U.S. Treasury Blacklists Two More Mexican Cartels as Foreign Terrorist Organizations

The U.S. Department of the Treasury has formally designated two more Mexican drug cartels as foreign terrorist cartels. The move brings the number to eight separate cartels that are considered to be Foreign Terrorist Organizations by the United States government.

This week, the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Asset Control announced that they were changing the designation of the Juarez Cartel and the Los Viagras Cartel from Drug Trafficking Organizations to Foreign Terrorist Organizations. The move gives authorities new tools to target the groups financially, freeze their assets in the United States, and prohibit any U.S. citizen from doing business with them.

The Juarez Cartel, also known as La Linea, Barrio Azteca, or the Carrillo Fuentez Organization, is based out of Ciudad Juarez, which borders El Paso, Texas. The criminal organization has a long history of controlling most of the drug trade and human smuggling in that region. During the 1990’s, the Juarez Cartel became one of the most powerful cartels in Mexico under the leadership of the late Amado Carrillo Fuentes, who pioneered the use of jets and commercial airliners to smuggle drugs to the border. Over the years, they have become fierce rivals of the Sinaloa Cartel, and a turf war between the two organizations led to Ciudad Juárez being labeled for a time between the early 2000s and 2010 as the murder capital of the world. Currently, the Juarez Cartel has an alliance of convenience with Cartel Jalisco New Generation, which is one of the cartel’s main suppliers of narcotics.

The Juarez Cartel is linked to the 2019 mass killing of nine women and children who were all U.S. citizens. As Breitbart Texas reported at the time, the victims were part of the LeBaron family who were driving from Mexico to the U.S. border when cartel gunmen allegedly mistook them for rivals and killed them. After the Trump Administration designated six Mexican cartels as terrorist groups, the family sent letters and had been petitioning for the Juarez Cartel to be labeled as one too.

The Los Viagras Cartel is based out of the Western state of Michoacan, and originally claimed to be a self-defense group trying to fight other drug cartels that were preying on innocent communities. In reality, Los Viagras used the claim of self-defense groups to gain territories and control of the drug trade in the region. Los Viagras currently have an alliance of convenience with Cartel Jalisco New Generation, but for a time they were also part of Carteles Unidos. The criminal organization has a history of mass killings, forced disappearances, and the use of drones to drop explosives on their rivals, as well as Mexican military forces.

 Ildefonso Ortiz is an award-winning journalist with Breitbart News Foundation. He co-founded Breitbart News Foundation’s Cartel Chronicles project with Brandon Darby and senior Breitbart management. You can follow him on Twitter and on Facebook. He can be contacted at [email protected].