As many as 48 bags containing human remains were discovered and recovered from a clandestine grave near Guadalajara, Mexican authorities said Thursday.
Guadalajara is the capital of Jalisco state, where one of Mexico’s most violent and powerful drug cartels operates and where thousands of people have been reported missing.
The bags with the remains were located four weeks ago by a search group on a vacant lot in Zapopan, a vast outlying municipality in the Guadalajara metropolitan area, the state prosecutor’s office said.
Officials said they were still trying to pin down an exact number for victims whose remains were found in the bags. They declined to give an estimate, but said they were carrying on with a search to see if more remains were around.
“We need to make progress on the forensic issue so that we can tell you how many victims this number of bags represents,” Blanca Trujillo, deputy state prosecutor for missing persons, told a press conference.
In the meantime, the remains in the 48 bags that were recovered would need to be analyzed, officials said.
Since the grisly discovery, authorities have been working to recover the remains with the support of members of the Guerreros Buscadores collective.
In presenting an official report on the search efforts, Trujillo said her office had the support of the National Commission for the Search for Persons. Because of the vastness of the land, the search has required the use of heavy machinery, she said.
Hundreds of mass graves discovered
The discovery of the grave site adds to dozens of similar cases in Jalisco, the state hardest hit by the crisis of missing persons affecting Mexico, where more than 127,000 victims have vanished nationwide.
The vast majority of disappearances have occurred within the framework of intensified violence that has shaken Mexico since December 2006, when the federal government launched an anti-drug military operation.
One of the largest mass graves in Mexico was reported in 2017 when more than 250 skulls were found in what appeared to be a drug cartel mass burial ground on the outskirts of the city of Veracruz.
More recently, last June, forensic experts located the remains of 34 people buried near a residential area in Zapopan. In January, at least 56 bodies were discovered in unmarked mass graves in northern Mexico, not far from the U.S. border.
According to official data, Jalisco has more than 15,900 cases of missing persons, a toll that experts attribute to the activities of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG).
Last February, the United States designated the CJNG as a “foreign terrorist organization,” after identifying it as one of the main organized criminal groups trafficking fentanyl, a synthetic opioid that has caused the deaths of thousands of Americans.
CJNG has been accused of using fake job advertisements to lure new members and of torturing and killing recruits who resist. In March, a group of people looking for missing relatives found charred bones, shoes and clothing at a suspected training ground for the cartel.
The cartel is led by Nemesio Rubén Oseguera Cervantes, who is better known as “El Mencho.” Washington has offered a $15 million reward for information leading to his capture.
The Colombian government has asked the United States to stop attacking vessels in the Pacific and the Caribbean as part of an operation that Washington says is targeting drug smuggling.
The first strike took place on Tuesday, with two people killed. A defense official confirmed the vessel was in international waters off Colombia. A second strike took place on Wednesday, according to Hegseth, killing three more.
The strikes bring the total number of such U.S. attacks to at least nine, with 37 people dead, according to U.S. figures.
“Colombia calls on the U.S. government to cease these attacks and urges it to respect the norms dictated by international law,” the foreign ministry said in a statement Wednesday night.
The government of Colombia’s leftist President Gustavo Petro, who has been embroiled in a war of words with President Trump, “rejects the destruction by the United States of a vessel allegedly related to drug trafficking in the Pacific Ocean,” the statement added.
Mr. Trump and Petro exchanged angry threats on Wednesday.
Mr. Trump branded Petro a “thug” and suggested he was a drug trafficker leading his country to ruin, prompting Petro to vow: “I will defend myself legally with American lawyers.”
The U.S. president also said military aid to Bogotá had been cut and warned Petro to “watch it,” while Secretary of State Marco Rubio called the Colombian leader a “lunatic.”
In an interview Thursday with CBS News national correspondent Lilia Luciano, Petro said he believes that the White House needs to focus on the leaders of drug cartels, not suspected lower-level traffickers.
“Killing the workers of the business is easy, but if you want efficiency, you have to capture the bosses of the business,” Petro told CBS News.
Last month, Washington announced it had decertified Colombia as an ally in the fight against drugs. Colombia hit back by halting arms purchases from the United States, its biggest military partner.
In the statement, Colombia reiterated “its call on the U.S. government to engage in dialogue through diplomatic channels” to “continue jointly the fight against drugs in the region” as they had been doing for decades.
Among the dozens of people killed in the boat strikes was Colombian Alejandro Carranza.
His wife, Katerine Hernandez, told AFP that her 40-year-old husband was “a good man” who was on a fishing trip when he was killed.
“Why did they just take his life like that?” she said. “The fishermen have the right to live. Why didn’t they just detain them?”
Drug trafficking vessels, including “narco subs,” are routinely intercepted by the Colombian navy. If drugs are seized, the people on board are detained and referred for prosecution.
Trump says “the land is going to be next” while speaking about U.S. strikes on alleged drug boats – CBS News
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President Trump took questions from reporters at a homeland security roundtable on Thursday, addressing his administration’s recent strikes on alleged drug boats in the Pacific Ocean and Caribbean Sea.
Alejandro Carranza’s loved ones say he left home on Colombia’s Caribbean coast to fish in open waters. Days later, he was dead — one of at least 32 alleged drug traffickers killed in U.S. military strikes.
