Trump's Terrorist Designations: Which Latin American Criminal Groups Made the FTO List?

These designations, issued under Section 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act, increase U.S. law enforcement powers against individuals or entities linked to terrorist activities. It is illegal for individuals or entities under U.S. jurisdiction to “knowingly provide material support or resources” to an FTO, which includes financial aid, lodging, and other services. The designation also means non-U.S. citizens affiliated with an FTO cannot enter or can be removed from the United States. In addition, U.S. financial institutions must retain and report funds linked to an FTO. In general, the designation widens who can be charged for supporting criminal groups.

The secretary of state in consultation with the treasury and the attorney general, has the authority to make these designations. Once one is made, Congress has a seven-day period to block the action before it goes into effect. The designation of these 20 groups brings the total number of FTOs to 99. That includes four preexisting Latin American groups. Three are from Colombia: the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia – People’s Army (FARC-EP), FARC dissident group Segunda Marquetalia, and the National Liberation Army (ELN). One, the Shining Path, is from Peru.

A foreign organization can petition to be removed from the list after two years and, if no dispute is filed, the State Department reviews the designation status every five years.

• Date Designated an FTO: July 16, 2026
• Years active: 1970s to now
• Geography: Operates out of Ciudad Juárez with a presence in the north of Mexico along the border with the United States
• Main criminal activities: Drug and human smuggling

The Juárez Cartel is one of the oldest drug-trafficking groups operating in Mexico. At its height in the 1990s, it controlled almost half of trafficking in the country, with alliances with Colombian groups and a penchant for transporting drugs by air. Between 2008 and 2011, its turf war with the Sinaloa Cartel turned Ciudad Juárez into one of the most violent cities in the world.

The criminal group La Linea, founded in the 2000s, initially operated as a broker between the Juárez and Sinaloa cartels. Eventually, it became the Juárez Cartel’s enforcement unit, known for its displays of brutal violence. 

• Date Designated an FTO: July 16, 2026
• Years active: 2013 to present
• Geography: Michoacán, Mexico
• Main criminal activities: Drug trafficking, extortion in the agricultural sector

Named after members’ distinctive hairstyles, Los Viagras were believed initially to be a self-defense group, but have since been understood as a drug trafficking group. With their base in the state of Michoacán, the group is allied with the Michoacán Family, for whom they execute violence. They once worked with the Jalisco New Generation cartel, but now the two groups battle for territorial control.

• Date Designated an FTO: July 2, 2026
• Years active: 2020 to today
• Geography: Ecuador, mainly the Guayas province
• Main criminal activity: Narcotrafficking

The Chone Killers originated as a street-level gang in the city of Durán and eventually became a part of Los Choneros. They broke from the group during a leadership struggle in 2020. In 2024, their founding leaders were killed in Colombia, splintering the group into factions. 

• Date Designated an FTO: June 5, 2026
• Years active: 1993 to present
• Geography: Based in São Paulo with activity across Brazil and the world
• Main criminal activities: Varied, but mainly drug and arms trafficking

A soccer game in a São Paulo prison is the origin story for the meeting of the leaders of Primeiro Comando da Capital, or PCC. The group was initially committed to stopping prison abuse in Brazil and operated under a slogan of “Peace, Justice, and Freedom.” The gang grew to rule over Brazilian prisons with members paying fees for aid and protection. In the late 1990s and 2000s, the PCC's activity expanded beyond prisons.

By 2021, the U.S. government called the PCC “the most powerful organized crime group in Brazil and among the most powerful in the world.” It operates across continents and battles with its rival, the Comando Vermelho, though the groups have gone through several truce periods. 

• Date Designated an FTO: June 5, 2026
• Years active: 1970s to present
• Geography: Based in Rio de Janeiro with activity across Brazil and globally
• Main criminal activities: A variety of gang activities but mainly drug and arms trafficking

The Comando Vermelho was born in a Rio de Janeiro prison as an alliance between ordinary convicts and leftist political prisoners. As it grew to other prisons and favelas in Rio de Janeiro, the group centered around radical left-wing ideologies and a highly structured hierarchy. Involvement in the cocaine trade and alliances with Colombian groups allowed the group to expand in the late 1980s into the 2000s, as it employed violent techniques to maintain control.

In 2008, the Rio state government introduced pacification police to wrest control of Rio de Janeiro favelas from the Comando. By 2021, the program was abandoned. In 2025, the Rio state government launched a large-scale strike on the Comando in Rio called “Operation Containment,” which was the most fatal police operation in Brazilian history, with 122 deaths.

