The Trump Treasury Department’s new sanctions are a “full-frontal assault” on one of the deadliest southern border cartels, a local border official told Fox News Digital.
The Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned two high-ranking Cartel del Noreste (CDN) members, Mexican nationals Miguel Angel de Anda Ledezma and Ricardo Gonzalez Sauceda, Wednesday.
CDN was one of eight cartels and transnational criminal groups labeled “foreign terrorist organizations” by the Department of State Feb. 20.
Under new sanctions announced this week, all property and interest in properties belonging to De Anda and Gonzalez that are in the United States or in the possession or control of U.S. persons are blocked.
Video footage from a Texas Department of Public Safety surveillance aircraft captured a gun battle between Gulf Cartel factions earlier this year. (Texas Department of Public Safety)
While announcing the sanctions, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the department is “working toward the total elimination of cartels to make America safe again” and that the Trump administration “will hold these terrorists accountable for their criminal activities and abhorrent acts of violence.”
“CDN and its leaders have carried out a violent campaign of intimidation, kidnapping and terrorism, threatening communities on both sides of our southern border,” said Bessent. “We will continue to cut off the cartels’ ability to obtain the drugs, money and guns that enable their violent activities.”
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Paul Perez, who leads the National Border Patrol Council chapter in the South Texas Rio Grande Valley, told Fox News Digital even though the Trump administration’s border crackdown has dramatically reduced illegal crossings, the cartels, including CDN, continue to present a threat to the lives and safety of American citizens living on the border.
“The threat of cartels is still there,” Perez said in an interview with Fox News Digital. He noted that “the thing about the cartels is that they’re very sophisticated,” explaining they have begun using advanced technology like drones to carry out their operations.
Soldiers patrol the streets of Aguililla, Mexico, March 11, 2022, after violent cartel activity. (Enrique Castro/AFP/Getty Images)
“They’re not the street gang-level managers,” he said. “They’ve got a lot of people on their side that have been in this industry for a long time. They know how to get their products moving. They know how to get their product across.”
In Mexico, Perez said, the cartels control the border and “act with impunity all along the border,” while the Mexican police and military are unable to stop them.
He said cartel gunfights along the border often lead to cartel members fleeing north into the U.S., where “they’re going to do everything they can to get away and get back. And if that means harming American citizens, then they’re going to do that.”
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When it comes to CDN, Perez said “they engage in grotesque conduct,” such as beheadings and kidnappings and “will harm anybody that gets in their way” regardless of whether they are American or otherwise.
“What I can tell you about the Noreste cartel, they’re no different than any other cartels out there, the Sinaloa cartel. They’re all deadly cartels. They all traffic in fentanyl. They all traffic in drugs. They are trafficking people,” he explained.
President Donald Trump signs executive orders in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, D.C., including one that designates Mexican cartels as foreign terror organizations. (Jim Watson/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)
By targeting CDN’s leadership, Perez said the Trump administration is effectively weakening the cartel by creating a power vacuum that will cause infighting that will further sap the organization’s strength.
“The cartels are definitely going to feel it,” he said. “So, it’s a full-frontal assault from the United States.
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“That’s the protection that we’re bringing to the border that we weren’t able to bring under President Biden,” he added.
“President Trump, on the campaign trail, and since he’s been in office, has repeatedly said he’s going to do everything he can to protect the United States, to protect its citizens and make sure that there’s nobody around that can do harm to our country. And he’s doing that. He’s taking on the cartels. He’s not afraid of them.
“We want to decimate the cartel activity that’s going on in the United States. So, he’s done what he said he was going to. We support that 100%.”