From Santa Marta, northern Colombia, Carranza’s family is questioning White House claims that he was carrying narcotics aboard a small vessel targeted last month.
For his wife Katerine Hernandez, the 40-year-old was “a good man” devoted to fishing.
“Why did they just take his life like that?” she asked during an interview Monday with AFP.
She denied he had any link to drug trafficking.
“The fishermen have the right to live. Why didn’t they just detain them?”
The Trump administration has said the U.S. is in a “non-international armed conflict” with drug cartels, arguing that the narcotics they smuggle kill tens of thousands of Americans every year, constituting an “armed attack.”
Since the United States began bombing boats in the Caribbean in September, critics have accused the Trump administration of carrying out extrajudicial executions.
The White House and Pentagon have produced little evidence to back up their claims that those targeted were involved in trafficking.
Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro, a critic of the U.S. military presence in the Caribbean, has also claimed Carranza was innocent.
Petro said his crew suffered a mechanical failure at sea.
“The Colombian boat was adrift with a distress signal, its engine raised,” Petro wrote Saturday on X. “He had no ties to drug trafficking. His daily activity was fishing.”
However Colombian media have reported that Carranza had a criminal record for stealing weapons in collusion with gangs.
Prosecutors contacted by AFP refused to confirm or deny the reports.
The U.S. government has released statements and images purporting to show strikes on at least seven boats allegedly carrying drugs, leaving at least 32 dead.
“The days went by and he didn’t call”
Before his last trip, Carranza told his father he was heading to a spot “with good fish.”
Days passed without contact, until the family learned of the bombing on television.
“The days went by and he didn’t call,” Hernandez said.
Carmela Medina and Alejandro Carranza, parents of Alejandro Carranza, a Colombian man who allegedly died when the U..S bombed a boat supposedly carrying drugs in the Caribbean, pose for a photo at their house in Santa Marta on October 21, 2025.
MARCO PERDOMO/AFP via Getty Images
The deadly strikes have sparked a diplomatic row between the United States and Colombia, historically close partners.
Petro condemned the attack as a violation of Colombian sovereignty and labeled it an “assassination.” In a post on X, Petro said the U.S. operation was part of a “failed strategy” to “control Latin America … and obtain cheap oil from Venezuela.”
Mr. Trump later called Petro an “illegal drug leader” and threatened to cut off U.S. aid to the South American country.
Last month, Washington announced it had decertified Colombia as an ally in the fight against drugs. Colombia hit back by halting arms purchases from the United States, its biggest military partner.
Friends interviewed by AFP also insisted Carranza was a fisherman.
“He went offshore to catch sierra, tuna, and snapper, which are found far out at this time of year,” said Cesar Henriquez, who has known him since childhood.
“He always came back to Santa Marta, secured his boat, and went home. I never knew him to do anything bad,” Henriquez told AFP.
A Colombian and an Ecuadoran are the only survivors so far of U.S. attacks in the Caribbean. A U.S. Navy helicopter transported those survivors of the attack from the semi-submersible to a Navy ship, a source familiar with the matter confirmed to CBS News on Friday.
The Colombian, repatriated in serious condition, will face trial as a “criminal” accused of drug trafficking, according to the government.
The Ecuadoran was released after authorities said he had no pending charges. A government official, who asked not to be identified because they were not authorized to speak on the matter, told The Associated Press that the Ecuadorian man, identified as Andrés Fernando Tufiño, was in good health after medical evaluations.
A leader of lime growers in the violent western Mexican state of Michoacan was killed Monday, authorities said, after repeatedly denouncing in recent months the extortion demands of organized crime on producers.
The Michoacan state prosecutor’s office said on social platform Monday that the body of Bernardo Bravo, president of the Apatzingan Valley Citrus Producers Association, was found in his vehicle on a road in the area.
In several interviews with Mexico’s Radio Formula in late September and earlier this month, Bravo denounced “organized crime’s permanent commercial hijacking of any commercial activity.” He said criminals’ demands had become out of reach for producers who were left with no other choice but to negotiate with them.
He conceded that the federal government had made some advances against organized crime in the area, but said more had to be done to end their impunity.
Last year, the federal government sent hundreds of troops to Michoacan to protect lime growers complaining of extortion threats.
In August, more than half of lime packing warehouses in the lowlands of Michoacan closed temporarily after growers and distributors said they had received demands from the Los Viagras and other cartels for a cut of their income.
Limes have been a revenue stream for cartels for years in Mexico.
In 2013, lime growers founded and led Mexico’s biggest vigilante movement. Cartels at the time had taken control of distribution, manipulating domestic prices for crops like avocados and limes, telling growers when they could harvest and at what price they could sell their crops.
Mexican gangs and other illegal actors have also targeted avocado production.
Cartels in many parts of Mexico have expanded into kidnapping and extortion to increase their income, demanding money from residents and business owners and threatening to kidnap or kill them if they refuse.
In July, Mexico’s government said it dismantled a criminal group behind a massive extortion scheme. The gang, with ties to a major drug cartel, had operated out of the central State of Mexico, extorting companies and individuals in 14 municipalities and controlling labor unions in the construction, mining, agriculture and parcel delivery industries.
In July 2024, a fisheries industry leader who complained of drug cartel extortion and illegal fishing was shot to death in the northern border state of Baja California. Minerva Pérez was killed just hours after she complained of widespread competition from illegal fishing.
