MEXICO CITY (AP) – For years, U.S. authorities and fishermen have complained about the illegal fishing of red snapper in the Gulf of Mexico, and now it has been revealed who is behind the lucrative trade: the Mexican drug cartel.
The US Treasury announced sanctions on Tuesday against members of the Gulf drug cartel, which operates in the border towns of Reynosa and Matamoros, across from McAllen and Brownsville, Texas.
While fishing shops and drug dealing may seem like an unlikely combination, it makes sense for a criminal organization.
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The department says that this organization uses fishing boats to transport drugs and people who go to other countries illegally; along the way, boats catch tons of red snapper, an important but vulnerable commercial species. Ferries usually depart from Playa Bagdad, east of Matamoros, on the Gulf coast.
“The Gulf Cartel illegally trades red snapper and shark species through ‘lancha’ operations from Playa Bagdad,” the agency said. “Besides their use for IUU (illegal, illegal or unreported) fishing in US waters, lanchas are also used to transport illegal drugs and migrants to the United States.”
Adding insult to injury, these Mexican boats, usually from outside Playa Bagdad, sell their fish in Mexican border towns, where they are sometimes sent to Texas to be sold on the US market.
This occurs when US fishermen have had to respect seasonal limits or closures designed to protect fish populations.
“Since fishing for red snapper and shark species is under strict limits in the United States, and therefore these species are abundant in U.S. waters.
“They then bring their catch back to Lancha camps in Mexico, where the product is sold and, in most cases, shipped to the United States,” it continued. “This work earns millions a year from the campslancha. In addition, it also leads to the death of other marine species that are unknowingly caught” on long fishing lines used by boats.
This is not the first timecartel engaging in illegal fishing in Mexico. Experts say that some drug companies are busy fishing gillnets in Totoaba in the Gulf of California, which is also known as the Sea of Cortez, threatening the most endangered species in the world, the vaquita marina.
Those slapped with sanctions on Tuesday – which freeze any of their American assets – include the bosses of the Gulf cartel in Playa Bagdad, as well as two owners of fishing camps there.
The illegal fishing problem has escalated so much that in 2022, the US government banned Mexican fishing vessels from entering US ports on the Gulf of Mexico, arguing that the Mexican government was not doing enough to prevent its boats from illegally fishing in US waters.
Mexican fishing boats in the Gulf “are prohibited from entering US ports, will be prohibited from access and services,” the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration wrote in a report in 2022. According to Sept. 10, 2024 NOAA bulletin, those restrictions remain in place. in place.
Small Mexican boats often use banned longlines or nets to haul in snapper in US waters, which can harm other marine life, such as sharks.
NOAA said in a previous report that the US Coast Guard has seized many Mexican ships in the Gulf, including repeat offenders who have been banned several times since 2014.
It noted that the United States imported nearly five tons of fresh and frozen salmon from Mexico in 2018, expressing concern that “these imports may have included fish illegally caught in US waters.”
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