Sunday, April 28, 2024

Mexican Cartels Waging War Over Illegal Migrant Smuggling To US

-

ANALYSIS – ‘cartel wars' – coming to a neighborhood near you. In their bids to control the highly lucrative and illicit trade of smuggling migrants into America, deadly Mexican drug cartels are engaging in major firefights just across the border with the .

Many of these cartels and cartel factions are extremely well armed, often better armed than local and state Mexican police forces. Some are already operating on American soil. Meanwhile, is aiding and abetting these dangerous cartels with his open border policies. (RELATED: White House Gives Terrifying Response To Concerns Over Terrorists Potentially Crossing Border)

This month, residents of Sásabe, Sonora, a small Mexican outpost on the U.S.- border not far from Nogales, , received threatening messages from cartels warning of a coming attack. The next morning several homes were in flames and dozens of men with high-powered weapons were having a shootout around the town's main square.

Since the cartel infighting on the border began in late October, the criminal groups have also clashed with the Mexican Army and state security forces, though locals say they haven't seen much of a Mexican security presence in a while.

See the amazing footage of a recent cartel firefight using automatic weapons and explosives on the Mexican side of the border. (RELATED: ATF Investigator Smuggled Weapons Into Mexico)

And these cartel firefights and battles can quickly spill over the U.S. side of the border.

As Insight  reported:

Hours later, nearly 100 locals, among them elderly men and women and young children, took off for the US-Mexico border. They found a hole in the border fence, crossed into the United States, and pleaded with Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials to protect them.

Insight Crime added:

Hundreds more are still trapped. Surrounded by barren desert and mountains in northern Sonora, Sásabe is a small town of less than 1,000 people where the Sinaloa Cartel has long been the dominant criminal actor.

For the last 12 years, the boss of the local affiliate managing Sásabe left the townspeople alone and allowed them to work, local residents told InSight Crime. That all changed in October, when internal divisions over synthetic drug trafficking came to a head and another cell moved in with backing from the Chapitos, a faction led by several sons of the now-jailed former leader, Joaquín Guzmán Loera, alias “El Chapo.”

Since then, two factions of the group have been battling, not over synthetic drug trafficking routes, but control of migrant smuggling through this corridor.

David Saucedo, a Mexico-based security analyst, noted that: “They've fought in the past over drug trafficking routes, control of local authorities, elections, and corrupt security forces, but as far as I know, this is the first time they have fought over migrant smuggling routes.”

But it all makes sense when we see that illegal migrants from Central America and beyond are paying up to $10,000 per person, while Mexicans are paying between $3,000 and $5,000. Half of those sums, or more, can go to the dominant criminal group on the border. (RELATED: ‘Migrant Caravan' Leader Mocks Biden As Thousands Of Illegals Head To US)

Sometimes these criminals shoot at U.S. military and Border Patrol drones. This video below is from earlier this year.

More ominously, these violent Mexican drug cartels are already operating inside the United States.

The El Paso Times reported that a recent Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) investigation resulted in the seizure of an arsenal of weapons tied to an alleged drug cartel-linked human smuggling cell in El Paso, and several arrests of Mexican nationals employed by the cartels who were here illegally.

The outlet added:

The men allegedly served as heavily-armed security and scouts for a migrant smuggling ring in El Paso and Sunland Park, New Mexico, with ties to the Nuevo Cartel de Juárez (New ) and La Linea cartel, Texas DPS officials said recently.

Texas DPS said that investigators seized 10 firearms, body armor and thousands of rounds of ammunition and collected cellphone and social photos and videos of armed and body-armored gunmen “paying tribute to La Linea Cartel.”

(The Line) is the name of what was traditionally known as the Juárez drug cartel.

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.

READ NEXT: Hamas Makes Move, Proves What We Already Knew

Paul Crespo
Paul Crespohttps://paulcrespo.com/
Paul Crespo is the Managing Editor of American Liberty Defense News. As a Marine Corps officer, he led Marines, served aboard ships in the Pacific and jumped from helicopters and airplanes. He was also a military attaché with the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) at U.S. embassies worldwide. He later ran for office, taught political science, wrote for a major newspaper and had his own radio show. A graduate of Georgetown, London and Cambridge universities, he brings decades of experience and insight to the issues that most threaten our American liberty – at home and from abroad.

Latest News