Houston Car-Theft Ring Tied to Mexican Terrorist Drug Cartel

HOUSTON, Texas — A six-month investigation led to a series of raids on Mexican cartel-connected chop shops in the Houston metroplex this week. The raids led to the seizure of more than $1 million in stolen vehicles.

Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez posted photos on X showing the chop-shop operations located on Leago, Yale, and Gulf Bank streets. The auto-theft ring has “possible ties to a cartel,” the sheriff stated.

auto-theft ring has possible ties to a cartel. Commanders are at the 200 blk of Leago, but stolen vehicles have been found at all of the target sites; stolen vehicles and fraudulent titles with an estimated recovery value of $220K.
2/2 #HouNews

— Ed Gonzalez (@SheriffEd_HCSO) April 4, 2024

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials were more direct in tying the operation, run by three Mexican nationals to the narco-terrorist organization Cartel Jalisco New Generation, according to a report by the New York Post. ICE officials identified the ring leaders as Edgar Bravo, Jesus Gutierrez-Escamilla and Bernando Fernandez-Pereyda.

The New York Post stated that Gutierrez-Escamilla entered the U.S. illegally more than 12 years ago. He has had frequent contact with law enforcement during the interim, but has never been turned over to ICE for removal. Fernandez-Pereyda also entered the U.S. illegally in March 2023, according to Border Patrol reports, the article states.

Sheriff Gonzalez reported the raids led to the recovery of 14 stolen vehicles worth more than one million dollars.

Arrest update: Edgar Bravo (5-23-02) 2nd degree felony theft, Jesus Gutierrez-Escamilla (2-4-83) 2nd degree felony theft, Bernardo Fernandez-Pereyda (5-22-98) Evading Arrest. Charges are pending on others. https://t.co/MokZnu3MkG

— Ed Gonzalez (@SheriffEd_HCSO) April 4, 2024

The Cartel Jalisco New Generation also made news in Houston less than a week ago when the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Texas handed down a drug smuggling indictment against 41 people, Breitbart Texas’s Brandon Darby and Ildefonso Ortiz reported. The indictment identified 52-year-old Roque Zamudio Mendoza, from Michoacan, Mexico, as the ringleader. He is believed to be hiding in Mexico.

Darby and Ortiz reported:

Court documents do not specify details about the crossing areas used by the cartel or their methods of distributing the drugs, but authorities revealed that from Houston, CJNG members would move their shipments to New Orleans, Louisiana; Pensacola, Florida; Atlanta, Georgia; Nashville, Tennessee; and Chicago, Illinois. The indictment claims that the smugglers moved drugs for CJNG from 2018 to 2020. It remains unclear if members of the group continued their operation since then.

Cartel Jalisco New Generation is one of Mexico’s most violent drug cartels and has been linked to several terror-stye attacks where they have used explosives. This criminal organization has been at the forefront of implementing the use of IEDs and weaponized drones as they wage fierce turf wars against Sinaloa Cartel factions and other cartels.

The indictment and the operation against a Houston-based CJNG cell come as the Texas city has been dealing with a public relations nightmare. As Breitbart Texas reported, a series of audits revealed that in an eight-year span, the Houston Police Department did not investigate and filed away more than 260,000 criminal cases, including more than 4,000 sexual assault cases.

Fox 26 Houston reported that the vehicles that can be identified will be returned to their owners. A total of five suspects were taken into custody during the tactical operation.