• Date Designated an FTO: December 17, 2025
• Years active: 2006 to present
• Geography: Based in Colombia near the Panamanian border and with presence in Venezuela, Spain, and the United States
• Main criminal activities: Drug trafficking, illegal mining, extortion, racketeering.

Between 2003 to 2006, after far-right paramilitary group United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia demobilized, two brothers, Juan de Dios and Dairo Antonio Úsuga, did not lay down their arms. Instead, they consolidated territorial control of the region of Colombia near the country’s border with Panama and fortified the group known as the Gaitanist Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, or Clan del Golfo. 

In 2012, police killed one of the brothers, who went by Giovanni, and Clan del Golfo retaliated with strikes across the Colombian state of Antioquia. His brother and successor, Otoniel, was captured in 2021. 

With an estimated 9,000 fighters, the Clan del Golfo is one of Colombia’s largest drug cartels. The government of President Gustavo Petro (2022-2026) engaged in negotiations with the group as part of his Total Peace Plan without success.

• Date Designated an FTO: November 24, 2025
• Years active: 1990s to today
• Geography: Venezuela
• Main criminal activity: Drug trafficking

The term “Cartel de los Soles” was first used in 1993 to reference two senior Venezuelan counternarcotic officers who were found to be collaborating with drug cartels. Through the 2000s and 2010s, various members of Venezuela’s armed forces continued to aid and abet drug traffickers. Deceased ex-President Hugo Chávez’s consolidation of power and the FARC’s decline enabled these groups growing involvement in the drug trade.

In 2025, when the FTO designation was made, the Trump administration alleged the group to be a drug smuggling ring, run by the regime of Nicolás Maduro, that collaborates with the Sinaloa Cartel and the Tren de Aragua. Experts, however, reject that categorization and instead say that it is just a shorthand term for a corruption racket within the armed forces.

In January 2026, the Justice Department backed off their claim that Maduro led an actual group known as Cartel de los Soles in an indictment against him. Instead, it acknowledges the term to refer to a “patronage system” and a “culture of corruption.”

• Date Designated an FTO: September 24, 2025
• Years active: 1950s to today
• Geography: El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, United States
• Main criminal activities: Extortion and street-level drug dealing

Like its rival gang, MS-13, Barrio 18 originated in Los Angeles in the 1950s before deportations fueled the gang’s growth in Central America. Membership is believed to be 30,000 to 50,000 in the United States and 22,000 in El Salvador alone. However, Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele’s crackdown has dented the gang’s presence in El Salvador, where over 10,000 members had reportedly been jailed as of 2023. 

• Date Designated an FTO: September 5, 2025
• Years active: 1990s to today
• Geography: Ecuador
• Main criminal activity: Drug trafficking

Los Choneros, who originated in the Ecuadorian province of Manabí, expanded from their origins as a local criminal group to a transnational force when they allied with the Sinaloa Cartel around 2003 to traffic cocaine through Ecuador. They also partnered with Balkan criminal groups to move narcotics into Europe. 

In 2024, the Ecuadorian government passed a series of constitutional reforms that increased its law enforcement powers against the cartels. In 2025, the administration of President Daniel Noboa extradited the leader of Los Choneros to the United States, which led to a standoff between the government and the group. The United States and Ecuador launched joint operations against the group in 2026 and additional leaders were extradited. 

• Date Designated an FTO: September 5, 2025
• Years active: 2020 to today
• Geography: Ecuador
• Main criminal activities: Drug trafficking, extortion, illegal gold mining

It was a leadership battle within Los Choneros at the end of 2020 that spawned Los Lobos. That splinter group allied with Mexico’s Jalisco Cartel New Generation and dissident groups of Colombia’s FARC, cementing its place as major players in Ecuador’s lucrative cocaine trafficking trade.

While expanding their territory, Los Lobos executed much of the political violence that beset Ecuador, including the 2023 assassination of presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio. Aside from drug trafficking, Los Lobos also have operations in gold mining regions of Ecuador and moved operations into the capital, Quito.

• Date Designated an FTO: May 5, 2025
• Years active: 2023 to now
• Geography: Mainly Port-au-Prince metropolitan area, Haiti 
• Main criminal activities: Murder, extortion, kidnapping, sexual violence 

Translated into English as “Living Together,” Viv Ansanm is a merger of two formerly warring gang coalitions, G-9 and G-Pèp, based in Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince. It brings together more than two dozen armed criminal groups. About two weeks after the formation of Viv Ansanm was announced in September 2023, the UN Security Council authorized the Kenya-led and U.S.-funded Multinational Security Support (MSS) mission to aid the Haitian National Police in combatting gang violence.

