Amid rising border tensions, the U.S. faces an invasion of foreign criminal gangs exploiting lax laws and migration. Chinese mafias dominate the illegal marijuana market, using slave labor and causing violence. Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua and major Mexican drug cartels also expand, bringing theft and drug trafficking. Meanwhile, migrants linked to ISIS add a potential terror threat. This complex web of crime and trafficking showcases a dangerous blend of organized crime and weak immigration control, threatening national security.
Republicans have been consistently claiming that there is an invasion taking place at the southern border of the United States for the past three and a half years. There are plenty of causes for them.
Several international criminal gangs have been active in the US in recent years. Some of them even essentially took over the marijuana industry by taking advantage of several loose laws in various states, bringing with them an explosion of crime and bloodshed.
For instance, Chinese organized crime has been exposed by authorities in recent months to be operating profitable drug farms in six U.S. states that use slave labor. Every month, hundreds of Chinese migrants cross the southern border, exposing themselves to a vast network of foreign gangs engaged in human trafficking. These gangs employ illegal migration as a means of expanding their criminal enterprises.
But the well-established criminal organizations originate not just in China but also in America.
Interestingly, the major drug cartels in Mexico are now present in every state in the union. Similarly, officials have discovered that the deadly and rapidly expanding Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua operates out of numerous major towns in the nation and takes advantage of the border problem. Numerous Chilean gangs are using a visa deal between the US and Chile to reside in the country and engage in the profitable industry of robbing luxury estates, even though it is not legally illegal migration.
The authorities, who discovered eight illegal migrants who may be connected to ISIS in the past month, have more concerns than only the drug trade and robberies. The increased threat of terrorist strikes within the nation as crises in the Middle East, where Washington has a presence or influence, intensifies anxiety over this situation.
Chinese gangs take over the marijuana market, spilling blood
The ProPublica group released a comprehensive study in March 2024 that detailed how the Chinese mafia came to dominate the nation’s illicit marijuana industry.
A triple homicide at an illicit marijuana farm in Kingfisher County, Oklahoma, in 2022 is highlighted in the study. The incident revealed a somber reality: “Many illegal marijuana sales in the United States are now controlled by Chinese criminal networks, fueling a wave of violent crime, money laundering, and human trafficking.”
The Chinese mafia controls a large portion of the country’s illegal marijuana trade, from California to Maine, according to a report written by ProPublica and The Frontier. This has led to explosive growth in the criminal industry and the development of a violent trafficking ecosystem that includes assaults, fraud, sexual crimes, whitewashing, and even environmental damage.
Who are the principal victims? These violent gangs kidnap Chinese migrants who approach the southern border and use them as slave labor to run their illegal farms.
ProPublica claims that thousands of Chinese immigrants who are brought into the country illegally are hired to work in harsh conditions on marijuana fields that are guarded by armed guards, fences, and cameras.
“A grim offshoot of this indentured servitude: Traffickers force Chinese immigrant women into prostitution for the bosses of the agricultural workforce,” the report states.
According to state and federal investigators, mafias with roots in southern China oversee a disciplined confederation of Chinese criminals from New York. Many, even federal investigators, are impressed by how quickly they took over the illicit marijuana market.
After Oklahomans approved the growing and selling of medical marijuana in 2018, Chinese mafias turned their attention to the state. The relatively lenient regulation only required owners to be state citizens and did not place restrictions on dispensaries or cultivation. ProPublica claims that lax enforcement of the law, however, permitted outside investors to utilize frontmen to traffic marijuana illegally.
This business model sparked the explosive growth of an illegal sector that took advantage of some states’ permissive regulations to set up a criminal enterprise that resulted in drug trafficking, murder, and bloodshed. After oil and gas, the industry has risen to become the second largest in the nation.
This substantial money flow from illicit trafficking is explained by the black market. Although state rules have changed since Colorado legalized marijuana in 2012, federal law has remained unambiguous and always forbade interstate sales. The result of these disparities in the law, legal snags, or high levies in some legislation was an easier time cultivating and expanding an illicit industry that was big and profitable.
To put the size of this industry into perspective, consider how rapidly Oklahoma rose to the top of the illegal marijuana supply chain.
“Although street prices fluctuate and calculating the value of a black market is complex, officials estimate the value of the illegal marijuana grown in the state at somewhere between $18 billion and $44 billion a year,” ProPublica reported. “State investigators have found links between foreign mafias and over 3,000 illegal grows — and they say that more than 80% of the criminal groups are of Chinese origin.”
