Free Republic

WASHINGTON (AP) — Mexico sent 26 high-ranking cartel figures to the United States Tuesday in the latest major deal with the Trump administration as American authorities ratchet up pressure on criminal networks smuggling drugs across the border. Those handed over to U.S. custody include Abigael González Valencia, a leader of “Los Cuinis,” a group closely aligned with notorious cartel Jalisco New Generation or CJNG. Another defendant, Roberto Salazar, is wanted in connection to the 2008 killing of a Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy. Other prominent figures have ties to the Sinaloa Cartel and other violent drug trafficking groups. The transfers...

One of the Sinaloa cartel leaders who launched a struggle for control of the gang following the re-arrest of Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman was captured Tuesday ... Damaso Lopez, known by the nickname "El Licenciado" — a title for college graduates. Lopez was long considered Guzman's right-hand man and helped him escape from a Mexican prison in 2001. Lopez, 51, is believed to have been locked in a dispute with Guzman's sons for control of the cartel's territories. The head of Mexico's federal detectives' agency, Omar Garcia Harfuch, said Lopez was "one of the main instigators of violence in Sinaloa...

A drug cartel in Mexico is forcing new members into cannibalism and started sharing videos of gang members feasting on the hearts of their enemies. The Jalisco New Generation Cartel took sickening footage of one of its members eating a rivals' heart straight from his mutilated chest in Zacatecas state last month. The CJNG gang has become one of the most dominant cartels in the country and operates in at least 35 states across Mexico and Puerto Rico. It is led by by Nemesio 'El Mencho' Oseguera Cervantes and has started to incorporate cannibalism as part of its methods of...

6 illegal immigrants linked to Mexican cartel arrested in NC for drug trafficking operation, officials saySix illegal immigrants with ties to a Mexican drug cartel — a rival of the powerful Sinaloa cartel, whose notorious leader Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman was convicted last week — were arrested in an elaborate drug trafficking operation in North Carolina, according to reports. The massive drug operation included transporting large amounts of cocaine and methamphetamine across state lines — for instance, from Texas to Georgia and North Carolina, WSOC reported. The feds identified the suspects as Oscar Rangel-Gutierrez, Regulo Rangel-Gutierrez, Francisco Garcia-Martinez, Rodolfo Martinez,...