U.S. Military Counter-NarcoTerrorism Operations in the Americas; Mexican Cartels’ Illegal Gold Trafficking Business; and the Booming Hemispheric Illicit Trade

David M. Luna, ICAIE Executive Director

In recent weeks, the U.S. military – through Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) operations – has conducted numerous strikes against two suspected Venezuelan drug vessels in the U.S. Government’s efforts to fight international drug cartels and transnational criminal organizations (TCOs) in a campaign to disrupt their violence and the illicit trafficking operations related to deadly fentanyl, cocaine, humans, weapons, counterfeits, and other illegal goods and contraband. These criminal threat networks continue to diversify their criminality, while destabilizing peace and security throughout the Western Hemisphere.

On February 19, 2025, the U.S. Department of State formally designated 8 criminal organizations with origins or ties to Latin America as Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs) and Specially Designated Global Terrorists (SDGTs). The list comprises the Mara Salvatrucha; and the Tren de Aragua, as well as 6 Mexican criminal groups: the Sinaloa Cartel, Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), the Northeast Cartel, the Gulf Cartel, the United Cartels, the Michoacán Family.

On May 2, 2025, the United States added 2 Haitian gangs – Viv Ansanm and Gran Grif –to the list of FTOs.

On July 25, 2025, the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) designated the Cartel de los Soles (Cartel of the Suns), a Venezuelan criminal group, as an SDGT. Cartel de los Soles is a Venezuela-based criminal group headed by Nicolas Maduro Moros and other high-ranking Venezuelan individuals in the Maduro regime that provides material support to foreign terrorist organizations threatening the peace and security of the United States, namely Tren de Aragua and the Sinaloa Cartel.

On August 7, 2025, the U.S. Department of State and the U.S. Department of Justice announced a Reward Offer Increase of up to $50 Million for Information leading to arrest and/or conviction of Nicolás Maduro (leader of Venezuela’s Cartel de los Soles). The U.S. Government is also offering a reward of up to $10 million for information leading to the disruption of the financial mechanisms of the earlier designated Mexican cartels and other transnational criminal organizations noted above.

The White House has overseen a significant buildup of troops in the region to counter drug trafficking and related criminality, with 8 Navy ships and 10 F-35 fighter jets assigned to U.S. Southern Command. According to photographs published by Reuters, at least one armed MQ-9 Reaper drone has also been located at a civilian airport in Puerto Rico.

Following the FTO designation of cartels, the U.S. government argues that it now can use a broader range of authorities and tools to combat designated threat networks as part of their counter narco-terrorism operations.

These tools include:

·         expanding prosecution capabilities,

·         freezing assets, using broad forfeiture authorities,

·         imposing sanctions, and

·         deploying intelligence and military assets. 

On September 15, 2025, the United States formally designated the following countries in Latin America and the Caribbean (in bold below) as having failed demonstrably during the previous 12 months to both adhere to their obligations under international counternarcotics agreements and to take the measures required to more effective fight organized crime and narco-trafficking: Afghanistan, The Bahamas, Belize, Bolivia, Burma, the People’s Republic of China (PRC), Colombia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, India, Jamaica, Laos, Mexico, Nicaragua, Pakistan, Panama, Peru, and Venezuela.

Today, South America is an inter-linked hub of convergence crimes that facilitates scores of billions of dollars in illicit profits for drug cartels, transnational criminal organizations (TCOs), violent prison gangs, terrorist financiers, and other extra-regional threat networks.

The confluence of hemispheric illicit hot zones and cross-border touchpoints nurture an ecosystem of criminality involving financial fraud, cybercrime, and the trafficking and smuggling of humans, deadly fentanyl and narcotics, counterfeit medicines/pharmaceuticals and other illicit goods, endangered fauna and flora species, illegally-mined gold, illegal tobacco, and stolen critical minerals, for example.

The illicit profits derived from such crimes are laundered throughout the region, and globally.  As of 2024, illicit trade has emerged as a Top 5 World Economy (GDP), yielding drug cartels, TCOs, and other bad actors and threat networks at least $3-5 trillion a year.  The United Nations has estimated that the dirty money laundered annually from such illicit activities constitutes up to five percent of global gross domestic product, or at least $4 trillion.

From the expansion of the Mexican cartels’ illicit businesses in South America to the cocaine traffickers in Colombia and Venezuela to extra-regional criminal networks’ presence in Andean markets of Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador, and Peru, and along the Atlantic-Caribbean criminalized corridors in Argentina, Brazil, Guyana, and Suriname and all other illicit superhighways stretching from the northern Amazon to the southern Tri-Border Area, money laundering is financing greater illicit economies throughout the region, and beyond. 

According to a July 2025 Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) report, Mexico’s most powerful criminal organization has extended its tentacles into countries like Bolivia, Peru, and Colombia to keep filling its coffers. The NGO estimates that from 2019 to the current year, the CJNG cartel’s earnings from the trafficking of mercury alone (needed for illegal gold mining activities) — a substance considered one of the ten most lethal chemicals in the world — amount to approximately $8 billion.

Illicit gold mining and trafficking are booming in Colombia, and other South American countries, as drug cartels and TCOs reinvest profits from the illegal cocaine and fentanyl trade to expand into the mining sectors and other lucrative industries.  Much of the laundering through gold operations often use anonymous shell companies, false documents, and the use of strategic corruption.

Public-private partnerships and intelligence-sharing are force multipliers and critical approaches to fight today’s violent drug cartels and TCOs.

Utilizing diplomacy to strengthen political will and law enforcement cooperation can lead to greater judicial action and accountability within hubs of illicit trade. Cross-border cooperation, including between public and private actors, can lead to synergies necessary for disrupting such threat networks across supply chains as well as fighting related corruption and money laundering (following the money and value trails).

Finally, applying diplomatic pressure can be effective to encourage more robust law enforcement actions and to ensure there are no holes in the net for criminals to escape their illicit behaviors, launder their dirty money, and finance greater hemispheric insecurity and instability.

Find also my interview earlier this evening with EWTN News Nightly: Trump Administration Escalates Counter-Narcotics Campaign, here.

David M. Luna is the executive director of the International Coalition Against Illicit Economies (ICAIE), a former U.S. diplomat and national security official, and co-founder of The Illicit Economies of the Shadowverse. Mr. Luna is also a former chair of: the OECD Task Force on Countering Illicit Trade and the Business at OECD (BIAC) Anti-Illicit Trade Expert Group (AITEG); the Anti-Illicit Trade Committee of the U.S. Council for International Business (USCIB). Mr. Luna is a member of The Business 20 (B20/G20) Integrity & Compliance Task Force; chair of numerous diplomatic fora expert groups on organized crime and transnational threats during his time with the U.S. Government; and a senior fellow for national security and co-director of the Anti-Illicit Trade Institute (AITI), at the Terrorism, Transnational Crime and Corruption Center (TraCCC), Schar School of Policy and Government, George Mason University.