Minerva Perez
Latin American Summit for Fisheries and Aquaculture Sustainability
Ordinary citizens are also targeted with extortion. In January 2024, a cartel in Michoacan set up its own makeshift internet antennas and told locals they had to pay to use its Wi-Fi service or they would be killed, prosecutors said. Dubbed “narco-antennas” by local media, the cartel’s system involved internet antennas set up in various towns built with stolen equipment.
Details on 7th U.S. strike against alleged drug boat – CBS News
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Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth says the U.S. struck a seventh alleged drug-carrying boat in the Caribbean on Friday. CBS News Pentagon reporter Eleanor Watson has the details.
The Trump administration on Sunday released footage of an October 17 strike on a boat that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth says was smuggling drugs. Willie James Inman is in West Palm Beach, Florida, traveling with the president.
An Ecuadoran judge was killed Thursday while walking his children to school, and a professional soccer player was shot and wounded in the latest attacks attributed to criminal gang activity in the South American country.
Police said a gunman on a motorbike opened fire on judge Marcos Mendoza in the coastal town of Montecristi in Ecuador’s Manabi province, plagued by drug cartels.
Provincial police chief Colonel Giovanni Naranjo told reporters the Los Lobos gang — designated a foreign terrorist organization by the United States — was suspected of the attack.
At least 15 judges or prosecutors have been killed in Ecuador since 2022, according to Human Rights Watch.
The Ecuadoran Judges’ Association said Mendoza’s “shocking” murder shined a light on the “vulnerability” of the country’s judges, writing on social media: “Without judicial security, no justice is possible.”
They “face pressure, threats, and risks every day for carrying out their duties with independence and courage,” it added.
Also Thursday, Ecuadoran soccer player Bryan “Cuco” Angulo, who has played for several Latin American clubs and for his country, was shot in the foot when attending a training session.
Police said two assailants were arrested, while Angulo’s club, Liga de Portoviejo, said in a social media post that several of its players “have received threats” ahead of a match against rivals Buhos ULRV on Friday.
Playing football in Ecuador can be deadly, with match-fixing mafias part of a global criminal empire that earns gangs some $1.7 trillion per year, according to a recent UN estimate.
Experts say gangs target second-division teams in Ecuador, where players are more susceptible due to their comparatively lower salaries.
Last year, police arrested a woman at one of Angulo’s homes and found a surveillance system there that had allegedly been used by criminal gangs.
“We do not rule out that the attack is related,” Manabi police chief Giovanni Naranjo said.
Ecuador, once considered one of Latin America’s safest nations, has seen a dramatic surge in violence in recent years.
Strategically located between Colombia and Peru, two of the world’s largest cocaine producers, it has become a major transit hub for narcotics.
President Daniel Noboa has deployed troops to combat the violence — to little effect.
In the first half of this year, homicides in Ecuador increased by 47 percent compared to the same period in 2024, according to the national Observatory of Organized Crime.
Earlier this week, authorities in Ecuador reported two attacks that left 14 people dead and 17 wounded, with some of the victims showing signs of torture.
Also this week, two explosions rocked different parts of Ecuador, less than 24 hours after a vehicle exploded in a port city in the South American country and left one person dead.
Interior Minister John Reimberg accused the Los Lobos gang and dissidents of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, a now-defunct Colombian guerrilla movement with ties to the gang, of being behind the blasts.
Police officers stand guard at the site where a vehicle exploded outside a shopping mall, as a second vehicle containing explosives was found nearby, but did not detonate and was immediately neutralized, according to Ecuador’s Interior Minister John Reimberg, in Guayaquil, Ecuador October 14, 2025.
Vicente Gaibor Del Pino / REUTERS
Criminal gang violence continues unabated following the recapture in June of the country’s biggest drug lord, Adolfo Macías after his escape from a maximum-security prison in 2024. In July, the Ecuadoran government extradited Macias to the United States, where he faces multiple drug trafficking and firearms charges.
Ecuador on Monday reported two attacks that left 14 people dead and 17 wounded, with some of the victims showing signs of torture.
The South American nation is a point of departure for cocaine shipments to the United States and Europe, and a hub for some 20 criminal groups involved in extortion and contract killings.
The first attack occurred around 11 pm Sunday (0400 GMT) in Guayaquil, Ecuador’s largest city and the capital of Guayas province.
As many as seven people got off motorcycles and pickup trucks and fired shots at a neighborhood soccer game, local police colonel Carlos Fuentes told reporters.
The attack, which was attributed to the so-called Freddy Kruger gang, left six dead and 17 injured, including three minors who were at the sporting event.
Police also reported finding eight bodies in the town of Buena Fe, located in the southwestern province of Los Rios.
The victims, four men and four women, had “signs of torture” with their hands tied together with duct tape and “their heads covered in black bags,” according to a local police report.
Local media said the group were part of a larger group of 12 who had traveled to the area from the capital Quito. The other four members of the party, an older women and three girls, remain missing.
Ecuador recorded more than 4,600 homicides in the first half of the year, a 47% increase from the same period of 2024, data from the Ecuadoran Observatory of Organized Crime shows.
Once considered one of Latin America’s safest nations, Ecuador has seen a dramatic surge in violence in recent years as its location between two of the world’s largest cocaine producers, Colombia and Peru, has made it a major transit hub for narcotics.
