US Officially Declares Mexican Cartels, Foreign Gangs as Global Terrorists

The State Department also targets Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua and El Salvador’s MS-13.

A shop's windows are riddled with bullets near City Hall after a gun battle between a heavily armed drug cartel assault group and security forces in Villa Union, Mexico, near the border with the United States, on Dec. 2, 2019. Eduardo Verdugo/AP Photo

The U.S. Department of State has designated several Mexican drug cartels and several transnational criminal gangs as global terrorist organizations, according to a notice in the Federal Register on Feb. 19.

Mexico-based criminal organizations including the Sinaloa Cartel, the Gulf Cartel, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, the United Cartels, the La Nueva Familia Michoacana organization, and the Northeast Cartel were designated as terrorist organizations.