Update February 19 with Public Order to designate.
Today, Feb 19, the U.S. State Department put on its website Public Notice 12672 to designate eight cartels and gangs as foreign terrorist organizations. The notice will be published in the federal register, and go into effect on Feb. 20, bar any changes.
The eight groups include six Mexican cartels, the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang, and the MS-13 gang (which was born in L.A. but big in El Salvador and Honduras). It coincides with a list that had been leaked to the New York Times (and later Breitbart) except the Times had also included the Colombian Clan del Golfo, which was not on the final notice.
In this CrashOut Chronicle video, I go through who they are, how we got here and what impact the terrorist designations will have. (The video was made before the public notice so includes the Clan del Golfo). If you prefer to listen to the pure audio, you can also get the episode here: Cartels As Terrorist Groups or on podcast platforms including Spotify, Apple etc.
Credits to CrashOut’s Omid Visua (Instagram @omidvisua) for the filming and edit.
Copyright Ioan Grillo and CrashOut Media 2025
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