The Trump Treasury's new sanctions are a “full attack” on one of the deadliest southern border cartels, local border officials told Fox News Digital.
The Ministry of Finance's Bureau of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) approved Mexican nationals Miguel Angel de Ande Ledesma and Ricardo Gonzalez Sauduta on Wednesday.
CDN was one of eight cartels and cross-border crime groups labeled “foreign terrorist organizations” by the State Department on February 20th.
Under the new sanctions announced this week, all property and interest in property belonging to Dunda and Gonzalez in the United States are owned or controlled by Americans.
Exclusive: An illegal alien who has been suspended from deportation by a “activist” judge sexually assaulted a disabled woman
Video footage from a Texas Public Safety Surveillance aircraft filmed a shootout between the Gulf Cartels earlier this year. (Texas Department of Public Safety)
While announcing the sanctions, Treasury Secretary Scott Bescent said the department is “working towards a complete removal of the cartel to make America safe again,” and the Trump administration said “those terrorists are responsible for the abominable acts of criminality and violence.”
“The CDN and its leaders will carry out violent campaigns of blackmail, induce and terrorism, threatening communities on both sides of the southern border,” Bescent said. “We will continue to block the cartel's ability to get drugs, money and guns that allow for violent activities.”
ICE launches a new, national effort to arrest illegal aliens at immigration hearings
Paul Perez, who heads the South Texas Rio Grande Valley National Border Patrol Council branch, told Fox News Digital, despite the Trump administration's border bullets dramatically reducing illegal crossings.
“The cartel threat is still there,” Perez said in an interview with Fox News Digital. He pointed out, “What's with the cartel is that they're very sophisticated,” explains that they began to use advanced technologies like drones to carry out operations.
On March 11, 2022, soldiers patrolled the streets of Aguililla, Mexico, after violent cartel activities. (Enrique Castro/AFP/Getty Images)
“They are not street gang level managers,” he said. “They have a lot of people who have been in this industry for a long time. They know how to make their products go. They know how to hand over their products.”
In Mexico, the cartels have controlled the border and have said they will “act with immunity along the border,” but Mexican police and military cannot stop them.
He said cartel shootouts along the border often lead to cartel members fleeing to the US, which flee north. There, “They will do everything they can to get away and come back. And if that means hurting American citizens, they will do that.”
For immigration compensation, click here
As for the CDN, Perez said, “They are engaged in grotesque behaviour.”
“What I can talk about the Norteste cartel is that they are no different from the other cartels there, the Sinaloa cartel. They are all deadly cartels. They are all fentanyl traffic. They are all drug traffic.
Trump's administrator promises to be “relentlessly offensive” in response to alleged murders of US citizens
President Donald Trump will sign an executive order at the White House Oval Office in Washington, DC, which includes designating the Mexican cartel as a foreign terrorist organization. (Jim Watson/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)
By targeting CDN leadership, Perez said the Trump administration is effectively undermining the cartel by creating an infighting power vacuum that further mitigates the strength of the organization.
“The cartels will definitely feel that,” he said. “So it's a complete attack from the US.
Click here to get the Fox News app
“That's the protection we bring to borders that we couldn't bring under President Biden,” he added.
“President Trump has repeatedly said on the campaign trail and since he took office he is going to do everything he can to protect the United States, protect its citizens and make sure no one around him can do harm to our country.
“We want to destroy the cartel activity that's going on in the US. So he did what he said, and we're supporting 100% of that.”