The country has recently been rocked by deadly prison attacks linked to drug gangs. Last month, officials said 17 people were killed in a riot in an Ecuadoran prison, with rampaging inmates beheading and maiming rivals.
Just days before that, 13 prisoners and a guard were reported killed in southwest Ecuador. Officials said the dead inmates belonged to the rival Los Choneros and Los Lobos gangs, two of the biggest drug trafficking groups in Ecuador. The U.S. recently designated both gangs as foreign terrorist organizations.
José Adolfo Macías Villamar, alias Fito, is the boss of the Los Choneros gang, and he was recaptured in June this year, more than a year after escaping prison. He had been serving a 34-year sentence since 2011 for involvement in organized crime, drug trafficking and murder.
In July, the Ecuadoran government extradited Fito to the U.S., where he pleaded not guilty to charges, including international cocaine distribution and smuggling firearms.
Mexican prosecutors have launched a probe against soldiers over the shooting deaths of six people in a northern state where clashes involving drug cartels are frequent, a judicial source said Tuesday.
The incident occurred on Monday on a highway in Tamaulipas, considered one of Mexico’s most dangerous states due to the presence of gang members involved in drug and migrant trafficking.
Numerous violent clashes involving security forces in Tamaulipas have prompted accusations of extrajudicial killings.
The troops involved in the latest deadly incident have been “placed under investigation,” an official with the attorney general’s office told AFP on condition of anonymity.
A defense ministry statement said the group of soldiers was traveling on a highway when a white pickup truck “tried to ram” one of the army vehicles.
The troops sensed a threat and “used their weapons,” the ministry said, adding that five civilians died on the spot and a sixth on the way to hospital.
In March, four Mexican soldiers were sentenced to 40 years in prison for the killing of five civilians in 2023 in Nuevo Laredo, a crime-plagued city bordering the United States.
Public officials have also been targeted in the region. In August, Mexican investigators pointed to organized crime in the killing of a top federal official in Tamaulipas, saying it was likely retaliation for the authorities’ recent seizures of stolen fuel there. Gunmen killed Ernesto Vásquez Reyna, the Attorney General’s Office Tamaulipas state delegate, in broad daylight in the middle of the busiest avenue of the border city of Reynosa along the Texas border.
Reynosa has been plagued by escalating violence since 2017 due to internal disputes among groups vying for control of drug trafficking, human smuggling and fuel theft.
In May, the bodies of five musicians, members of a Mexican regional music group who had gone missing, were found in the city. Prosecutors said nine people arrested were believed to be part of a faction of the Gulf Cartel.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Friday he ordered a fourth strike on a small boat in the waters off Venezuela, according to a social media post.
“Four male narco-terrorists aboard the vessel were killed in the strike,” which “was conducted in international waters just off the coast of Venezuela while the vessel was transporting substantial amounts of narcotics — headed to America to poison our people,” Hegseth said in a post on X, which included a video showing a boat being destroyed at sea.
In his post, Hegseth said that “our intelligence, without a doubt, confirmed that this vessel was trafficking narcotics, the people onboard were narco-terrorists, and they were operating on a known narco-trafficking transit route.”
In his post, Hegseth offered no other details on who they were or what organization they belonged to.
Earlier this morning, on President Trump’s orders, I directed a lethal, kinetic strike on a narco-trafficking vessel affiliated with Designated Terrorist Organizations in the USSOUTHCOM area of responsibility. Four male narco-terrorists aboard the vessel were killed in the… pic.twitter.com/QpNPljFcGn
The video of the strike posted online showed a small boat moving in open water when it suddenly explodes. As the smoke from the explosion clears, the boat is visible, consumed with flames, floating motionless on the water.
The strike comes less than a day after it was revealed that President Trump declared drug cartels to be unlawful combatants and that the United States is now in an “armed conflict” with them in a notification to Congress viewed by CBS News.
A White House official said the information was part of a report to Congress required by the National Defense Authorization Act after the U.S. military conducts an attack.
With the latest strike, at least three of these operations have been carried out on vessels that originated from Venezuela.
The strikes followed a buildup of U.S. maritime forces in the Caribbean unlike any seen in recent times.
The Navy’s presence in the region — eight warships with over 5,000 sailors and Marines — has been pretty stable for weeks, according to two defense officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss ongoing operations.
On Thursday, Venezuela’s government slammed what it called an “illegal incursion” by U.S. fighter jets into an area under Venezuelan air traffic control, accusing the United States of a “provocation” that “threatens national sovereignty.”
The Venezuelan foreign and defense ministries said the planes were detected “75 kilometers from our shores,” without saying whether they violated Venezuelan airspace.
Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino earlier claimed five U.S. fighter jets had “dared to approach the Venezuelan coast” and had been detected by air defenses and the tracking systems of Maiquetia international airport, which serves the capital Caracas.
In their joint statement, the defense and economy ministries accused the United States of flouting international law and jeopardizing civil aviation in the Caribbean Sea.
The Pentagon hasn’t responded to a CBS News request for comment on the claims.
Mr. Trump last month dispatched 10 F-35 aircraft to Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory in the Caribbean, as part of the biggest military deployment in the area in over three decades.
Trump declares U.S. in “armed conflict” with drug cartels – CBS News
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President Trump has declared the U.S. is in an “armed conflict” with drug cartels as the White House calls drug runners “unlawful combatants.” Charlie D’Agata has more.
