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    Cartel Family Members Crossed Into U.S., Mexican Official Says

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    Mexico’s security secretary confirmed reports that 17 family members of Sinaloa Cartel leaders had crossed into the United States, likely as part of a deal with the Trump administration.A group of family members of Sinaloa Cartel leaders crossed into the United States last week, likely as part of a deal with the Trump administration, Mexico’s secretary of security said on Tuesday evening.For days, rumors had spread that 17 relatives, including the ex-wife of the crime boss known as El Chapo, had flown from a cartel stronghold to Tijuana, Mexico, and then crossed into the United States. A news outlet, Pie de Nota, reported that they had surrendered to U.S. federal authorities there, citing anonymous sources.The Sinaloa Cartel, co-founded by Joaquín Guzmán Loera, known as El Chapo, is one of the most powerful criminal groups in the world, although it has been divided by violence between rival factions as several of its leaders face prison and prosecution in the United States.When asked about reports that the family members had entered the United States on Monday, President Claudia Sheinbaum of Mexico said “there is no more information” than what she had seen.But the security secretary, Omar García Harfuch, then confirmed late Tuesday that relatives of the cartel leader Ovidio Guzmán López, one of El Chapo’s four sons, had surrendered to American authorities. Mr. Guzmán López was extradited to the United States in 2023.“It is evident that his family is going to the U.S. because of a negotiation or a plea bargain that the Department of Justice is giving him,” Mr. García Harfuch told the Mexican network Radio Fórmula.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Mexican Mayor Implicated in Drug Cartel Ranch Inquiry

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      The mayor of Teuchitlán is the first government official to have been arrested in connection with the case. Prosecutors accuse him of colluding with the cartel.The mayor of a small Mexican town has been accused of colluding with one of the country’s most violent drug cartels to operate a recruitment and training center that was uncovered in March.The mayor, José Asunción Murguía Santiago was charged with organized crime offenses and forced disappearance, prosecutors said at a hearing on Friday.The site of the center, in the western state of Jalisco, gained notoriety after volunteer searchers announced the discovery of hundreds of shoes piled together, heaps of clothing and what seemed to be human bone fragments found in an abandoned ranch surrounded by sugar cane fields in Teuchitlán, a town outside Guadalajara, sending shock waves across the nation. The searchers claimed the ranch was the site of human cremations, but authorities have since said there is no proof of that.The allegations against Mr. Murguía Santiago served as a stinging reminder of Mexican officials’ long history of collusion with organized crime, at a time when President Trump has proposed using American troops to crack down on cartels. Mexico’s president refused.Attorney General Alejandro Gertz said last week that until recently the ranch in Teuchitlán had been used by the Jalisco New Generation Cartel for training and recruiting. Mexican officials have said that the cartel lured new recruits with fake job offers to the ranch.But in a departure from previous comments, Mr. Gertz insisted that there was no proof of cremations carried out there, and said claims that the site had been an “extermination camp” were unfounded. Volunteer groups have disputed the federal findings, insisting that 17 batches of charred human remains, including teeth and bone fragments, have been recovered from the ranch.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      In Mexico, a Grisly Discovery of Piles of Shoes, Ovens and Human Remains

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      The authorities are investigating the discovery of cremation ovens, human remains, piles of shoes and other personal effects at an abandoned ranch outside Guadalajara.A group of volunteers searching for their missing relatives first received a tip last week about a mass grave hidden in western Mexico.When they arrived at an abandoned ranch outside La Estanzuela, a small rural village outside Guadalajara, they discovered three underground cremation ovens, burned human remains, hundreds of bone shards and discarded personal items, along with figurines of Santa Muerte — the Holy Death.The Mexican authorities, who were notified of the grisly discovery, said in several statements that they later found 96 shell casings of various calibers and metal gripping rings at the ranch. By last Friday, the discovery was dominating local newspapers and TV reports, and the search group was referring to the site as an “extermination camp.”It is unclear how many people died on the site, and none of remains have been identified. The authorities have yet to say who operated the camp, what crimes were committed there and for how long. But this week, the Attorney General’s Office took over the investigation at the request of President Claudia Sheinbaum.Photos taken by the authorities and by the volunteer group, Searching Warriors of Jalisco, at the abandoned ranch showed more than 200 shoes piled together and heaps of other personal items: a blue summer dress, a small pink backpack, notebooks, pieces of underwear. The more than 700 personal items were a chilling hint about the number of people who may have died there.In a country seemingly inured to episodes of brutal violence from drug cartels, where clandestine graves emerge every month, the images shocked Mexicans and prompted outraged human rights groups to demand that the government put an end to the violence that has ravaged the nation for years.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      2 Top Leaders of Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel, Including ‘El Mayo,’ in U.S. Custody

