US to label drug cartels as 'terrorist' groups: report

WASHINGTON: More than half a dozen drug cartels with roots in Latin America will be classified as “terrorist” organisations by the US State Department, the New York Times reported on Thursday.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order on January 20 creating a process for such a designation, saying that the cartels “constitute a national-security threat beyond that posed by traditional organised crime”.

The order, which referenced Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua and Salvadoran gang MS-13 while also referring to cartels in Mexico in general, gave the State Department two weeks to come up with recommendations.

Besides these two groups, the new designation will be applied to Clan del Golfo, based in Colombia, and five others based in Mexico, the New York Times said, citing unnamed officials. Those in Mexico are the Sinaloa cartel, Jalisco New Generation cartel, the Northeast cartel, the Michoacan family and the United cartel, the US daily reported.

The designations could be announced by the White House as early as this week, it added. Clan del Golfo is the largest Colombian cartel and emerged from the remnants of right-wing paramilitary groups which demobilized in the 2000s.

It works with Mexican cartels to supply them with cocaine that is then smuggled into the United States, the New York Times reported. One of the newspaper´s sources said that the cartel will be added to the list because of its involvement in migrant smuggling, thanks to its control over the Darien jungle which migrants cross on their way to Panama.