FINCEN Alert: Troubling Cartel Activity

A worrisome number of drug cartels have arisen in Mexico over the past few decades. Combinations of various elements have contributed to their existence, chief among such factors being the poor power centralization and often unscrupulous leadership present in Latin America. Some of the more well-known crime syndicates are the Guadalajara, Sinaloa, Gulf, Tijuana, and Jalisco New Generation cartels. All of these compete in the fields of drug trafficking, financial crimes, theft, and more for the primary purpose of acquiring vast sums of money in the quickest available manner, regardless of law or moral code. While each cartel has its areas of expertise and various unique traits, they do maintain one reliable commonality: the use of violence. The rise of such a culture among cartels makes perfect sense—when you have enough wealth to buy out police, military branches, and even entire governments, there is not much incentive to do anything other than whatever your momentary impulses drive you toward.

Around their localities of origin, such violence is often leveled at suspected rivals or informants. On certain occasions, it has been directed widely against entire towns, such as during the 2011 Allende massacre. The DEA had mistakenly placed trust in a Mexican federal police unit, and a member of the latter proved to be an informant for the Los Zetas criminal syndicate. Los Zetas got word that their leaders’ trackable phone numbers had been leaked and proceeded to send gang members en masse to Allende to indiscriminately seek revenge. It is estimated that hundreds of people were brutally murdered that day. But it is hard to claim any number with certainty, as most of the bodies were burnt beyond recognition (ProPublica).

As the crow flies, Allende is only 180 miles from the Texan border. The mass violence of 2011 occurred not far from American citizens, who were going about their lives in blissful ignorance. The travesty of justice in Allende is just one of many such occurrences. The reason that such violence occurs so routinely on one side of the border and not the other is a direct result of the values embedded in the American Constitution and the manner of federal governance that was established and entirely unique upon America's founding. We are not the most prosperous and one of the safest nations in the world by chance alone. It is the values that underpinned America's founding and the enforcement of those values over time that enabled such realities.

Yet, over the past few decades, some presidents have sought, often intentionally, to undermine the value systems and principles this country was established on. They have done so by minimizing border protection and decreasing the legal accountability of those who are illegally, often malevolently, in this country. Why? The cartel has deep pockets, so it would not be particularly shocking if politicians here have been induced to act in their interest. But that is no excuse for allowing such behavior to occur right before our eyes. Even if corruption wasn't a factor, politicians have shown a willingness to endanger Americans to import more immigrants, whether the motive be to buy Democrat votes (although votes shouldn't even exist for illegal immigrants), drive down wages for manual labor, simply virtue signal, or anything else. When we, as a society, indirectly permit such changes simply because they don’t directly affect us, we create a dangerous dynamic, because transnational criminal organizations will quickly make the most of any border weaknesses.

Dr. Jarrod Sadulski, a contributor for the American Military University’s publication, says it clearly: “Cartels understand that through the U.S.’s current open borders policy, there is a market to make unprecedented amounts of money by smuggling and trafficking people to the United States” (AMU Edge). Of course, his article was written before Trump returned to office. Anyways, he goes on to touch upon the fact that detention centers are at capacity, and a backlog of immigration cases allows migrants to be processed and released into the United States for years until their court date. Given that said migrants can proceed to change their identity and disappear, this dynamic creates a massive market for cartels. These illegal immigrants can smuggle products and conduct cartel operations within the country. Beyond that, even in cases where immigrants are unaffiliated with crime, they can be a source of revenue to the cartel as they pay to be trafficked themselves. Not to mention, they can be threatened into doing the cartel's bidding regardless of whether they want to—there is no doubt the cartels keep immigrants' personal and family information on hand.

It’s regrettably simple enough for someone to enter the U.S. on false pretenses of innocence and go on to connect with a cartel cell in the United States immediately after they’re let go by law enforcement. This issue ties straight back to due process. If court cases were instantaneous, more than 80% of Mexican asylum seekers would be expelled from the nation soon after crossing the border as a result of asylum grant rates. I mentioned this in a previous paper, but the rate of asylum claims approved for Mexican immigrants is less than 20%—less than half the average. Yet, because of ‘due process’ and court inefficiency, every individual gets a number of years before they even see the inside of a court.

This, along with years of undefended borders, has permitted the cartels unprecedented access to the United States. The more profit they attain within our country, the more they will expand operations here, and the more leverage they will build through a variety of tactics. Anyone who denies the reality of that is either playing defense for the cartel or simply naïve. By closing borders and taking an unforgiving deportation approach, the Trump administration has a strong chance at cratering the profit potential of numerous crime syndicates in our nation, reducing their influence and future power here.

Last week, yet another cartel operation was exposed to the public by the Trump administration. Three Mexican nationals and two Mexican business entities received a bout of economic sanctions over their involvement in a crime network with deep ties in the southwestern United States. The network was an initiative of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, focused primarily on drug trafficking and fuel theft. They rob Mexican state-owned fuel providers, smuggle it, and sell it through complicit business partners at a steep discount yet for pure profit. According to the Treasury Department, this fuel robbery has caused the Mexican government to lose massive amounts of revenue—and those diverted funds are contributing to the flow of drugs into the United States (ABC7 News). The CJNG cartel has been labeled a Foreign Terrorist Organization and Specially Designated Global Terrorist, as of February 2025, due to their extensive and heinous crimes.

