A 39-year-old woman has become the first Mexican national to be indicted in the United States on charges of providing material support to a cartel designated as a foreign terrorist organization, according to the US Department of Justice.
María Del Rosario Navarro is accused of conspiring with others to provide grenades to the Jalisco New Generation cartel (CJNG), a powerful Mexican crime faction that the US in February designated as a terrorist organization alongside other criminal groups across Latin America.
“The arrest of María Del Rosario Navarro Sánchez should send a clear message to people who wish to align themselves with terrorist groups that they will be sought out and held to the highest extent of the law,” the FBI director, Kash Patel, said in the statement.
Navarro was also charged with “conspiracy to smuggle and transport aliens in the United States, straw purchasing and trafficking in firearms, bulk cash smuggling conspiracy, and conspiracy to possess a controlled substance with intent to distribute”, the justice department added.
Two Mexican men are, together with Navarro, also facing gun-trafficking charges in a Texas court.
Mexico’s security minister, Omar García Harfuch, had earlier this month confirmed the arrest of Navarro, whom he described as a CJNG operator, as part of a federal-level operation in Mexico’s western Jalisco state.
“The justice department thanks its Mexican law enforcement partners,” the US department added.
Mexican officials have repeatedly accused the US weapons manufacturers of negligence in the sale of weapons that end up in the hands of organized crime groups.
The US terrorism designations have come alongside a government crackdown on migration, with thousands of foreigners being deported to third countries in Latin America.
