US charges 81 in Puerto Rico gang case, as Trump cartel crackdown continues

The arrests are portion of a national task unit inaugural targeting transgression gangs and transnational organisations.

The United States Department of Justice has indicted 81 radical implicit alleged cause and weapons violations, arsenic portion of a crackdown connected a Puerto Rican transgression radical called Los Baja Deo oregon LBD.

Attorney General Todd Blanche announced the charges connected Thursday during a sojourn to Puerto Rico. A time earlier, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Puerto Rico Police Department arrested 70 of the defendants.

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“Let this beryllium a informing to those that are terrorizing our communities,” Blanche said successful a statement.

“Our Homeland Security Task Forces astir the state are unified to extremity the beingness of transgression cartels, overseas gangs, and transnational transgression organizations passim the United States.”

The wide indictment arrives arsenic portion of an effort nether US President Donald Trump to weaken and dismantle transgression organisations crossed the Western Hemisphere.

His medication has called the hemisphere “America’s neighborhood“. It has pledged to instrumentality hardline, and sometimes lethal, enactment successful the portion against those it considers to beryllium “narco-terrorists”, a connection it often applies to suspected drug-traffickers.

Thursday’s indictment alleges that, starting successful 2021, members of LBD began distributing drugs successful and astir nationalist lodging projects and neighbourhoods successful Mayaguez, a metropolis successful occidental Puerto Rico.

They are besides accused of utilizing the US Postal Service to nonstop drugs from the island, which is simply a US territory. Among the substances allegedly trafficked were heroin, fentanyl, cocaine and marijuana.

According to the Justice Department, LBD distributed astatine slightest 340kg of fentanyl oregon fentanyl-laced narcotics and astatine slightest 2,200kg of cocaine successful the past 5 years. The cognition generated much than $49m successful proceeds.

The indictment besides accuses members of utilizing violence, similar murders and kidnappings, to support their drug-trafficking conspiracy.

The defendants facing drug-related charges unsocial look the anticipation of astatine slightest 10 years successful prison. Those accused of some cause and firearms charges could look a minimum of 15 years. The maximum punishment successful some cases is beingness imprisonment, if the defendants are convicted.

The Justice Department besides said it is seeking to prehend $49.7m successful assets arsenic portion of the transgression case.

In Thursday’s announcement, FBI Director Kash Patel praised instrumentality enforcement enactment successful the lawsuit arsenic “outstanding” and touted the large-scale arrests arsenic a stroke to cause trafficking into the US mainland.

“These arrests disrupted 1 of occidental Puerto Rico’s astir convulsive drug‑trafficking organisations, dismantled its enactment and organisation networks, and chopped disconnected yet different cardinal pipeline of dealt drugs flowing into our country,” Patel said.

The arrests were conducted arsenic portion of Trump’s Homeland Security Task Force, which was established by enforcement bid successful 2025 to people cartels, overseas gangs and transnational transgression organisations.

The task unit web has implicit 9,000 national agents, task unit officers and analysts.

Since taking bureau for a 2nd term, Trump has sought to beef up authorities efforts against cause traffickers.

Early successful his term, his medication began designating Latin American transgression groups arsenic “foreign terrorist organisations“, allowing US authorities to prosecute those groups nether counterterrorism laws.

But critics person warned that specified designations person been utilized to warrant extrajudicial sidesplitting and different abuses of power.

Since September 2, 2025, for instance, the Trump medication has repeatedly bombed tiny boats successful the Caribbean Sea and eastbound Pacific, connected the ground that they transported drugs. Some 227 radical person been killed successful that bombing campaign.

No grounds has been presented successful the cases, and the victims’ identities stay mostly unknown.