Sanctions target top member Cesar Morfin Morfin (“Primito”) and his brothers, who are involved in management of the fuel theft network. The CJNG cartel is led by Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes (“El Mencho”), who has a $15 million U.S. bounty for information leading to his arrest. Yet, even with such a bounty, there is plenty of reason as to why he has not been outed. For example, Ruben Gonzales, Cervantes’ son, was recently jailed for life by a Washington court. In a display of the consistent and uncaring violence of CJNG, the informant that contributed to Gonzales’ arrest was killed along with his wife last week. According to CBS, “[Mexican] state prosecutors are investigating the crime and have not ruled out revenge as a possible motive” (CBS). If you weren’t already convinced that the cartel runs Mexico, ruminate on that choice of language for a moment. “Possible motive?”

This cartel is known for copious violence. In 2015, a military helicopter carrying two federal officers and sixteen military personnel was shot down by CJNG members. The helicopter was on a failed mission to arrest Cervantes and was ordered shot down by his son Gonzales. This was one of many counts against Gonzales during his court trial. While there are many documented cases of extreme violence by CJNG, it also engages in various other activities to increase its bottom line—so its leaders can buy more ATVs and exotic animals, if assets previously seized from them are any indicator of their future spending habits. Despite the diversification, fuel theft and crude oil smuggling are frontrunners among their profit-driving “businesses.”

Ivan Cazarin Molina, “The Tank,” was nicknamed after the huge fuel storage tanks he maintains for CJNG in Veracruz. Under his management, fuel sourced from unquestionably illicit means is stored and then sold through gas stations with a thin veneer of legitimacy to generate income. CJNG syndicate criminals are known to hijack tanker trucks, steal directly out of refineries, and tap pipelines in isolated areas. Most of the gas is then sold to unsuspecting (or entirely aware) Mexican drivers through various local gas stations, while the remainder is sold into the United States or elsewhere through third parties (CBS).

Complicit Mexican brokers assist in the smuggling of crude oil into the United States. Said oil is often intentionally mislabeled as “waste oil or other hazardous material to avoid scrutiny and evade taxes and regulations” (Treasury). U.S. accomplices eventually receive the shipments, sell the oil at a major discount, and remit the illicit profits back to Mexico after taking their share. As a result of these practices, the Mexican government has reported billions of dollars in lost revenue to Pemex, the state-owned petroleum corporation. Given the level of control the cartel exercises over the Mexican government and its companies, it is morbidly humorous to wonder whether the massive loss report is intended truly as a warning flag or rather as a braggadocious claim on the effectiveness of CJNG crime.

New OFAC sanctions as of May 1, 2025, target Cesar Morfin Morfin over his leadership throughout CJNG’s fuel theft and drug enterprises. His brothers Alvaro and Remigio, also leaders in CJNG, have been sanctioned as well. Alvaro handles the business of stolen crude alongside Cesar, while Remigio both assists there and manages regional plaza bosses. All three individuals are designated for sanctions due to their personal perpetuation of activities and transactions that materially contribute to “the international proliferation of illicit drugs” (Treasury).

Two hazardous materials transportation companies were also designated by OFAC: Servicios Logísticos Ambientales and Grupo Jala Logistica. Directly or indirectly, they operate for Primito and have facilitated cross-border fuel movement on behalf of CJNG. In official terms, these companies have been designated for “being owned, controlled, or directed by, or having acted or purported to act for or on behalf of, directly or indirectly, Cesar Morfin Morfin” (Treasury). These individuals’ and companies’ assets within the U.S. are now frozen, and any who deal financially or otherwise with these entities do so at risk of secondary sanctions.

Towards the end of the OFAC statement, they clarified (as usual) that “the ultimate goal of sanctions is not to punish, but to bring about a positive change in behavior.” While admirable, I found the statement funny in this case because the annotation is effectively irrelevant. These are cartel leaders who, if apprehended, would likely go to jail for life. The proliferation of cartel violence and crime south of the border is despicable. It has been similarly despicable to see cartel crime increasingly drift upwards into the supposedly safe and principled United States. The fact that such a thing was permitted to occur under previous leadership should weaken anyone’s trust of the open-border party. They put our country in danger as they claimed the moral high ground every chance they could, labeling dissenters as anti-immigrant, anti-diversity, or anti-economy.

In reality, the politicians in charge were very possibly compromised—the vast amount of benefit furnished to the cartel via open-border legislation is something that should be obviously apparent to anyone. Ignoring, or worse, openly denying such a reality is a suspicious course of action. Regardless of past corruption, however, current movements against the cartels have been pitiless. Let’s hope that we can bring an increasingly definitive end to the continued trafficking of people, drugs, and other products into the U.S. (the result of a closed border). Then, let’s be sure to uproot and eject any criminal influences that have already dug into American soil (the result of deportations). Each and every truly virtuous leader of our country’s government would agree: the cartel can keep its drugs, money, and violence south of our border.

Sources

https://www.propublica.org/article/allende-zetas-cartel-massacre-and-the-us-dea

https://amuedge.com/mexican-drug-cartels-have-infiltrated-the-united-states/

https://abc7.com/post/us-imposes-sanctions-mexican-cartel-linked-drug-trafficking-fuel-theft-network/16311920/

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/former-agent-wife-murdered-mexico-testified-son-jalisco-cartel-leader/

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-tank-sanctioned-us-fuel-theft-ring-jalisco-new-generation-cartel-mexico/

https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/sb0125

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