Trump list of US-designated ‘foreign terrorist organizations’ in Latin America grows to 21

The Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion has des­ig­nat­ed 21 Latin Amer­i­can and Caribbean crim­i­nal groups as “for­eign ter­ror­ist or­ga­ni­za­tions,” with the lat­est an Ecuado­ri­an group added to the list on Wednes­day.

The an­nounce­ment came dur­ing the U.S. Sec­re­tary of State Mar­co Ru­bio’s vis­it to Colom­bia, Ecuador and Pe­ru where he is fo­cused the U.S. strat­e­gy to com­bat drug traf­fick­ing in Latin Amer­i­ca.

The la­bel was once re­served for groups like the Is­lam­ic State group or al-Qai­da that use vi­o­lence for po­lit­i­cal ends — not for mon­ey-fo­cused crime rings. But Trump’s aim was to in­crease pres­sure on the groups and any­one who the U.S. sees as aid­ing them.

The strat­e­gy rolled out in Feb­ru­ary 2025 and served as a pre­text for the cap­ture of Venezue­lan Nicolás Maduro, and for dozens of at­tacks on al­leged “nar­coter­ror­ist” boats, re­sult­ing in more than 200 deaths. It al­so led Latin Amer­i­can coun­tries such as Guatemala and Ar­genti­na to take sim­i­lar ac­tions against cer­tain groups and states like Ecuador to launch joint op­er­a­tions on Ecuado­ri­an soil.

Mex­i­co, with eight groups on the list, has the most of any coun­try. Its gov­ern­ment is un­der ex­treme pres­sure from the U.S. to avoid Trump uni­lat­er­al ac­tions, es­pe­cial­ly since the in­dict­ments of high-rank­ing of­fi­cials in Sinaloa state.

But Trump’s ap­proach has al­so re­vealed con­tra­dic­tions. For­mer Hon­duras Pres­i­dent Juan Or­lan­do Hernán­dez, sen­tenced to 45 years for drug traf­fick­ing and ac­cused dur­ing the tri­al to pro­tect the Sinaloa Car­tel, was par­doned by Trump last year and has re­turned to his coun­try.

Here’s a look at the 21 Latin Amer­i­can and Caribbean crim­i­nal groups la­belled as for­eign ter­ror­ist or­ga­ni­za­tions:

MEX­I­CO

1. The main tar­gets: Sinaloa and Jalis­co New Gen­er­a­tion car­tels

The Sinaloa Car­tel and the Jalis­co New Gen­er­a­tion Car­tel, named for the states that are their strong­holds in north­west­ern Mex­i­co, are multi­na­tion­al crim­i­nal groups and the largest fen­tanyl traf­fick­ers in­to the U.S.

The Sinaloa Car­tel is Mex­i­co’s old­est crim­i­nal or­ga­ni­za­tion dat­ing back to the 1970s. It is a crim­i­nal con­glom­er­ate that moves all sorts of drugs across con­ti­nents us­ing boats, planes, mi­grants and cross-bor­der tun­nels.

A for­mer se­cu­ri­ty chief was con­vict­ed of help­ing them. It con­trols the west­ern por­tion of the U.S.-Mex­i­co bor­der al­though the ar­rest of Is­mael “El Mayo” Zam­ba­da set off in­ter­nal jock­ey­ing for pow­er and weak­ened the group.

The Jalis­co New Gen­er­a­tion Car­tel, es­tab­lished in the ear­ly 2010s, is a hy­per­vi­o­lent group that has at­tacked Mex­i­can au­thor­i­ties us­ing ex­plo­sive-drop­ping drones and im­pro­vised ex­plo­sive de­vices. It at­tempt­ed a spec­tac­u­lar as­sas­si­na­tion of the then-Mex­i­co City po­lice chief — now Mex­i­co’s se­cu­ri­ty sec­re­tary — in the heart of the cap­i­tal.

The DEA says the group now dis­trib­utes tons of co­caine, metham­phet­a­mine and fen­tanyl in all 50 U.S. states. Jalis­co Car­tel has re­mained pow­er­ful fol­low­ing the killing of its leader Neme­sio Os­eguera, “El Men­cho” in Feb­ru­ary and on­go­ing cap­tures.

2. Con­trol of the Texas bor­der: Gulf Car­tel, North­east Car­tel and Juarez Car­tel

The Gulf Car­tel and the North­east Car­tel op­er­ate along the east­ern end mov­ing drugs, im­mi­grants, guns and mon­ey in what is the most di­rect route to the U.S. from Cen­tral and South Amer­i­ca.