Despite this, the government’s response has been inadequate. The Department of Justice’s top priority in law enforcement fell as a result of legalization and decriminalization. The Chinese mafias were able to gain more power and even started using this to launder money for cartels.
“The challenge we are having is a lack of interest by federal prosecutors to charge illicit marijuana cases,” Ray Donovan, former DEA chief of operations, told ProPublica. “They don’t realize all the implications. Marijuana causes so much crime at the local level, gun violence in particular. The same groups selling thousands of pounds of marijuana are also laundering millions of dollars of fentanyl money. It’s not just one-dimensional.”
Furthermore, Oklahoma is “only” the tip of a massive iceberg.
According to a recent CBS News article, hundreds of Maine properties are under investigation for possible use as marijuana fields by Chinese criminal gangs.
According to the report, following a month and a half of investigation, Maine authorities raided a residence in the small town of Machias on the southeast coast in December. They discovered a facility that contained over 2,600 plants and 100 pounds of packaged and processed marijuana.
“I’ve been doing this a lot of years, and that was probably the biggest indoor marijuana grow I’ve ever seen,” Police Chief Keith Mercier told the news network. “It was quite an impressive operation.”
These ventures have also surfaced in the states of Washington, New Mexico, and California.
The tabloid Daily Mail links these operations to the migration issue and human trafficking, citing the fact that in 2023 alone, at least 37,000 Chinese migrants entered the US through Texas—a number ten times higher than the previous ten years put together.
According to The Daily Mail’s research, these migrants are suffering as a result of an evil model. For instance, Chinese immigrants working a farm in New Mexico were discovered to have “visible burns on their hands and arms,” according to Lynn Sanchez, director of the group The Life Link.
“They were very scared, very freaked out,” Sanchez said. “They looked very malnourished.”
Was Aragua Train installed in the United States?
One of the world’s fastest-growing criminal groups is the violent Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, which now operates in ten Western Hemisphere nations.
Authorities now believe it is almost clear that the gang exists and functions in the United States as a result of members of the gang illegally entering the nation through the southern border and demanding asylum.
According to NBC News, officials are currently investigating over 100 criminal cases and have already connected the Venezuelan criminal organization to those investigations.
The details became public when Tren de Aragua was added to Customs and Border Protection’s list of gangs for the 2024 fiscal year. The official CBP website has the list available.
Several reports suggest that this group may be enlisting migrants from Venezuela to help with its illegal activities. For instance, the tabloid New York Post said that Tren de Aragua is reaching out into the streets of New York City to conduct its illegal activities within the country.
Tren de Aragua members in particular are responsible for a large-scale cell phone theft scheme in New York City.
The New York Police Department (NYPD) reports that there were 160 motorbike theft patterns between April 2023 and January 2024, a significant rise over the 62 cases reported between April 2022 and January 2023. A pattern may have up to 20 crimes.
Deputy Inspector Nicholas Fiore of the NYPD’s Crimes Against Persons Unit told FOX 5 N.Y. that members of the less well-known Salvadoran gang MS-13 operate like that of the Tren de Aragua gang.
Tren de Aragua’s main strategy in New York City is as follows: initially, its members steal cell phones. Subsequently, they deplete the bank accounts of those who were hacked. Fraudulent transactions are then executed in South America and the United States. Finally, the stolen phones are shipped to Venezuela or Colombia to be sold after being deleted and reprogrammed.
Fiore claims that last December, members of Tren de Aragua crossed the southern border into the United States. According to two security specialists interviewed for a more in-depth investigation on the hazardous Venezuelan gang, their primary goal to achieve rapid expansion was to recruit migrants via WhatsApp, a unique trait of this gang.
The issue is that, even though American authorities believe Tren de Aragua operates within their borders, security experts in Venezuela confirm that it is exceedingly challenging to ascertain whether the gang was formally founded there due to a lack of cooperation between American and Venezuelan authorities.
One of the few authorized Tren de Aragua members captured in the US was confirmed by an international alert. The transgressor was wanted in Peru for unlawful association, assault, and aggravated robbery. He had crossed the southern border.
Similarly, Wilson Juárez, 21, and Kelvin Servita Arocha, 19, of Tren de Aragua, were both being held in New York City, according to ICE, which verified this. Both took part in the January 27 police officer beating that went viral.
“Yes, the two non-citizens who were in ICE custody and charged in conjunction with the violent gang assault carried out against two NYPD officers were identified as members of the transnational criminal organization Tren de Aragua (TdA),” said a spokesman for ICE.
