Foreign Terrorist Organizations

Border Patrol agents operating under Operation Portland reportedly opened fire while attempting to arrest suspected members of the violent Tren de Aragua gang last week. The shooting followed a chaotic confrontation where the alleged gang-affiliated members weaponized their vehicle against the agents. Portland Police Bureau Chief Bob Day lost control of his emotions and began to cry as he later defended the operation during a tense news conference.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum announced that she ordered her country’s top diplomat to speak with the highest levels of the U.S. government to work on improving binational coordination in order to keep U.S. forces from carrying out direct attacks against cartels inside Mexico. This appears to be her latest effort to protect the violent drug trafficking cartels that exert political influence at every level of her country.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton joined a legal push against Hamas-linked groups in the U.S., citing the need to “decimate and dismantle” radical Islamic terrorist organizations and their “domestic supporting branches.”

Mexico’s Government is publicly condemning the U.S. military actions taken overnight in Venezuela that led to the capture of its president, Nicolas Maduro, who is wanted on drug trafficking charges. Mexico also called on the United Nations to intervene.

The Sinaloa Cartel’s Northwest pipeline took another major hit this month after King County Sheriff’s deputies seized more than 200 pounds of meth, heroin, and nearly $90,000 in drug cash during a targeted operation north of Seattle.

The U.S. Department of the Treasury announced an enforcement operation along the southwest border targeting more than 100 money service businesses (MSBs). The effort is the latest operation aimed at cutting off financial tools used by drug cartels.

In a stealth operation carried out before dawn on Dec. 20, the U.S. Coast Guard—working alongside the Department of War—seized an oil tanker last seen in the terrorist state of Venezuela. The United States accused the ship’s operators of moving sanctioned crude to fuel narco‑terror activity. Officials issued a stark warning to traffickers: “We will find you, and we will stop you.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York charged four Venezuelan nationals, including suspected leaders of the violent Tren de Aragua (TdA) gang and one of FBI Houston’s “Top Ten” fugitives, as part of a nationwide crackdown that has now netted more than 70 alleged members tied to murders, kidnappings, and drug trafficking. TdA is designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization.

Federal prosecutors say the Sinaloa Cartel hired two 15‑year‑old members of a Mexican Mafia‑affiliated gang to carry out a pair of assassination attempts in Chula Vista, California, attacks that left one man dead and several wounded before the teens fled back to Los Angeles.

Cartel gunmen resumed the use of landmines in the Mexican state just south of the border with Texas. In the most recent series of attacks, the gunmen used an explosive to kill an innocent farmer who was driving to a ranch. In a separate attack, they injured five police officers using another buried landmine.

Guatemala deployed special forces, known as Kaibiles, to guard its northern border with Mexico just days after teams of cartel gunmen from Mexico entered the country and carried out violent attacks in rural border communities. The teams of cartel gunmen also clashed with Guatemalan military forces.

An apparent suicide bomber drove a vehicle full of explosives towards a community police station in Western Mexico and set it off. The bomb killed the suicide bomber and two other victims, and injured ten others. The suicide attack using car bombs marks an escalation in the way drug cartels have been fighting authorities in Mexico.

In just a few short weeks, a Border Patrol-led task force arrested more than 400 illegal aliens in Charlotte, North Carolina. According to Border Patrol Commander Greg K. Bovino, illegal aliens targeted and arrested during “Operation Charlotte’s Web” were found to be in the company of others who also had a significant criminal history in more than 50 percent of all cases.

The son of jailed Sinaloa Cartel kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman Loera pleaded guilty to various drug trafficking charges as part of a plea deal with prosecutors. As part of the plea deal, the young drug lord Joaquin “El Guero” Guzman Lopez confessed to having planned the kidnapping of his father’s former ally, Sinaloa Cartel’s co-founder Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, in order to turn him over to U.S. authorities.

U.S. consular officials are warning travelers about the high risk of carjackings by cartel gunmen on the highways leading north to the Texas border. Just hours after issuing that warning, a group of cartel gunmen shot two men from Mexico who were heading to Texas to take advantage of the Black Friday specials.

Information provided by a law enforcement task force established by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) reveals more than 50 confirmed members of the violent Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang were arrested during a raid executed at an illicit nightclub in San Antonio on November 16. The Trump administration designated Tren de Aragua as a foreign terrorist organization earlier this year.

President Donald Trump is reportedly preparing to designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a foreign terrorist organization, according to a report.

The Council on American‑Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation’s largest Muslim civil‑liberties group, filed a federal lawsuit against Texas Governor Greg Abbott after he designated CAIR and the Muslim Brotherhood as foreign terrorist and transnational criminal organizations. CAIR called the designation “unconstitutional and defamatory.”