Gulf Car­tel’s for­mer leader, Osiel Cár­de­nas Guil­lén (now im­pris­oned in Mex­i­co af­ter serv­ing a sen­tence in the U.S.), re­cruit­ed mem­bers of Mex­i­co’s mil­i­tary in the late 1990s to form a fear­some el­e­ment known as the Ze­tas that even­tu­al­ly split and be­came their own drug traf­fick­ing or­ga­ni­za­tion. The North­east Car­tel is a rem­nant of the Ze­tas and their base is Nue­vo Lare­do, the busiest com­mer­cial port on the U.S.-Mex­i­co bor­der.

Juarez Car­tel has con­trolled for decades a key cross­ing point in the cen­tral part of the Mex­i­co-U. S. bor­der: Ciu­dad Juárez, across from El Pa­so, Texas. Both its founder, Ama­do Car­ril­lo Fuentes and the broth­ers and sons who suc­ceed­ed him, turned the traf­fick­ing of tons of drugs in­to a mul­ti­mil­lion-dol­lar busi­ness. De­spite the ar­rests of many of its lead­ers, the car­tel and its al­lied gangs main­tained con­trol of a vast in­fra­struc­ture for smug­gling il­le­gal ship­ments in­to the U.S.

3. Lo­cal car­tels in a key west­ern state: La Fa­mil­ia, Carte­les Unidos and Vi­a­gras

These lo­cal or­ga­nized crime groups op­er­at­ing in the west-cen­tral Mex­i­can state of Mi­choa­can pro­duce syn­thet­ic drugs and have con­sol­i­dat­ed their re­gion­al con­trol of the ter­ri­to­ry through ex­tor­tion and shift­ing names, loy­al­ties and al­liances.

La Fa­mil­ia Mi­choa­cana , now re­named “Nue­va Fa­mil­ia Mi­choa­cana” is the old­est. The oth­er two, for­mer al­lies, emerged fol­low­ing the 2013-2014 armed up­ris­ing led by farm­ers who suc­ceed­ed in dri­ving out many of the old car­tels, on­ly to see them re­placed by new ones.

Their ex­tor­tion af­fects all eco­nom­ic sec­tors, in­clud­ing a key Mex­i­can ex­port to the U.S.: av­o­ca­dos.

CEN­TRAL AMER­I­CA

4. Bar­rio 18 and Mara Sal­va­trucha

Bar­rio 18 and Mara Sal­va­trucha, al­so known as MS-13, are both large­ly based in El Sal­vador, Guatemala and Hon­duras. They orig­i­nat­ed in Los An­ge­les as a street gangs cre­at­ed by Sal­vado­ran im­mi­grants. When many of their mem­bers were de­port­ed from the U.S. to El Sal­vador, the gangs ex­pand­ed and gained pow­er across Cen­tral Amer­i­ca, where they con­tin­ue to ter­ror­ize com­mu­ni­ties.

In re­cent years, both groups have been dealt a pow­er­ful blow by El Sal­vador Pres­i­dent Nay­ib Bukele, who has waged war on the coun­try’s gangs, im­pris­on­ing more than 80,000 peo­ple for al­leged gang ties. Last Oc­to­ber, Guatemala al­so de­signed both gangs as ter­ror­ists and tough­ened laws against them.

COLOM­BIA

5. Clan del Gol­fo

With an es­ti­mat­ed 9,000 fight­ers, Clan del Gol­fo is one of Colom­bia’s most pow­er­ful armed groups. Al­so known by its Span­ish acronym AGC, the group evolved from right-wing para­mil­i­tary squads that fought Marx­ist guer­ril­las in Colom­bia in the 1990s and 2000s.

Ac­cord­ing to a re­port of the Hu­man Rights De­fend­er’s Of­fice, AGC is present in about a third of Colom­bia’s 1,103 mu­nic­i­pal­i­ties, where it ex­torts lo­cal busi­ness­es.

Clan del Gol­fo was in­volved in peace talks with Colom­bia’s gov­ern­ment last year, but those talks dis­solved with the elec­tion of Abelar­do de la Es­priel­la as pres­i­dent.

VENEZUELA

6. Tren de Aragua

This or­ga­nized crime group emerged from a prison in cen­tral Venezuela more than a decade ago. In re­cent years, it has spread from Chile to the U.S., cap­i­tal­iz­ing on the ex­o­dus of some 8 mil­lion Venezue­lans es­cap­ing their coun­try’s po­lit­i­cal and eco­nom­ic crises.