Viv Ansanm is said to be the brainchild of G-9 leader and former police officer Jimmy “Barbecue” Chérizier in a push to overthrow then-transitional Prime Minister Ariel Henry. Henry resigned in April 2024. In January 2025, Viv Ansanm announced intentions to form a political party to contest elections scheduled for November.

Viv Ansanm is believed to control between 85 and 90 percent of Port-au-Prince. In addition to perpetrating violence against civilians, the coalition has targeted state infrastructure, including police stations, hospitals and prisons. There have also been reports of gangs under Viv Ansanm demanding protection fees from civilians and local businesses, as well as cargo ships entering Haiti’s main port.

• Date Designated an FTO: May 5, 2025
• Years active: Around 2016 to now
• Geography: Mainly Artibonite department, north of Port-au-Prince, Haiti
• Main criminal activities: Murder, extortion, kidnapping, sexual violence, trafficking of arms and ammunitions 

Gran Grif is the biggest gang in Artibonite, Haiti’s largest administrative department by territorial size and the hub of the country’s rice production. It is affiliated with Port-au-Prince's Viv Ansanm.

Regional security experts have traced the origins of the gang to Prophane Victor, a former member of Parliament (2016–2020) who is said to have armed young men as a means of securing votes in the 2016 election through violence and intimidation. Victor is believed to have ended affiliation with the gang around 2020, with reports of him lending material support to rival gangs in the region. The current leader of Gran Grif is Luckson Elan. The U.S. Treasury Department and the UN Security Council levied sanctions on both Victor and Elan in September 2024.

The State Department estimates that Gran Grif has been responsible for 80 percent of recorded civilian deaths in Artibonite since 2022. It has also been implicated in the killing of Haitian police officers and a Kenyan soldier belonging to the MSS mission.

• Date Designated an FTO: February 20, 2025
• Years active: 1960s to now 
• Geography: Mainly in the Mexican states of Sinaloa, Durango, and Chihuahua, though the cartel has cells across Mexico, especially near the U.S. border, and a presence around the world. 
• Main criminal activity: Drug trafficking. As of late, they’ve been central to the production of synthetic fentanyl.

Founded by peasant families in the Mexican state of Sinaloa in the 1960s and 70s, the Sinaloa Cartel is now one of the most powerful drug trafficking organizations in the hemisphere and considered one of the two most dangerous in Mexico. The Sinaloa Cartel is well-known for its former leaders, Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán Loera and Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, and the cartel’s 1985 assassination of DEA agent Enrique “Kiki” Camarena. Both “El Chapo” and “El Mayo” were tried and imprisoned for life sentences in the United States in 2019 and 2026, respectively. 

The Sinaloa Cartel operates as a series of cells in Mexico and abroad and has alliances with other criminal groups across the hemisphere.

There have been several high-profile convictions of Mexican public officials who took bribes from the Sinaloa Cartel, including former secretary of public security Genaro García Luna (2006–2012). The Sinaloa Cartel remains in control of most of the Western U.S.–Mexico border and has used arrangements with Chinese chemical suppliers to dominate fentanyl production. Moreover, a 2024 court case in California unveiled a large money laundering ring between the Sinaloa cartel and wealthy Chinese citizens. 

• Date Designated an FTO: February 20, 2025
• Years active: 2009 to now
• Geography: Across Mexico, but especially in Jalisco. There’s a large presence in Colima, Guanajuato, Hidalgo, Nayarit, Puebla, Querétaro, and Veracruz.
• Main criminal activity: Mostly drug trafficking, though they have engaged in a wide range of criminal activity, including extortion, kidnapping, illegal mining, and oil theft.

Considered one of the most dangerous transnational criminal organization by the U.S. government, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) emerged in 2009 from the Milenio Cartel, a group allied with the Sinaloa Cartel.

Since then, the CJNG has become infamous for its use of public violence, its sophisticated firearms, and its public relations campaigns, which have included delivering goods to citizens. The CJNG is known for its brazen high-profile attacks on public officials, such as its 2020 assassination attempt on Mexico City’s then-security chief Omar García Harfuch. 

On February 22, Mexican forces, with support from U.S. intelligence, assassinated the group’s founder and leader, Nemesio “El Mencho” Oseguera. On July 23, 2026, the U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned more than 50 individuals and entities tied to the CJNG, including leaders believed to have filled the power vacuum since Oseguera’s death. 