The Canadian government has issued a travel advisory warning travelers to avoid parts of Mexico and exercise “high levels of caution” when traveling throughout the country due to “high levels of criminal activity and kidnapping.”

Border Patrol agents in Arizona arrested an illegal alien from Uzbekistan who was allegedly operating a tractor-trailer on Interstate 10 with five fraudulent driver’s licenses. The Uzbek national illegally entered the United States during the Biden administration and ignored an order of removal this year from an immigration judge.

Authorities in Spain raided the base of operations of the terrorist organization Cartel Jalisco New Generation in that country and uncovered ties that the cartel had with the Italian Camorra.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott designated the Muslim Brotherhood and the Council on American-Islamic Relations as foreign terrorist organizations and transnational criminal organizations on Tuesday. The designation will allow for heightened enforcement actions against the organization and its affiliates by authorities within the Lone Star State.

Federal agents raided a makeshift nightclub in San Antonio early Sunday morning, detaining more than 150 patrons suspected of being in the U.S. illegally, amid suspicions the venue was linked to the violent Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, according to sources familiar with the operation.

In a decisive show of force, President Trump authorized two precision strikes against cartel-operated vessels in international waters, killing six narco-terrorists linked to designated terrorist organizations. The vessels, laden with narcotics and navigating a known trafficking corridor in the Eastern Pacific, were neutralized without harm to U.S. personnel—underscoring Trump’s commitment to defending the homeland and dismantling transnational threats.

Mexico’s President, Claudia Sheinbaum, denounced the war on drugs, claiming that her government was not going to go that route because killing drug traffickers is a fascist approach that violates their rights. The comments come at a time when Mexico’s government has been harshly criticized worldwide for the raging cartel violence and the government corruption that has enabled it.

Authorities in Mexico confirmed a large-scale shootout in the hyperviolent western state of Sinaloa, where 13 gunmen died while trying to ambush a squad of Mexican soldiers. In the aftermath of the clash, authorities also reported rescuing nine kidnapping victims.

As critics decry President Donald Trump’s lethal strikes against narco-terrorist smugglers on the high seas, the silence surrounding the staggering toll of fentanyl deaths in the United States grows louder—raising the question: whose lives are worth defending?

The cartel-connected governor of the Mexican state of Michoacan had to leave a ceremony and wake held to honor Carlos Manzo, the murdered Mayor of Uruapan, who had become famous in Mexico for his hard stance against cartels. Amid insults, shoves, and shouts, Governor Alfredo Ramirez Bedolla had to make a quick exit after trying to attend the event. Hours later, hundreds of protesters vandalized the governor’s palace and even attempted to torch it during a protest over Manzo’s murder and the raging cartel violence that plagues Michoacan.

One of the most vocal federal senators in Mexico publicly claimed that U.S. President Donald Trump is right in his statements about the country being ruled by drug cartels.

U.S. Military forces launched attacks on four vessels operated by narco-terrorist smugglers transiting through a known trafficking route in the Eastern Pacific Ocean. According to the Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, the kinetic strikes occurred on Monday and resulted in a total of 14 terrorists killed. One person survived the attacks.

Authorities in Mexico confirmed the discovery of 48 bags with human remains so far at the most recent clandestine gravesite in the cartel-controlled state of Jalisco. The state is controlled by Cartel Jalisco New Generation, one of the six Mexican cartels designated as foreign terrorist organizations by the Trump administration.

In a dramatic escalation of the Trump administration’s maritime war on narco-terrorism, U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth announced the first lethal military strike outside the Caribbean Sea — targeting and destroying a drug-smuggling vessel off Colombia’s Pacific coast.

Authorities in Mexico arrested a suspected member of the Gulf Cartel who had 151 drone explosives, 18 drones, three IEDs, and various other weapons. The seizure also included state-of-the-art anti-drone weapons.

Gunmen with the Cartel Del Noreste faction of Los Zetas wounded two Mexican police officers during an ambush-style attack. The attack is the third of its kind since Thursday, as police and military forces attempt to hold back the CDN-Los Zetas from setting up operations in Coahuila. The CDN-Los Zetas is one of six Mexican cartels designated as foreign terrorist organizations by the U.S. government.

The Cartel Del Noreste faction of Los Zetas carried out two ambush-style attacks on Mexican military forces just south of the Texas border. In one of those attacks, cartel gunmen allegedly tried to kidnap two soldiers. The CDN-Los Zetas is one of six Mexican cartels designated as foreign terrorist groups by the U.S. government.

The U.S. Consulate in Tijuana sounded the alarm about a terrorist cartel attack involving explosive devices that caused various blasts near the beach hotspot of Playas de Tijuana. Mexican authorities have remained silent and have not released any information on the attack, which targeted a state police building.