Cartels in Texas: Fentanyl, Smuggling, and Operation Lone Star

Mexican cartels have a deep operational presence across Texas, using the state’s 1,200-mile border with Mexico to move fentanyl and other narcotics, smuggle people, steal and resell crude oil, and launder billions in proceeds. At least five major organizations — the Sinaloa Cartel, Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generación (CJNG), the Gulf Cartel, the Northeast Cartel, and the New Michoacán Family — control different corridors and distribution hubs inside the state, and in February 2025 the U.S. State Department designated eight cartels and criminal groups as Foreign Terrorist Organizations.¹

Which Cartels Operate in Texas and Where

The DEA’s 2025 National Drug Threat Assessment maps cartel territory across the state with unusual specificity.

The Northeast Cartel controls shipments crossing through southern Texas, with distribution hubs in San Antonio, Austin, and Dallas–Fort Worth. It moves product using personal vehicles, drug mules, tractor-trailer cargo, and even the Omnibus de Mexico passenger bus line.²

The New Michoacán Family operates primarily out of the Dallas area, which the DEA identifies as its main U.S. market.²

The Sinaloa Cartel maintains networks in Houston, with key leaders arrested near El Paso in July 2024.²

The Gulf Cartel controls trafficking routes into the Rio Grande Valley, with money laundering activity concentrated around Brownsville. Its own factions have fought each other over Reynosa and Matamoros; in March 2023, members of the Los Escorpiones faction kidnapped four U.S. citizens in Matamoros and killed two of them.³

CJNG runs operations stretching from the Tamaulipas–Texas border, where it controls ports of entry, into the Houston metro area. The U.S. government designated CJNG as both a Foreign Terrorist Organization and a Specially Designated Global Terrorist in February 2025.⁴

The full list of February 2025 FTO designations also includes United Cartels, Tren de Aragua, and Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13).¹

Fentanyl and the Drug Trade

The DEA identifies the Sinaloa Cartel and CJNG as the two major suppliers of fentanyl in the United States. Chemical precursors ship from China and India to Mexico, where cartels press pills or dilute powder before smuggling the finished product across the Southwest border.⁵ More than 90 percent of interdicted fentanyl is seized at ports of entry, and the cartels primarily use vehicles driven by U.S. citizens to move it.⁶

The scale is substantial. Texas Department of Public Safety operations have seized more than 342 million lethal doses of fentanyl since March 2021.⁵ Recent port-of-entry busts include $3.7 million in hard narcotics seized at the Laredo Port of Entry in September 2025 and $1.2 million seized at the Anzalduas International Bridge in January 2026.⁶

Smuggling methods range from hidden vehicle compartments and tractor-trailers to couriers on commercial flights. Cartels conceal product in tires, gas tanks, firewalls, and aftermarket compartments, and sometimes strap packages to the bodies of smugglers or conceal them inside. The “last mile” of distribution is often handled by U.S.-based street and prison gangs working as cartel subcontractors.⁵

Federal prosecutions give a sense of how these networks are structured. Operation Rainmaker, a 63-month investigation, produced a 50-count indictment in December 2023 charging 41 people with running a CJNG-controlled poly-drug ring based in Houston and Galveston, with distribution reaching New Orleans, Atlanta, Nashville, and Chicago. Agents seized 550 kilograms of methamphetamine, 249 kilograms of cocaine, 34 kilograms of heroin, 22,600 fentanyl-laced pills, nine firearms, and $190,000 in cash.⁷ In February 2026, a Homeland Security Task Force investigation seized roughly 555 kilograms of methamphetamine hidden in 100 boxes of fresh lettuce at a San Antonio office space.⁸

Oil Smuggling, Human Smuggling, and Money Laundering

Drugs are only part of the business.

