U.S. Sanctions Gulf Cartel For Illegal Fishing, Drug Smuggling & Human Trafficking In Gulf Of Mexico

Boat — Image for representation purposes only

The U.S. Treasury has announced sanctions against five members of Mexico’s Gulf Cartel, a dangerous criminal group involved in illegal fishing, drug smuggling and human trafficking in the Gulf of Mexico.

Those individuals are accused of running a large-scale illegal fishing operation that funds their other criminal activities.

According to the Treasury, the cartel uses small, fast boats called lanchas to cross U.S. waters, where they catch red snapper and shark- highly regulated species in the U.S.

These fish are then smuggled back to Mexico, where they’re sold and often exported back into the U.S. under false labels. The illegal fishing operations generate millions of dollars for the cartel each year.

The sanctions target Ismael Guerra Salinas (known as Mayelo) and his brother Omar Guerra Salinas (Samorano), who run illegal fishing and smuggling operations out of Playa Bagdad, just south of the Texas border.

The cartel also uses the same boats to smuggle drugs and people into the U.S.

Francisco Javier Sierra Angulo, also known as El Borrado, is identified as the cartel’s leader in Matamoros, while Raul Decuir Garcia (La Burra) and Ildelfonso Carrillo Sapien (El Chivo) manage the fishing camps.

Bradley T. Smith, Acting Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, discussed the seriousness of the situation, saying, “Transnational criminal organisations like the Gulf cartel rely on illegal fishing, drug trafficking and human smuggling to fund their operations.”

The U.S. Coast Guard, Homeland Security Investigations, and the Drug Enforcement Administration worked together with Mexican authorities to impose these sanctions.

In a recent year, the Coast Guard seized 78 lanchas and around 15,000 pounds of illegally caught fish, mostly red snapper.

With these sanctions, all assets belonging to the targeted individuals in the U.S. are frozen, and American citizens and companies are banned from doing business with them.

Reference: U.S. Department of Treasury

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