terrorism

U.S. designates Juárez Cartel, Los Viagras as terrorist organizations

• The U.S. Treasury Department has designated Mexico's Juárez Cartel and Los Viagras as foreign terrorist organizations, bringing the total number of Mexican cartels under the designation to eight.
• The Juárez Cartel, founded in the 1970s and based in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, controls trafficking routes along the Texas and New Mexico border and maintains a presence in U.S. prisons.
• Los Viagras, based in the western state of Michoacán, is accused of trafficking cocaine and methamphetamine produced in Mexico into the United States.
• DEA Administrator Terrance Cole said at the Fentanyl-Free America Summit that there is a "deadly connection" between drug cartels and Mexican government authorities, calling them "one and the same" or "inseparable."
• Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum rejected Cole's allegations as politically motivated statements unsupported by evidence and defended her administration's anti-drug trafficking results.