A Colombian rapper who went missing while on tour in Mexico has been found dead and identified by his family, Mexican prosecutors said Monday.
Rapper Bayron Sanchez, who used the stage name B King, disappeared with Colombian DJ colleague Jorge Herrera on September 16 as they left a gym in an exclusive neighborhood of Mexico City, their manager told Colombian radio.
Mexico City prosecutors said that another body found on September 17 presented “similarities” with that of Herrera, who performed under the name Regio Clown. His body had yet to be formally identified.
“They told me they were going to have lunch with two people, but didn’t return any messages” thereafter, the musicians’ manager, Juan Camilo Gallego, told Colombia’s Blu Radio.
He said he initially suspected that they had been kidnapped, but received no ransom demand and reported them missing to the authorities.
Bayron Sanchez, known as B-King, poses in this undated picture from social media obtained by Reuters on September 22, 2025.
Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum said earlier the men’s disappearance was under investigation.
Reacting to reports of the two men’s deaths Colombia’s leftist President Gustavo Petro wasted no time in claiming the pair had been “murdered.”
“They murdered our youth in the United States of Mexico,” Petro, a fierce critic of the U.S.-led war on drugs, wrote on X, without naming the victims.
“More young people murdered by an anti-drug policy that is not an anti-drug trafficking policy,” he wrote.
Last week, the Trump administration added Colombia to a list of nations failing to cooperate in the drug war for the first time in almost 30 years.
Family members and friends of B King had posted images of the singer on social media with requests for help in finding him.
Petro had on Sunday asked for Sheinbaum’s help in finding the pair and speculated that their disappearance was linked to “multinational mafias.”
More than 120,000 people are listed as missing in Mexico, a country plagued by drug cartel violence.
Musicians have been targeted by violence in Mexico in recent months. In August, Ernesto Barajas, a singer with the popular group Enigma Norteno, was gunned down in the city of Zapopan in Jalisco state.
In May, the bodies of five musicians from the band Grupo Fugitivo were found in the northern city of Reynosa along the Texas border. Prosecutors said multiple people arrested in the case were believed to be part of a faction of the Gulf Cartel.
More than 600 people were arrested in a weeklong series of operations targeting the Sinaloa drug cartel, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration announced on Monday.
The operations took place between Aug. 25 and Aug. 29, according to the DEA. During that timespan, DEA agents in 23 field divisions in the U.S., and seven “foreign regions,” carried out actions resulting in 617 arrests. They also led to the seizures of 480 kilograms of fentanyl powder, more than 700,000 counterfeit pills, roughly 2,200 kilograms of methamphetamine, roughly 7,500 kilograms of cocaine and 16 kilograms of heroin.
Altogether, around $12.8 million worth of currency and assets were seized, along with 420 firearms, the DEA said.
The DEA described it as a “coordinated action” combining the DEA’s focus on enforcement, intelligence, and domestic and international collaboration.
“These results demonstrate the full weight of DEA’s commitment to protecting the American people,” said DEA administrator Terrance Cole in a statement. “DEA will not relent until the Sinaloa Cartel is dismantled from top to bottom.”
In a February executive order, President Trump declared eight drug cartels as terrorist groups, including Sinaloa, which is considered the largest drug trafficking organization in the world. It is one of two main cartels based in Mexico, with the other, Jalisco New Generation, receiving the Trump administration’s terrorism designation as well.
The U.S. Department of Justice has prioritized breaking up the cartels since then, and the August enforcement actions mark the latest examples of operations against some of their top members.
In August, Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada Garcia pleaded guilty to federal charges related to his founding role in the cartel, which included counts for drug trafficking, firearms and money laundering. Prosecutors alleged in indictments filed in New York and Texas that Zambada and other Sinaloa cartel leaders were to responsible for the distribution of heroin, cocaine, fentanyl and other drugs in huge quantities throughout the U.S.
Earlier last month, as part of a deal with the Trump administration, Mexico transferred 26 high-ranking cartel members to the U.S., including a leader of one drug trafficking organization closely aligned with Jalisco New Generation, and prominent figures with ties to the Sinaloa cartel as well as other violent groups.
“The Sinaloa Cartel remains one of the most significant threats to public safety, public health and our national security,” the DEA said when it announced the August operations. “There are tens of thousands of Sinaloa members, associates, and facilitators operating worldwide, in at least 40 countries who are responsible for the production, manufacturing, distribution, and operations related to trafficking dangerous and deadly synthetic drugs.”
Emily Mae Czachor is a reporter and news editor at CBSNews.com. She typically covers breaking news, extreme weather and issues involving social justice. Emily Mae previously wrote for outlets like the Los Angeles Times, BuzzFeed and Newsweek.
For the second time in two days, Venezuela has flown military aircraft in the vicinity of the USS Jason Dunham in international waters near South America, multiple Defense Department officials confirmed to CBS News Friday, describing the action as turning into a “game of chicken.”
The aircraft, which one Defense Department official said were F-16 fighter jets, flew over the Dunham sometime overnight Thursday. It was unknown if the aircraft was armed.
The Dunham, an Aegis guided-missile destroyer, did not engage, the officials said. The aircraft was within weapons-range for both for the aircraft and the ship, the officials added.