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      The two men, Ismael Zambada García and Joaquín Guzmán López, run the Sinaloa Cartel, one of the most dominant criminal groups in Mexico. American law enforcement officials arrested two top leaders of the powerful Sinaloa Cartel, one of the most dominant criminal organizations in Mexico, the Justice Department said on Thursday.The two operatives, Ismael Zambada García and Joaquín Guzmán López, are among the most powerful drug traffickers in Mexico and command massive transnational cocaine and fentanyl businesses that move narcotics into the United States, Europe and elsewhere. The Sinaloa Cartel they help lead is one of the two biggest drug trafficking groups in Mexico, and is among the most sophisticated and dangerous criminal enterprises in the world. Both men were in custody in El Paso, Texas. “Fentanyl is the deadliest drug threat our country has ever faced,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement. “The Justice Department will not rest until every single cartel leader, member, and associate responsible for poisoning our communities is held accountable.”Mr. Zambada García, 76, who is known as “El Mayo,” has been pursued by the U.S. government for years as a co-founder of the Sinaloa Cartel and has been charged in several federal indictments stretching back more than two decades.Mr. Guzmán López is a son of the notorious crime boss Joaquín Guzmán Loera, known as El Chapo, and is said to have been elevated to a leadership role in the cartel along with his three other brothers after the extradition of his father to the United States in 2017. His brother Ovidio Guzmán López was arrested in Mexico and extradited to stand trial in Chicago in September.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      U.S.D.A. Suspends Avocado Inspections in Mexico, Citing Security Concerns

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      The move, prompted by fears for agency workers’ safety, could eventually affect U.S. avocado supplies if the inspections are not resumed.Security concerns for agency workers have led the United States Agriculture Department to suspend its inspections of avocados and mangos imported from Mexico “until further notice,” the U.S.D.A. said on Monday.Produce already cleared for export will not be affected by the decision, but avocado supplies in the United States, which mostly come from the Mexican state of Michoacán, could eventually be affected if the inspections are not resumed. The inspections “will remain paused until the security situation is reviewed and protocols and safeguards are in place,” a U.S.D.A. spokesman said in an email. The agency did not say what had prompted the security concerns. But Mexican news outlets recently reported that two U.S.D.A. inspectors had been illegally detained at a checkpoint run by community members. In Michoacán, which stretches from the mountains west of Mexico City to the Pacific Ocean, some Indigenous communities have set up security patrols to defend themselves against criminal groups.The United States Embassy in Mexico confirmed on Monday that the inspectors were no longer in detention.“The interruption of avocado exports from Michoacán was due to an incident unrelated to the avocado industry,” Julio Sahagún Calderón, the president of Mexico’s association of avocado producers and packers, known as APEAM, said in a statement. He added that the group was working “intensively” with Mexican and U.S. authorities to resume the inspection of avocados from Michoacán.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Kristi Noem, South Dakota Governor and Trump VP Contender, Is Barred by Tribes

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      Four of South Dakota’s federally recognized Native American tribes have barred the state’s governor, Kristi Noem — a Republican whose name has been floated as a potential running mate for former President Donald J. Trump — from their reservations. The latest blocked Ms. Noem on Thursday.Three of the tribes barred Ms. Noem this month, joining another tribe that had sanctioned the governor after she told state lawmakers in February that Mexican drug cartels had a foothold on their reservations and were committing murders there.Ms. Noem further angered the tribes with remarks she made at a town hall event last month in Winner, S.D., appearing to suggest that the tribes were complicit in the cartels’ presence on their reservations.“We’ve got some tribal leaders that I believe are personally benefiting from the cartels being there, and that’s why they attack me every day,” Ms. Noem said.The tribes are the Cheyenne River Sioux, the Rosebud Sioux and the Standing Rock Sioux and the Oglala Sioux, which in February became the first group to bar Ms. Noem from its reservation. Their reservations have a combined population of nearly 50,000 people and encompass more than eight million acres, according to state and federal government counts. Standing Rock Indian Reservation, the third tribal area to have restricted Ms. Noem’s access, extends into North Dakota.The tribes have accused Ms. Noem of stoking fears and denigrating their heritage when she referred to a gang known as the Ghost Dancers while addressing state lawmakers and said that it had recruited tribal members to join its criminal activities.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Ex-Honduras President Juan Orlando Hernández Denies Trafficking Drugs

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      Juan Orlando Hernández, who is accused of conspiring to import cocaine into the United States, also denied receiving a bribe from the Mexican drug lord El Chapo.The former two-term president of Honduras denied in court on Tuesday that he had trafficked narcotics, offered police protection to drug cartels or taken bribes — assertions that have been at the heart of a conspiracy trial taking place in Manhattan.The former president, Juan Orlando Hernández, has been on trial for two weeks in Federal District Court, facing charges that he conspired to import cocaine into the United States. Prosecutors said that he worked with ruthless drug gangs like the Sinaloa Cartel, led by the Mexican drug lord Joaquín Guzman Loera, better known as El Chapo.Government witnesses have included a string of former traffickers from Honduras who testified that they bribed Mr. Hernández in return for promises that he would insulate them from investigations and protect them from extradition to the United States.Dressed in a dark suit with a blue shirt and tie, Mr. Hernández sat up straight during his testimony and sometimes gave long, discursive answers that prompted the judge overseeing the trial to rein him in.At other times his answers were terse.“Did you ever receive a bribe from El Chapo?” one of Mr. Hernández’s lawyers asked at one point.“Never,” Mr. Hernández replied.He gave the same answer to successive questions about whether he had ever met El Chapo, his traffickers or anyone purporting to be a member of the Sinaloa cartel.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Ex-President Made Honduras a Safe Haven for Drug Gangs, Prosecutors Say

