US, Mexico announce new strategies on cartels
CHICAGO — U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration officials unveiled some additional strategies in combating Mexican drug cartels Wednesday in Chicago alongside members of the Mexican government, military and federal police, who said one priority was to capture the leader of the increasingly powerful Jalisco New Generation Cartel.
A joint news conference with the officials side by side was a display of bilateral co-operation amid ongoing tensions over President Donald Trump’s trade and immigration policies, including over his vow to build a wall along the nearly 2,000-mile (3,218-kilometre) U.S.-Mexican border.
The new plans include putting greater emphasis on attacking cartels’ financial infrastructure and calling for a new enforcement group based in Chicago that will concentrate on international investigations of cartels. But they don’t include major departures from how both countries have gone after cartels for years.
The targeting of cartel drug lords will remain a core component of bids to disrupt the powerful syndicates, for instance. The biggest trophy in the long-standing kingpin strategy was Sinaloa Cartel leader Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, extradited to New York in 2017 to face U.S. trafficking charges.