For years, American authorities and fishermen have complained about illegal red snapper fishing in the Gulf of Mexico. Now it has been revealed who is behind the lucrative trade: a Mexican drug cartel.
The US Treasury Department sanctions announced Tuesday against members of the Gulf Drug Cartelwhich operates in the border towns of Reynosa and Matamoros, across from McAllen and Brownsville, Texas.
Although commercial fishing and drug cartels may seem like an unlikely combination, it makes perfect sense for a criminal organization.
The department says the cartel uses fishing boats to facilitate drug and migrant smuggling; Along the way, the boats catch tons of red snapper, a commercially valuable but vulnerable species. Boats often depart from Playa Bagdad, east of Matamoros on the Gulf Coast.
“The Gulf Cartel engages in the illicit trade of red snapper species and sharks through ‘lancha’ operations based in Playa Baghdad,” the department said. “In addition to their use for IUU (illegal, unregulated, or unreported) fishing in U.S. waters, lanchas are also used to transport illicit drugs and migrants to the United States. »
To top it all off, these Mexican boats, often based in Playa Bagdad, sell their catch in Mexican border towns, where they are sometimes shipped to Texas for resale in the American market.
This comes as U.S. fishermen had to adhere to strict seasonal limits or closures intended to protect fish populations.
“Because fishing for snapper and shark species is subject to strict limits in the United States and these species are therefore more abundant in American waters, Mexican fishermen cross American waters to fish via these lanchas,” said the department.
“They then bring their catch back to lancha camps in Mexico, where the product is ultimately sold and, often, exported to the United States,” it continues. “This activity brings millions per year to the lancha camps. Furthermore, it also leads to the death of other marine species caught inadvertently” on the long lines of baited hooks used by boats.
US Treasury Department
The Treasury announced on Tuesday that it was designating five people linked to the illegal fishing cartel — Ildelfonso Carrillo Sapien (aka “El Chivo”), Raul Decuir Garcia (aka “La Burra”), Ismael Guerra Salinas (aka “El Comandante”), Omar Guerra Salinas (aka “Samorano”), and Francisco Javier Sierra Angulo (aka “El Borrado”).
History of illegal fishing
This is not the first time that cartels have been involved in illegal fishing in Mexico. Experts say other drug cartels are involved in the banned totoaba gillnet fishery in the Gulf of California, also known as the Sea of Cortés, threatening the world’s most endangered porpoise, the marina vaquita.
Among those named under Tuesday’s sanctions — which block all their U.S. assets — are local Gulf Cartel leaders in Playa Baghdad, as well as two fishing camp owners there.
The problem of illegal fishing has become so serious that in 2022 the U.S. government banned Mexican fishing vessels from entering U.S. ports in the Gulf of Mexico, arguing that the Mexican government had not done enough to prevent its boats from fishing illegally in American waters.
Mexican fishing boats in the Gulf “are prohibited from entering U.S. ports and will be denied port access and services,” the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration wrote in a 2022 report. According to a NOAA bulletin dated September 10, 2024, these restrictions remain. in place.
Small Mexican boats frequently use banned longlines or nets to transport snapper into U.S. waters, which can harm other marine species, such as sharks.
NOAA said in a previous report that the U.S. Coast Guard had apprehended dozens of Mexican boats in the Gulf, including repeat offenders that had been interdicted multiple times since 2014.
He noted that the United States imported nearly five tons of fresh and frozen red snapper from Mexico in 2018, raising concerns that “these imports may have included fish caught illegally in U.S. waters.”
US recently targets cartels
In recent months, the U.S. Treasury has imposed sanctions on cartels for a variety of reasons – from drug trafficking to fuel theft to timeshare scams.
In October, the United States senior members sanctioned of the armed wing of a Mexican drug cartel that operates in and around the border territories of Chihuahua, Mexico. The cartel has also been linked to the 2019 ambush that killed nine Americans in Mexico.
In September, the United States sanctioned a man known as “The Tank” who allegedly leads the fuel theft branch of the Mexican hyper-violent group Jalisco Next Generation Cartel.
In July, the United States imposed sanctions on a group of Mexican accountants and businesses allegedly linked to a timeshare fraud network run by the Jalisco Cartel as part of a multi-million dollar scheme targeting Americans.
The previous month, U.S. authorities announced economic sanctions against eight targets affiliated with the Mexican drug cartel, La Nueva Familia Michoacana, accused of trafficking fentanyl and human trafficking. Among the leaders targeted was an alleged assassin named Uriel Tabares Martinez. According to the Treasury Department, he is known as “El Medico” (“The Doctor”) because of the violent and surgical manner in which he torture and kills those who cross high-ranking cartel members.