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      The former president, Juan Orlando Hernández, goes on trial Wednesday in Manhattan, accused of years of misrule funded by cocaine proceeds.Brick after brick of cocaine flowed for years into the United States from countries like Venezuela and Colombia, all of it funneled through the tiny Central American nation of Honduras.Aircraft flown from clandestine dirt airstrips and smuggler vessels disguised as fishing trawlers found a safe haven there, U.S. officials said. And the ruthless gangs that operated them, the officials said, had a partner and protector in the country’s two-term president, Juan Orlando Hernández.Opening arguments in Mr. Hernández’s trial on conspiracy to import narcotics are scheduled for Wednesday in Federal District Court in Manhattan. He is accused of taking part in a scheme that lasted more than 20 years and brought more than 500 kilograms of cocaine into the United States.Mr. Hernández used proceeds to finance his presidential campaigns, U.S. officials said, then directed the Honduran police and military to protect the smugglers who paid him off. One accused co-conspirator was killed in a Honduran prison as part of an effort to protect Mr. Hernández, according to an indictment.When he was extradited to New York in 2022, U.S. officials said Mr. Hernández sanctioned violence and reveled in his ability to flood America with cocaine. The former president’s brother was said to have told a trafficker that Mr. Hernández was going to “stuff the drugs right up the noses of the gringos.”That brother, Tony Hernández, who had served in the Honduran Congress, was convicted in 2019 of conspiring to import cocaine into the United States and sentenced to life imprisonment.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      GOP Voters Show Appetite for Calls to Use Military Force Against Mexican Cartels

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      G.O.P. candidates on the trail have used the idea as both an effective applause line and a solution for what many Republicans see as an unchecked border.Iowa is more than 1,000 miles from the U.S. border with Mexico. But Republican primary voters in the Midwestern state have embraced what has become almost orthodoxy among the G.O.P. candidates vying for their votes: deploying military forces to fight drug cartels and secure the border.Just years after former President Donald Trump mused about it in the Oval Office, the idea of using the country’s military might at the border — without the consent of the Mexican government — has made its way into barns, diners and other haunts along the campaign trail. The Times reported Tuesday on Mr. Trump’s plans to make the idea a reality in 2025 should he ultimately win the White House.At a Pizza Ranch restaurant in Orange City, Iowa, last month, Vivek Ramaswamy suggested that the United States should “use our own military to secure our own southern border.” He drew cheers before he finished the line: “and if necessary, our northern border, too.”Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina received claps for his border policy pronouncements at the Iowa State Fair in August, during which he said, “We have to crush the cartels.” He added that the United States had “the available military-grade technology to stop the fentanyl flow across our borders.”And one of the most reliable applause lines for Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida — who frequently promises military strikes against Mexican drug cartels and deadly force against people crossing the border — has involved a declaration that his administration would leave drug traffickers “stone-cold dead.”A Reuters/Ipsos poll found that around two-thirds of Republicans support the idea of military intervention to take on cartels, though that percentage dropped when respondents were asked whether the United States should do so without Mexico’s permission.Unilaterally sending U.S. troops into Mexico is a nonstarter for President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who said the move would constitute “an offense to the people of Mexico.” Policy experts and even senior aides in the Trump administration also decried the prospect as an extreme escalation.But that hasn’t stopped G.O.P. presidential candidates from using the threat of taking out cartel members abroad through military force as both an effective rallying cry and a solution for what many Republicans see as an unchecked border and an opioid epidemic, even if promises of military intervention may prove difficult to keep.The line has received a warm welcome in other early voting states, too. Nikki Haley, who served as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations under Mr. Trump, often pledges to send special military operations “to take out the cartels in Mexico.”At an event in Hampton, New Hampshire, last month, it really landed. “If Mexico is not going to do it, we will do it,” she told a crowd outside a cozy bed-and-breakfast, who began clapping before she finished her delivery. The small state has been ravaged by fentanyl. Few candidates have offered alternate thoughts. Former Gov. Asa Hutchinson, who once led the Drug Enforcement Administration, has rebutted the idea of military intervention — a response that might partly explain why Mr. Hutchinson did not even make the G.O.P. debate stage last week.“It doesn’t make sense, as some candidates say, that we ought to start dropping bombs or invade Mexico,” Mr. Hutchinson said at a Republican tailgate for an Iowa-Iowa State football game in September. “Mexico is still a friendly country to the United States and economic partner, and you don’t invade another country.”The crowd didn’t seem convinced: Many resumed chatting or searched for refreshments during his remarks.Nicholas Nehamas More