(The Center Square) – The Southern District of Texas continues to prosecute border crimes, including cartel leaders extradited from Mexico, human traffickers and those assaulting law enforcement.
In one week, more than 330 border enforcement cases were filed. The majority of defendants have prior felonies, including for violent crimes, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.
The district is among the busiest in the country, representing 43 counties and more than nine million people. Its seven divisions are located in Brownsville, Corpus Christi, Galveston, Houston, Laredo, McAllen and Victoria. It covers regions where Gov. Greg Abbott’s border security mission, Operation Lone Star, has been operating for years arresting violent criminals. Over the last year, U.S. Attorney Nicholas Ganjei’s office is prosecuting them.
In one case, two alleged cartel members were transferred to Houston from Mexico. They appeared in Houston federal court this week on drug trafficking offenses and/or allegedly running a continuing criminal enterprise.
Mexican nationals Juan Pedro Saldivar-Farias and Ricardo Cortez-Mateos were indicted in separate cases in 2021 and were extradited this month under the Trump administration.
Saldivar-Farias is a Los Zetas plaza boss and regional commander of the northern region of Mexico; Cortez-Mateos is a high-ranking member of the Cartel del Gulfo (CDG), according to the charges.
The Los Zetas Cartel is known for drug trafficking and money laundering, importing and distributing marijuana and cocaine from Mexico into the U.S. as well as controlling miles of the U.S.-Mexico border, authorities maintain. Saldivar-Farias and other Zetas members oversaw transportation routes used to cross Falcon Lake in Zapata County, Texas, according to the charges.
A Texas Operation Lone Star task force targeted Zapata County for the first time under Abbott two years ago, The Center Square exclusively reported. The region is dangerous and Americans have been killed on the lake. Texas OLS operations constructed land barriers and beefed up marine patrols in the region; state law enforcement have been regularly apprehending human smugglers there.
Those who use the Zeta crossing route are required to pay a tax to the cartel; those who don’t are threatened, beaten, kidnapped, tortured or murdered, according to the charges.
The Gulf Cartel primarily controls access to the Rio Grande Valley in Texas, authorities have explained to The Center Square. Cortez-Mateos oversaw a drug trafficking operation in the region, involving kidnapping, extortion, human smuggling and assassinating civilians and government officials in Mexico, according to the charges. They both face up to life in prison if convicted.
Also in the Rio Grande Valley, the owners of Abby’s Bakery and Dulce’s Cafe in Los Fresnos were sentenced on “harboring aliens” charges. The south Texas jury handed a guilty verdict in just three hours.
The owners, who aren’t U.S. citizens, held six or more illegal border crossers at their restaurants. They slept on mattresses in a storage area with only one exit and went months without hot water, according to the complaint. The head baker lived inside the bakery for more than two years. The workers were paid cash and lacked paperwork.
“For years, these defendants knowingly employed and harbored illegal aliens, disregarding federal law for their own financial gain,” Ganjei said in a statement. Their sentencing serves “as a warning to any business owner who believes they can distort fair competition by utilizing a workforce of illegal aliens. It’s not worth running afoul of the law just to make a quick buck.”
Also in the Rio Grande Valley, a 19-year-old from Penitas, Deigo Masiel Torres, was sentenced to prison this week for interfering with a federal worksite enforcement operation where he assaulted a law enforcement officer. He physically interfered with an arrest of an illegal foreign national at a worksite inspection in Harlingen “by trying to remove the individual from custody and placing the law enforcement officer in a chokehold,” according to the complaint.
“There is, at present, an unfortunate belief that the public can freely obstruct law enforcement from carrying out their duties, and do so without consequence,” Ganjei said. “If you want to express your disagreement with a particular federal law or policy, there is a right way to do so, and a wrong way — and tangling with the police is one hundred percent always the wrong way. Today, Mr. Torres learned that lesson the hard way.”
“Those who endanger our agents and undermine the safety of our communities will face serious consequences,” Homeland Security Investigations-San Antonio acting Special Agent in Charge John Pasciucco said. “Interfering with federal law enforcement is a grave offense, and today’s sentencing makes clear that such actions will be met with swift and decisive justice.”