This comes after CBS News reported Thursday that two F-16 fighter jets also flew over the Dunham earlier that day. The Pentagon later confirmed that incident, describing it in a statement as a “highly provocative move” that “was designed to interfere with our counter narco-terror operations.”
The Dunham is among a flotilla of U.S. warships dispatched to the regionin recent weeks that the Pentagon says have been deployed to target criminal organizations and narco-terrorism.
“I would say they’re going to be in trouble,” President Trump had told reporters Friday in response to a question of what could happen if Venezuela were to fly jets over U.S. Navy vessels again.
“If they fly in a dangerous position, I would say that…you or your captains can make the decision as to what they want to do,” Mr. Trump said while addressing Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
On Tuesday, the White House announced that the U.S. military carried out a strike on an alleged drug-trafficking boat from Venezuela that Mr. Trump said killed 11 people. The Trump administration said the boat was operated by the Tren de Aragua gang, one of several gangs that have been designated by the White House as foreign terrorist organizations.
Earlier Friday, a source familiar with the plans confirmed the U.S. is sending 10 F-35 fighter jets to the Caribbean for operations targeting drug cartels.
James LaPorta is a national security coordinating producer in CBS News’ Washington bureau. He is a former U.S. Marine infantryman and veteran of the Afghanistan war.
The U.S. is sending 10 F-35 fighter jets to the Caribbean for operations targeting drug cartels, a source familiar with the plans confirmed Friday.
Tensions with Venezuela have been rising over the drug trade and the deadly U.S. strike earlier this week on a boat carrying alleged drug traffickers and narcotics.
Reuters first reported the deployment of the F-35 fighter jets.
In late August, the U.S. assigned three Aegis guided-missile destroyers — the USS Gravely, the USS Jason Dunham and the USS Sampson — to deploy to the waters off Venezuela as part of President Trump’s effort to combat threats from Latin American drug cartels.
On Thursday, two armed Venezuelan F-16 fighter jets flew over the Dunham, according to multiple Defense Department officials who described the action as a “show of force.”
CBS News was unable to determine what actions the Dunham took, if any, in response to the flyover.
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has announced a drive to mobilize over 8 million citizens, portraying the effort as a nationwide stand against rising pressure from the United States.
The sweeping call to arms, made on state TV, comes as President Donald Trump has been expanding American military operations in the Caribbean, including strikes against groups Washington links to Caracas.
Maduro framed the mobilization as essential to safeguarding sovereignty, casting Venezuela’s struggle as part of a broader resistance against U.S. power in Latin America.
Newsweek has reached out to the State Department and Venezuela’s Foreign Ministry for comment.
Why It Matters
The clash between Washington and Caracas has escalated beyond rhetoric, with military maneuvers, sanctions, and criminal designations transforming into a broader contest for regional dominance. Trump has tied Maduro’s government to narcoterrorist organizations while expanding U.S. deployments, and Caracas has responded by massing citizens into its defense structures.
At stake is whether the Caribbean becomes the stage for a direct confrontation between the United States and Venezuela, with ripple effects for Latin America and beyond.
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro speaks during a press conference at Hotel Melia Caracas on September 01, 2025 in Caracas, Venezuela. Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro speaks during a press conference at Hotel Melia Caracas on September 01, 2025 in Caracas, Venezuela. Jesus Vargas/AP Photo
What To Know
According to VTV, Venezuela will deploy 15,751 popular defense bases and 5,336 communal militia units across the country. These forces fall under the National Bolivarian Militia, a civilian reserve created by the late Hugo Chávez to integrate ordinary citizens into the country’s defense system. The militia operates alongside the armed forces but is designed to give local communities a direct role in national security.
Maduro said roughly 4.5 million citizens have already undergone training, with new enlistments through a digital platform expected to push the total beyond 8 million. He declared that Venezuela has the capacity to preserve peace “under all circumstances.”
Maduro denounced Washington for spreading “extremist currents and Nazi tendencies” that he said endanger South America and the Caribbean. He argued that Venezuela is defending not only itself but also the rights of peoples across the region.
Members of the Bolivarian Militia are seen in Caracas, Venezuela, on September 3, 2025. Members of the Bolivarian Militia are seen in Caracas, Venezuela, on September 3, 2025. Pedro Mattey/Getty Images
Rising U.S. Military Pressure
On August 28, acting on Trump’s orders, a U.S. naval group—including a submarine and seven warships—was deployed to the Caribbean, signaling Washington’s intent to expand operations near Venezuelan waters.
Soon after, U.S. forces carried out a strike in international waters against the Venezuelan-linked Tren de Aragua cartel, killing 11 alleged narcoterrorists. The gang has been designated a foreign terrorist organization, and Washington doubled its reward for information leading to Maduro’s arrest or conviction, raising it from $25 million to $50 million.
Venezuelan Response
On Thursday, two Venezuelan fighter jets flew near a U.S. destroyer, a maneuver the Pentagon described as “provocative.” Defense officials warned Caracas against interfering with counter-narcotics and counter-terror missions, underscoring the potential for a direct clash between the two militaries.
What People Are Saying
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro: “We are facing extremist currents and Nazi tendencies from the north, which threaten the peace of South America and the Caribbean and continue to attack the rights of our peoples.”