While its ori­gins are in drug traf­fick­ing, its main busi­ness­es are mi­grant smug­gling, hu­man traf­fick­ing, sex­u­al ex­ploita­tion and forced labour. It’s known for ex­treme vi­o­lence — de­cap­i­ta­tions and bury­ing vic­tims alive.

7. Car­tel de los Soles

The en­ti­ty that the U.S. gov­ern­ment al­leges was led by Maduro, is not a car­tel per se but was des­ig­nat­ed as such less than six weeks be­fore Maduro was cap­tured in Jan­u­ary.

Venezue­lans be­gan us­ing the term Car­tel de los Soles in the 1990s to re­fer to high-rank­ing mil­i­tary of­fi­cers who had grown rich from drug-run­ning. As cor­rup­tion ex­pand­ed un­der the late Pres­i­dent Hugo Chávez and then un­der Maduro, its use loose­ly ex­pand­ed to po­lice and gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials as well as ac­tiv­i­ties like il­le­gal min­ing and fu­el traf­fick­ing. The “suns” in the name re­fer to the epaulettes af­fixed to the uni­forms of high-rank­ing mil­i­tary of­fi­cers.

The um­brel­la term was el­e­vat­ed to a Maduro-led drug-traf­fick­ing or­ga­ni­za­tion in 2020 when the U.S. an­nounced the in­dict­ment of Venezuela’s leader.

ECUADOR

8. Los Lo­bos, Los Choneros, The Chone Killers and Los Tiguerones

Los Lo­bos, Los Choneros, The Chone Killers and Los Tiguerones are gangs blamed for much of the vi­o­lence that be­gan dur­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic. All are in­volved in con­tract killings, ex­tor­tion op­er­a­tions and the move­ment and sale of drugs.

Los Tiguerones is an armed group that was formed in Guayaquil in 2019 as the armed wing of Los Choneros, the crim­i­nal or­ga­ni­za­tion that serves as the par­ent group for most of Ecuador’s crim­i­nal gangs.

Au­thor­i­ties have blamed them for the in­creased vi­o­lence in the coun­try as they fight over drug-traf­fick­ing routes to the Pa­cif­ic and con­trol of ter­ri­to­ry, in­clud­ing with­in pris­ons, where hun­dreds of in­mates have been killed since 2021.

All of them are among 22 crim­i­nal gangs des­ig­nat­ed as “ter­ror­ists” by Ecuador in 2024.

BRAZIL

9. Com­man­do Ver­mel­ho and Primeiro Co­man­do da Cap­i­tal

Com­man­do Ver­mel­ho and Primeiro Co­man­do da Cap­i­tal are two of the most vi­o­lent crim­i­nal or­ga­ni­za­tions in Brazil. They work with some 50 small­er gangs all over the coun­try.

To­geth­er, they com­mand thou­sands of mem­bers and have or­ches­trat­ed bru­tal at­tacks against Brazil­ian po­lice of­fi­cers, pub­lic of­fi­cials, and civil­ians. Their in­flu­ence and il­lic­it net­works ex­tend far be­yond Brazil’s bor­ders.

HAITI

10. Viv Ansanm and Gran Grif gangs

The two Hait­ian groups are main­ly linked to arms traf­fick­ing, kid­nap­ping, mur­der­ing, ex­tor­tion and, to a less­er ex­tent, to drug traf­fick­ing.

The Viv Ansanm coali­tion is best known for launch­ing a se­ries of at­tacks start­ing in Feb­ru­ary 2024 that shut­tered Haiti’s main in­ter­na­tion­al air­port, freed hun­dreds of in­mates from the coun­try’s two biggest pris­ons and even­tu­al­ly forced for­mer Prime Min­is­ter Ariel Hen­ry to re­sign. It con­trols at least 85% of the cap­i­tal, which forces non­prof­its and oth­er groups to ne­go­ti­ate with gangs so they can gain ac­cess to com­mu­ni­ties to pro­vide food, wa­ter and oth­er crit­i­cal sup­plies.

In Oc­to­ber, the gang was blamed for killing more than 70 peo­ple in Pont-Sondé. —MEX­I­CO CITY (AP)

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Sto­ry by MARÍA VERZA | As­so­ci­at­ed Press

As­so­ci­at­ed Press re­porters Gon­za­lo Solano in Quito, Astrid Suárez in Bo­go­ta, Mauri­cio Savarese in Rio de Janeiro and Dáni­ca Co­to in San Juan, Puer­to Ri­co con­tributed to this sto­ry