Stolen Crude Oil

CJNG runs a lucrative crude oil smuggling operation across the Tamaulipas–Texas border, known in Mexico as “huachicol.” Fuel is stolen from Petróleos Mexicanos through bribed employees, illegal pipeline taps, and hijacked tanker trucks, then smuggled into the United States mislabeled as “waste oil” or hazardous material and sold at steep discounts to complicit U.S. importers near the border.⁴

A FinCEN alert issued May 1, 2025 reported that complicit U.S. importers earn over $5 million in profit per tanker shipment, with multiple tankers moving monthly. The activity is concentrated in the Lower Rio Grande Valley, the Eagle Ford Shale region, the Permian Basin, and the Houston and Dallas areas.⁹ The same day, Treasury sanctioned Cesar Morfin Morfin (“Primito”), the CJNG cell leader for Tamaulipas, his brothers Alvaro Noe and Remigio Morfin Morfin, and two Mexico-based front companies. Cesar Morfin Morfin allegedly controls bridge ports of entry between Tamaulipas and Texas and charges a fee on every truck moving crude across.⁴

Human Smuggling

Cartels also profit from moving migrants through Texas, often under dangerous conditions. In April 2021, Homeland Security Investigations raided a stash house in southwest Houston where 97 noncitizens were found confined in two small rooms, held in their undergarments behind outside-facing deadbolts; victims were held for ransom and threatened with physical harm.¹⁰

In May 2026, six migrants aged 14 to 56, from Mexico and Honduras, were found dead in a boxcar at the Union Pacific rail yard in Laredo. The Webb County medical examiner ruled that at least one died of hyperthermia, and Homeland Security Investigations opened a potential smuggling investigation.¹¹ Former U.S. Marshal Robert Almonte has described cartel use of freight trains to move migrants as part of a “multi-billion-dollar” operation.¹²

Money Laundering

Texas is a major hub for laundering cartel proceeds. Methods include bulk cash smuggling, shell and front companies, money services businesses, and trade-based schemes like the Black Market Peso Exchange. Chinese money laundering organizations increasingly facilitate these transactions by matching parties holding U.S. dollars with those needing them.¹³ In January 2025, Operation Noch produced 29 arrests in Houston and elsewhere for a CJNG-linked trade-based laundering network that moved drug proceeds through international cellphone sales. Seizures included 85 kilograms of methamphetamine, 10 kilograms of cocaine, 17 firearms, and more than $1 million in cash and bank funds.¹⁴

How U.S.-Based Gangs Fit In

Domestic gangs are the retail layer of cartel operations inside Texas. FBI Assistant Director Jose Perez told Congress in June 2025 that neighborhood gangs act as “vital partners” to the cartels, helping move product, launder money, and enforce violence. The FBI maintains over 6,200 active gang investigations, many involving subsets of larger organizations like 18th Street, the Mexican Mafia, the Bloods, and the Crips.¹⁵

The National Drug Intelligence Center has identified the Mexikanemi (Texas Mexican Mafia) as the most powerful gang in the South Texas region, controlling much of San Antonio’s drug distribution. Other Texas groups working with cartels include Hermanos de Pistoleros Latinos, Mara Salvatrucha, the Texas Syndicate, and the Tri-City Bombers.¹⁶

Violence Along the Border

Cartel activity along the Texas border turns violent periodically. In January 2025, Border Patrol agents and suspected cartel members exchanged gunfire near Fronton Island in the Rio Grande Valley after shots came from the Mexican side. No injuries were reported, and the Texas Department of Public Safety confirmed the cartel members had been trying to smuggle a group across the river. Governor Greg Abbott responded by sending 400 additional Texas National Guard troops to the area.¹⁷ In a separate incident in Starr County, a Border Patrol agent fatally shot a suspected smuggler after a physical struggle near a riverbank.¹⁸

What Texas and the Federal Government Are Doing

Operation Lone Star

Governor Abbott launched Operation Lone Star in 2021, deploying state troopers and National Guard members along the border. As of May 2026, Texas has spent $11 billion on the operation. The state reports 500,000 migrant apprehensions, over 54,000 criminal arrests, 45,000 felony charges, and the interception of 7.26 million lethal doses of fentanyl, along with 82 miles of permanent physical barrier completed as of February 2026.¹⁹ Nearly 5,000 Texas Army and Air National Guard members serve on state active duty running observation posts equipped with thermal cameras.²⁰

