parasite then began moving northward, at first slowly and then rapidly by 2024… The U.S. subsequently suspended live-cattle imports from Mexico.

Now the Trump administration is taking new efforts to stop the spread of the deadly parasite, by shutting down livestock trade across the southern border:

US Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins has ordered the shutdown of livestock trade through southern border ports following the detection of a new case of New World Screwworm in Veracruz, Mexico—a massive red flag that the parasite is moving north toward the United States.

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Bipartisan bill targets nitazenes: Synthetic opioids 40 times stronger than fentanyl

A new bipartisan bill is aiming to stop the spread of nitazenes, a deadly synthetic opioid that’s 40 times stronger than fentanyl and already causing a new wave of overdose deaths.

The two lawmakers spearheading the bill, Rep. Eugene Vindman, D-Va., and Rep. Michael Baumgartner, R-Wash., both of whom took to social media to lobby for the legislation.

These drugs are the next fentanyl: cheap to make, easy to traffic, and devastating families across America,” Vindman wrote on ‘X.’ “This threat won’t wait, neither can we,” Baumgartner also posted.

While speaking with Dr. Shravani Durbhakula about nitazenes last fall, she told The National News Desk the synthetic opioids were first detected in the U.S. over five years ago. The most common form, five to nine times stronger than fentanyl. But others could be up to 40 times more potent. All are resistant to Narcan.

They were developed in the 1950s and the 1960s but they were not approved by the FDA because of how potent they actually are. They quickly make people stop breathing. Sedate them,” said Durbhakula.

This year, the U.S. is seeing a rise in nitazene overdose deaths. A map put together by the New York Post showed the areas most affected, which span from New Mexico to Virginia. Drug Enforcement Administration Houston Division Special Agent in Charge Jonathan Pullen recently told the Post, just as authorities in the U.S. and China increased efforts to tackle the surge in fentanyl, drug manufacturers shifted production to nitazenes.

I do think we are behind the curve. But that’s been the case with these synthetic opioids — that they shift,” Pullen said.

According to Pullen, nitazenes are produced in China, often with the help of Mexican cartels who then move north across the border. But although the federal government is making headway to tackle the threat, including President Trump’s border crackdown, more work needs to be done.

It’s very very difficult to stay ahead of it, so we’ve got to continue to step up our enforcement along the border,” said Pullen.

In addition to increased border security, the Trump administration has also hit China and Mexico with sanctions and tariffs to force foreign governments to act against illicit drug producers.

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Another Mexican Politician Facing U.S. Federal Fraud Charges

A Mexican politician is out on bond as he faces federal fraud charges in Texas for allegations that he used COVID-era loans to buy cryptocurrency. The politician, his wife, and various other South Texas business owners are accused of obtaining fraudulent loans during the COVID-19 pandemic, which were intended to support failing businesses, but were instead used for personal gain.

Court records revealed that 46-year-old Bernando Gomez Jr. and his wife, 42-year-old Lesley Chavez, allegedly took out nearly $200,000 in Paycheck Protection Program loans during the COVID-19 pandemic and then used them for personal expenses, including buying cryptocurrency. Gomez, who lives in Edinburg, Texas, is a sitting city councilman in the Mexican City of Rio Bravo, Tamaulipas, where he serves as a close advisor to local Mayor Miguel Angel Almaraz.

Court documents indicate that Gomez and Chavez own several entertainment and service businesses, including a wedding planning service, a rental company, and a print shop.

Federal prosecutors allege that in June 2020 and May 2020, they obtained a series of government loans through the Small Business Administration aimed at helping businesses survive the COVID-19 Pandemic. The government then forgave those loans after the business owners allegedly filed documents claiming that the money had been used for legitimate purposes such as paying employees and other similar expenses. After receiving those three loans, totaling $150,000, $40,800, and $20,800, they transferred the funds to different accounts, which they then used for personal expenses and, in the case of Gomez, to purchase cryptocurrency.

After their arrests, both Gomez and Chavez went before U.S. Magistrate Judge J. Scott Hacker, who set their bonds at $100,000. Both have been released as they await trial.

Gomez is currently a member of Mexico’s National Action Party (PAN), one of the major opposition parties in Mexico that has been at odds with the current ruling party, MORENA.

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