In what marks a historic legal maneuver, the U.S. Justice Department has unsealed an indictment that, for the first time, charges a Mexican national with providing material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization. Maria Del Rosario Navarro-Sanchez, alleged to have ties with the brutal Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generación (CJNG), faces accusations of equipping the cartel with grenades and conducting a slew of illegal activities ranging from narcotics and firearms trafficking to alien smuggling, according to an announcement by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of Texas. Involved in the shadows of drug commerce and violence, CJNG has been recently dubbed a terrorist group by U.S. authorities, given their pervasive and destructive influence both within and beyond Mexico’s borders.
Navarro-Sanchez's indictment comes in the wake of the State Department's designation of CJNG and seven other cartels as Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs) on Feb. 20. Described as wielding significant control over the narcotics trade and perpetrating acts of brutality, such as employing military-grade weaponry against law enforcement, the CJNG's reach is vast. "Cartels like CJNG are terrorist groups that wreak havoc in American communities and are responsible for countless lives lost in the United States, Mexico, and elsewhere," said Attorney General Pamela Bondi, as per the U.S. Department of Justice.
The series of charges laid out against Navarro-Sanchez underscores a hardline stance from U.S. law enforcement against criminal organizations threatening national security. Acting U.S. Attorney Margaret Leachman for the Western District of Texas emphasized the gravity of these crimes stating, "The slew of federal charges we have brought against Navarro-Sanchez sends a monumental message through the ranks of cartels like CJNG—now designated as a terrorist organization—along with those who support them in various capacities," as obtained by the U.S. Department of Justice.
Law enforcement agencies, including the FBI, ATF, DEA, and HSI, backed by the U.S. Border Patrol, have conducted thorough investigations leading to this indictment, displaying a quintessential example of interagency cooperation. In the words of John Morales, Special Agent in Charge for the FBI El Paso Field Office, "The FBI is fully committed to using every resource at our disposal to dismantle this, and any other transnational criminal organization," as noted by the U.S. Department of Justice. Working in tandem with their Mexican counterparts, these entities have intensified measures to suppress the cartels' influence and disrupt their operations.
Navarro-Sanchez's capture also represents a key victory for the multi-agency, ATF-led El Paso Operation Southbound Firearms Trafficking Task Force and is a part of Operation Take Back America, as well as the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces (OCDETF) Strike Force Initiative, a concerted effort to eliminate cartel and transnational criminal organization activity. The FBI, ATF, DEA, and HSI's El Paso divisions, with the substantial assistance of international law enforcement partners, are resolute in their objective to dismantle these pervasive criminal networks and bring to justice those involved in criminal enterprises that span across the U.S.-Mexico border and impact communities on both sides.