President Donald Trump said on August 28: “Earlier this morning, on my Orders, U.S. Military Forces conducted a kinetic strike against positively identified Tren de Aragua Narcoterrorists… TDA is a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization, operating under the control of Nicolas Maduro, responsible for mass murder, drug trafficking, sex trafficking, and acts of violence and terror across the United States and Western Hemisphere.”
Alex Plitsas, senior fellow at the Atlantic Council told Newsweek: “The Venezuelan economy is in serious trouble despite being one of the wealthiest countries in South America. This is the result of the disastrous socialist policies Maduro and his predecessor implemented. The end result could range from voluntary policy changes to regime change and anything in between targeting the narcoterrorist groups.”
What Happens Next
As Maduro mobilizes millions and Trump escalates military operations, the U.S.-Venezuela standoff is entering a dangerous new phase. With both leaders doubling down, the Caribbean could emerge as the next arena of open confrontation.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Thursday that the United States is designating two Ecuadorian gangs as foreign terrorist organizations in the Trump administration’s latest move against cartels.
The announcement came as Rubio traveled to Ecuador to meet with its leaders in a trip to Latin America this week that has been overshadowed by a U.S. military strike against a similarly designated gang, Tren de Aragua. The strike has raised concerns in the region about whether the Trump administration will step up military activity to combat drug trafficking and illegal migration.
The two new designees, Los Lobos and Los Choneros, are Ecuadorian gangs blamed for much of the violence that began since the COVID-19 pandemic. The designation, Rubio said, brings “all sorts of options” for the U.S. government to work in conjunction with the government of Ecuador to crack down on these groups.
That includes the ability to kill them as well as take action against the properties and banking accounts in the U.S. for the group’s members and people with ties to the criminal organizations, Rubio said, adding it would also help with intelligence sharing.
Rubio called them “vicious animals, these terrorists.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio speaks during a joint news conference with Ecuador’s Foreign Minister Gabriela Sommerfeld at the Palacio de Carondelet, in Quito, Ecuador, Sept. 4, 2025.
Jacquelyn Martin/AP
Criminal gang violence continues unabated following the recapture in June of the country’s biggest drug lord, Adolfo Macías, who leads Los Choneros, after his escape from a maximum-security prison in 2024. In July, the Ecuadoran government extradited Macias to the United States, where he faces multiple drug trafficking and firearms charges.
Last year, the U.S. classified Los Choneros as one of the most violent gangs and affirmed its connection to powerful Mexican drug cartels who threaten Ecuador and the surrounding region.
Earlier this year, a leader of Los Lobos was arrested at his home in the coastal city of Portoviejo. Carlos D, widely known by his alias El Chino, was the second-in-command of Los Lobos and “considered a high-value target,” the armed forces said in a statement.
The U.S. last year declared Los Lobos to be the largest drug trafficking organization in Ecuador.
“Interdiction doesn’t work”
Rubio’s meetings in Quito on Thursday follow talks a day earlier with Mexican leaders that were overshadowed by the U.S. military strike on suspected Tren de Aragua drug runners in the southern Caribbean.
The Trump administration asserts that it targeted a Venezuelan drug-running ship crewed by members of Tren de Aragua. U.S. officials say the vessel’s cargo was intended for the United States and that the strike killed 11 people.
Rubio defended the action and offered no justification other than to say the boat posed an “immediate threat” to the U.S. and that Trump opted to “blow it up” rather than follow what had been standard procedure to stop and board, arrest the crew and seize any contraband on board.
“Interdiction doesn’t work,” Rubio said Wednesday. “Instead of interdicting it, on the president’s orders, we blew it up. And it’ll happen again. Maybe it’s happening right now, I don’t know, but the point is the president of the United States is going to wage war on narco-terrorist organizations.”
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said on Wednesday that U.S. military assets will remain in the region, and that more strikes may be forthcoming.
“This is a deadly, serious mission for us and it won’t stop with just this strike,” Hegseth told Fox News. “Anyone else trafficking in those waters who we know is a designated narco-terrorist will face the same fate.”
The strike got a mixed reaction from leaders around Latin America, where the U.S. history of military intervention and gunboat diplomacy is still fresh. Many, like officials in Mexico, were careful not to outright condemn the attack but stressed the importance of protecting national sovereignty and warning that expanded U.S. military involvement might actually backfire.
Mexico Foreign Affairs Secretary Ramón de la Fuente, speaking to reporters alongside Rubio, emphasized his country’s preference for “nonintervention, peaceful solution of conflicts.”
Ecuador has its own issues with narcotics trafficking and also has been looked to by the Trump administration as a possible destination to deport non-Ecuadorian migrants from the United States. U.S. officials have said they would like to secure an agreement with Ecuador that would have it accept such deportees, but the status of negotiations with Quito was not clear.
Ecuador’s president, Daniel Noboa, on Thursday thanked Rubio for the U.S. efforts to “actually eliminate any terrorist threat.” Before their meeting, Rubio had said on social media that the U.S. and Ecuador are “aligned as key partners on ending illegal immigration and combatting transnational crime and terrorism.”
Surging violence since COVID-19 pandemic
The latest U.N. World Drug Report says various countries in South America, including Colombia, Ecuador and Peru, reported larger cocaine seizures in 2022 than in 2021, but it does not give Venezuela the outsize role that the White House has in recent months.
“The impact of increased cocaine trafficking has been felt in Ecuador in particular, which has seen a wave of lethal violence in recent years linked to both local and transnational crime groups, most notably from Mexico and the Balkan countries,” the report says.