Terrorist Organization Designations

In September 2022, Abbott issued Executive Order GA-42 designating Mexican drug cartels as terrorist organizations at the state level, directing DPS to take immediate action and authorizing seizure of assets from Texas-based gangs supporting cartels.²¹ On January 20, 2025, President Trump signed an executive order establishing a process to designate cartels as Foreign Terrorist Organizations and declaring a national emergency. The State Department formally designated eight cartels and criminal organizations as FTOs the following month.²²

Federal Prosecutions and Legislation

Federal prosecutors have brought high-ranking cartel figures to Texas courtrooms. On January 20, 2026, two were transferred from Mexico to the Southern District of Texas: Juan Pedro Saldivar-Farias (“Z-27”), an alleged Los Zetas plaza boss accused of overseeing narcotics movement through the Falcon Lake corridor and collecting a “piso” tax on smuggling, and Ricardo Cortez-Mateos (“Billeton”), an alleged high-ranking Gulf Cartel member charged with trafficking methamphetamine, cocaine, and fentanyl. Both face potential life sentences.²³

In December 2025, the PARTNERS Act, sponsored by Senator John Cornyn of Texas, was signed into law as part of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2026. It requires the Department of Defense to establish a military-to-military pilot program training Mexican forces to combat transnational criminal organizations.²⁴ CBP is also installing 123 new large-scale scanners at Southwest border ports of entry, with the goal of raising passenger-vehicle inspection capacity from 2 percent to 40 percent.⁶

1
DEA. DEA Releases 2025 National Drug Threat Assessment
2
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. 2025 National Drug Threat Assessment
3
National Counterterrorism Center. Gulf Cartel
4
U.S. Department of the Treasury. Treasury Sanctions CJNG Network Generating Hundreds of Millions of Dollars Annually
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Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts. Fentanyl Trafficking in Texas
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U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Fentanyl
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DOJ. Forty-One Individuals Charged in Massive Poly-Drug Indictment Linked to Cartel
8
DEA. Homeland Security Task Force Arrests 2 and Seizes Over 550 Kilos of Meth in San Antonio
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FinCEN. Alert on Crude Oil Smuggling Schemes Associated With CJNG
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ICE. Houston Stash House Operator Who Held 97 Noncitizens Captive Sentenced to 41 Months
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CNN. Six Migrants Found Dead in Union Pacific Train in Laredo, Texas
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NewsNation. Cartels in Texas Traffic Migrants
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U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary. Strengthening U.S. Efforts to Attack the Financial Networks of Cartels
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U.S. Attorney’s Office, Southern District of Texas. 22 Locals Arrested in Multi-Count Money Laundering and Narcotics Indictments
15
FBI. FBI Efforts to Combat Mexican Cartels
16
DOJ National Drug Intelligence Center. South Texas Drug Market Analysis – Drug Overview
17
San Antonio News. Border Patrol, Mexican Cartel Exchange Gunfire Amid Ramped Up Security
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Fox News. Shooting Reported After U.S. Border Patrol Agents Involved in Struggle Near Texas Riverbank
19
Spectrum News. Operation Lone Star Remains in Effect After 5 Years
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National Guard Bureau. Texas National Guard Operation Lone Star Helps Secure Border
21
Office of the Texas Governor. Governor Abbott Designates Mexican Cartels as Terrorist Organizations
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The White House. Designating Cartels and Other Organizations as Foreign Terrorist Organizations
23
U.S. Attorney’s Office, Southern District of Texas. High-Ranking Members of Two Mexican Cartels Appear in Southern District of Texas
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Office of Senator John Cornyn. Cornyn Bill to Combat Cartels in Mexico Signed Into Law