The Center for a Free and Secure Society’s executive director, Joseph Humire, a global security expert with a focus on transregional threat networks, claims that Tren de Aragua is becoming more prevalent in the United States and that authorities need to be aware of this.
“Tren de Aragua is the transnational organized crime group that is growing most rapidly in the world. About six years ago, they had a presence in two countries in South America, and now they have a presence in ten countries throughout the Western Hemisphere, including the United States,” Humire said before explaining that the gang caused destabilization in countries such as Peru, Colombia, and Chile and that the United States must take the threat seriously.
“The United States already has many security problems in large cities like New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. And if Tren de Aragua begins, as it seems to be already doing, to penetrate these communities of Venezuelan migrants, the destabilization could be greater.”
Robberies of luxurious mansions, the specialty of Chilean gangs
One major concern for the authorities is that up to one hundred tiny gangs consisting of three to six members, all of Chilean descent, have been found operating in the United States and engaging in criminal tourism.
These trans-Andean gangs were active in California, Arizona, Florida, Virginia, New York, Ohio, Indiana, and Michigan, according to an Oakland police report from Michigan. Their goal is simple: they want to plunder affluent communities’ mansions or luxury residences.
According to Sheriff Michael Bouchard, every individual they detained had broken the terms of the U.S.-Chile Visa Waiver Program, which permits citizens of specific nations to enter U.S. territory for up to 90 days for business or tourism without a visa.
Sheriff Bouchard urged the federal government to revoke the exemption because Oakland authorities are so concerned about the issue.
Potential victims were informed by the sheriff that gangs are highly proficient and function as special agents following a thorough assessment of their targets. While the owners were out on vacation, every single residence was plundered.
Bouchard cautioned that wireless communications from phones, alarm systems, and cameras can be jammed by thieves. He also disclosed that they pilfer bulky safes. He thus suggested that wire methods be used to increase security, as thieves have shown a remarkable ability to disable WIFI signals with blockers.
Authorities reported that over 40 homes in Oakland County, Michigan, have been broken into as of the end of 2023. Thieves have been known to take home treasure worth up to $1 million in some circumstances.
ISIS terrorists in the United States?
Up to eight Tajikistani migrants crossed the southern border into the United States in June. However, authorities believe that all of them may have ties to ISIS even though their criminal record checks were clear at the time of their crossing.
The migrants were held in New York, Philadelphia, and Los Angeles, according to NBC News, after the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force became aware of them.
All were taken into custody by ICE agents.
“The FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force has been aware of a potential terrorist threat originating in central Europe, and it began monitoring these men as part of that investigation,” NBC reported, citing three unnamed official sources.
The eight migrants might now be charged with terrorism and face deportation procedures before an immigration judge.
Authorities have warned that the United States is vulnerable to terrorist threats, including possible assaults, and these eight migrants may be connected to ISIS.
FBI Director Chris Wray issued a warning earlier this month, citing the likelihood of a “potential for a coordinated attack here in the homeland, not unlike the ISIS-K attack we saw at the Russian concert hall.”
Mexican cartels have a presence throughout the country
The two main Mexican cartels, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel and the Sinaloa Cartel are expanding their reach into U.S. territory while the immigration problem continues to overwhelm Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents at the southern border.
The US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) publishes an annual report on illegal drug trafficking, and it indicates that these cartels are active in all 50 states, with Texas, Arizona, California, and Florida being the hubs of their criminal activities.
The report claims that these cartels are to blame for “the worst drug crisis in U.S. history.”
“They dictate the flow of nearly all illicit drugs into the United States, and their dominance over the synthetic drug trade in particular is evident in the relentless stream of illicit fentanyl and methamphetamine crossing the border toward U.S. markets. “The ease and low cost of producing these drugs on a large scale in Mexico makes them highly profitable,” the DEA explains, assuring that the cartels’ crystal methamphetamine is more powerful and cheaper than at any previous point in the last decade.
“In addition, the cartels deliberately market illicit fentanyl in pill form to mimic trademarked prescription medications; as a result, many Americans are buying and consuming illegal drugs they believe to be legitimate prescription drugs,” the DEA says.
Of course, like the Chinese mafia, the cartels capitalize on the border situation to expand their illegal operations. As a result, migrants are at the mercy of these dangerous and powerful criminal organizations, which have effectively taken over the southern border.
Recently, GreatGameIndia reported that six years after California legalized marijuana, violence continues to escalate, evidenced by six men murdered in the Mojave Desert earlier this year and seven killed at an illegal pot operation in Riverside County in 2020.