Violence has skyrocketed in Ecuador since the COVID-19 pandemic, as drug traffickers expanded operations in the country and took advantage of the nation’s banana industry.
The South American country is the world’s largest exporter of bananas, shipping about 7.2 million tons a year by sea. Traffickers find containers filled with bananas the perfect vehicle to smuggle their product.
In addition, cartels from Mexico, Colombia and the Balkans have settled in Ecuador because it uses the U.S. dollar and has weak laws and institutions, along with a network of long-established, ruthless gangs that are eager for work.
Ecuador also gained prominence in the global cocaine trade after political changes in Colombia last decade. Coca bush fields in Colombia have been moving closer to the border with Ecuador due to the breakup of criminal groups after the 2016 demobilization of the rebel group Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, better known by its Spanish acronym FARC.
Rubio is also visiting the Andean country to argue against its close ties and reliance on China.
WASHINGTON — WASHINGTON (AP) — Secretary of State Marco Rubio will travel to Mexico and Ecuador next week, making his fourth foreign trip in the Western Hemisphere since becoming President Donald Trump’s top diplomat in January.
Rubio, who has already traveled to Latin America and the Caribbean twice and to Canada this year, will return to the region to discuss Trump administration priorities, including stemming illegal migration, combating organized crime and drug cartels, and countering what the U.S. believes is malign Chinese behavior in its backyard.
Rubio’s “fourth trip to our hemisphere demonstrates the United States’ unwavering commitment to protect its borders, neutralize narco-terrorist threats to our homeland, and ensure a level playing field for American businesses,” the State Department said Thursday.
Rubio’s first foreign trip as secretary of state was to Panama, El Salvador, Guatemala and the Dominican Republic, during which he assailed Chinese influence over the Panama Canal and sealed deals with the others to accept immigrant deportees from the United States. The agreement with El Salvador, which could include deporting U.S. citizens, is still being contested in federal courts.
Rubio later traveled to Jamaica, Guyana and Suriname.
A senior State Department official said virtually every country in Latin America is now accepting the return of their nationals being deported from the U.S. and, with the exception of Nicaragua, most have stepped up their actions against drug cartels, many of which have been designated foreign terrorist organizations by the U.S.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to preview details about what will be private diplomatic conversations, also said progress has been made in countering China in the Western Hemisphere, including steps taken by Panama to reclaim control of canal port facilities by Chinese companies and removing itself from China’s Belt and Road development initiative.
The official said Ecuador is starting to try to extricate itself from the Belt and Road scheme but is already saddled by what he termed “predatory” debt to China.
Rubio will be in Mexico City and Quito from Tuesday to Thursday, the State Department said.
Mexican senators came to blows Wednesday after a heated debate over alleged opposition calls for the United States to intervene militarily against drug cartels.
Lawmaker Alejandro Moreno, leader of the opposition PRI party, went to the podium as Wednesday’s session ended and angrily confronted Senate president Gerardo Fernandez Norona, of the ruling Morena party, for not being given the floor.
Moreno can be seen in a video posted on social media by Mexico’s Senate pushing Fernandez Norona several times, slapping him on the neck and pushing another man to the ground when he tried to intervene.
Senator Alejandro Moreno (L) of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) scuffles with Senator Gerardo Fernandez Norona of the National Regeneration Movement Party (Morena) during a session of the Permanent Commission of the Senate in Mexico City on August 27, 2025.
STRINGER/AFP via Getty Images
The brawl followed a heated debate during which the opposition PRI and PAN were accused of calling for U.S. military intervention, a claim that both parties deny.
Norona said later he would file a complaint against Moreno for bodily harm and request that his legislative immunity be revoked.
“The debate could be very harsh, very bitter, very strong… today when (opposition legislators) are exposed for their treason, they lose their minds because they were exposed,” he said.
Los legisladores integrantes de la Comisión Permanente entonaban el Himno Nacional de la última sesión, cuando con el…
Moreno accused Norona of initiating the attack, saying on social media platform X: “He was the one who started the attack; he did it because he couldn’t silence us with arguments.”
“The first physical aggression came from Norona,” Moreno wrote on X. “He threw the first shove, and he did it out of cowardice.”
Both senators are involved in separate controversies.
Moreno faces possible impeachment proceedings for alleged corruption during his tenure as governor of Campeche state from 2015 to 2019.
Norona has been criticized over reports that he owns an expensive house at a time when Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has urged public officials to live modestly.
Trump targeting Latin American drug cartels
President Donald Trump has directed the Pentagon to use military force against Latin American drug cartels deemed terrorist organizations, a source familiar with the matter confirmed to CBS News earlier this month. It’s not clear if or when the military could take action.
For its part, Mexico stressed that it “would not accept the participation of U.S. military forces on our territory.” Earlier this month, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum insisted that there would be “no invasion of Mexico.”
In February, the Trump administration designated eight drug trafficking groups as terrorist organizations. Six are Mexican, one is Venezuelan, and the eighth originates in El Salvador.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said earlier this month the administration could use the designations to “target” cartels.
“It allows us to now target what they’re operating and to use other elements of American power, intelligence agencies, the Department of Defense, whatever … to target these groups if we have an opportunity to do it,” Rubio said. “We have to start treating them as armed terrorist organizations, not simply drug dealing organizations.”
