US adds Juárez Cartel, Los Viagras to foreign terrorist list

Mexicocity,UPDATED: Jul 16, 2026 19:50 IST

The US government has designated two more Mexican cartels as foreign terrorist organisations, adding the Jurez Cartel and Los Viagras to a list that already includes six other Mexican criminal groups such as the Sinaloa Cartel and the Jalisco New Generation Cartel. The designation was published on Thursday in the Federal Register, the US government's gazette.

The move extends a policy begun by President Donald Trump in February 2025, when his administration started applying the terrorist label to Latin American cartels to let US authorities take more aggressive action against them and against those seen as helping them. Gangs from Venezuela, Brazil, Ecuador and El Salvador have also been designated as foreign terrorist organisations by the Trump administration.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said both groups either have committed terrorist acts or pose a serious risk of committing acts that threaten the security of US nationals, or the national security, foreign policy or economy of the United States. The measure adds to pressure on Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum's administration after 10 current and former officials from Sinaloa state were indicted over alleged ties to the Sinaloa Cartel, and amid controversy over US operations in Mexico.

The Jurez Cartel is one of Mexico's oldest drug trafficking organisations and has for decades controlled Ciudad Jurez, a key crossing point on the Mexico-US border opposite El Paso, Texas. Its founder, Amado Carrillo Fuentes, was known as "El Seor de los Cielos" for moving large drug shipments by light aircraft in the 1990s. His successors, including his brothers and sons, turned the trafficking of tons of drugs into a multimillion-dollar business. Despite the arrests of many leaders, the cartel and allied gangs have kept control of a large smuggling network into the US. According to Mexican analyst David Saucedo, the designation is important because it could allow the US to act more decisively along the border, where the Gulf Cartel and the Northeast Cartel, both based at the eastern end of the border with Texas, were declared terrorist organisations in February 2025.

Los Viagras is a local cartel in the western state of Michoacn, where two other criminal groups, Crteles Unidos and La Nueva Familia Michoacana, have already been designated as terrorist organisations. The group emerged after the 2013-2014 armed uprising led by farmers, which drove out many older cartels but was followed by the rise of new ones. Los Viagras is led by Nicols Sierra Santana, who was formally indicted in the District of Columbia in June 2025 on charges of conspiracy to traffic drugs. The US State Department is offering a USD 5 million reward for information leading to his capture.

The group has shifted alliances to tighten its regional hold through extortion. It also produces synthetic drugs and sells them to other cartels that move them into the United States. With the Jurez Cartel and Los Viagras now added to the list, the US has widened its use of the terrorist designation against criminal groups in Mexico and across Latin America.

With PTI Inputs

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