• Date Designated an FTO: February 20, 2025
• Years active: 2014 to now
• Geography: Based out of Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas with a presence across northeastern Mexico.
• Main criminal activities: Drug trafficking, extortion, and oil theft.

The Northeast Cartel broke off of the once dominant Los Zetas cartel in 2014. Now, it controls Nuevo Laredo, a major port on the U.S.-Mexico border. 

• Date Designated an FTO: February 20, 2025
• Years active: 2010s to now
• Geography: Venezuela, the United States, and across Central and South America (mainly Colombia, Chile, and Peru).
• Main criminal activity: Human smuggling and trafficking, mostly targeting migrants. They have also been involved in drug trafficking, kidnapping, extortion, and illegal mining, among other crimes. 

The Tren de Aragua originated as a gang at the Tocorón prison in the state of Aragua, Venezuela in the early 2010s. Soon, the group controlled the prison as its operation center. In 2023, the Venezuelan military deployed over 11,000 troops to take back Tocorón, but the Tren de Aragua had already expanded well beyond Venezuela. 

After spreading within Venezuela, the gang became a transnational criminal organization, expanding to Colombia through the border and later to other countries in the hemisphere. In July 2024, former President Joe Biden designated the Tren de Aragua as a “transnational criminal organization,” just like the MS-13. 

In June 2026, a joint U.S.-Venezuela operation killed the leader of the Tren de Aragua, Héctor Rusthenford Guerrero Flores, known as “Niño Guerrero.” Since the cartel was designated an FTO, the Justice Department has federally charged more than 300 members and associates. 

• Date Designated an FTO: February 20, 2025
• Years active: 1980s to now
• Geography: Based in Michoacán, the group also has cells in other states in central and western Mexico.
• Main criminal activities: Drug trafficking and the production of methamphetamines.

The history of the Michoacán Family goes back to the 1980s when it was formed to protect the residents of the state from criminals. This ethos is still held by the organization even as it has become a large criminal enterprise itself. Members of the Michoacán Family trained with the once powerful Los Zetas cartel but splintered off in 2006. After several years of growth, leadership disputes in 2011 led to the group weakening. It still remains a major force, especially in the production of methamphetamines.

The cartel is known for its religious-adjacent ideology. Its former leader published his own bible and members must attend prayer meetings. 

• Date Designated an FTO: February 20, 2025
• Years active: 2010, 2019 to now
• Geography: Michoacán, Mexico.
• Main criminal activities: Drug trafficking, especially methamphetamine and heroin. 

The United Cartels exists as an alliance between several smaller criminal groups in the state of Michoácan. The moniker was first used in 2010 when several groups, including the Sinaloa Cartel, came together to stop the advance of the Zetas.

The United Cartels was resurrected around 2019 to push back against the CJNG’s entrance into Michoacán. Much of the warfare between the United Cartels and CJNG is over the control of methamphetamine production.

Two high-ranking members of the United Cartels were charged by the Justice Department in July 2026.

• Date Designated an FTO: February 20, 2025
• Years active: 1930s to now
• Geography: Based out of Matamoros, Tamaulipas with a presence in eastern states of Mexico and in Texas.
• Main criminal activities: Drug trafficking and other smuggling activities.

The Gulf Cartel’s history goes back to the Prohibition era when its members smuggled alcohol into the United States. In the 1980s, the cartel began to also transport cocaine across the border and allied with the Cali Cartel.

In the 1990s, the Los Zetas cartel was formed within the Gulf Cartel. The groups split around 2010 and engaged in large-scale confrontation. The Gulf Cartel remains an important force on the U.S.–Mexico border, though the group has been fragmented.

• Date Designated an FTO: February 20, 2025
• Years active: 1980s to now
• Geography: Mainly across the United States, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras.
• Main criminal activities: Extortion, black mail, racketeering, human smuggling, drug and sex trafficking, assassinations, and violence. 

The Mara Salvatrucha, also known as MS-13, is a criminal gang that originated in Los Angeles during the 1980s. In 2012, the department designated the MS-13 as a “transnational criminal organization,” making it the first “transnational criminal street gang” to be categorized as such. 

In 2022, President Nayib Bukele declared a state of emergency in El Salvador following a gang killing spree that left over 80 people dead. Since then, the Salvadoran security forces have arrested more than 84,000 people suspected to be connected with gangs, weakening MS-13 in the country.