EL PASO, Tx., January 23, 2026: On Tuesday seven Mexican military aircraft departed México and landed in six airports across the nation. The military planes were delivering Mexican prisoners accused of drug trafficking to be prosecuted in the United States. Among the 37 prisoners being delivered to American prosecutors included the first Mexican citizen to be charged “with providing material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization.”
In January, the Trump administration used an executive order to designate some drug cartels as Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs). Among the cartels designated as an FTO on February 20, 2025, included the Cártel Jalisco Nueva Generación (CJNG). The FTO designation allows the U.S. government to use increased tools like surveillance and put pressure on the financial resources that the drug kingpins need for their lavish lifestyles and operating costs. Generally, the FTO designation allows the U.S. government to prosecute people indirectly financially benefiting from the illicit drug economy like banks, bankers and people selling goods/services to the cartel, thus the charge of “material support or resources.”
The CJNG mostly uses violence to control a territory and then “taxes” illicit operations like drug peddlers, prostitution rings and other criminals for the use of the territory they control. It is the extreme violence used by CJNG that makes it more dangerous than most of the other drug cartels.
A woman working for the CJNG in El Paso is the first Mexican national to be charged under the foreign terrorist designation.
First Mexican Citizen Charged Under Foreign Terrorist Law
On May 19, 2025, the U.S. government unsealed an April 2 indictment charging 39-year-old María del Rosario Navarro-Sanchez on 13 counts related to the drug trafficking activities of the CJNG cartel. Navarro-Sanchez had been arrested by Mexican authorities in Magdalena, Jalisco, west of Guadalajara on May 5.
According to the unsealed indictment, CJNG, in addition to drug smuggling also “engages in money laundering, bribery, extortion of migrants, taxing of migrant smugglers,” and uses violence and intimidation for their illicit activities.
Navarro-Sanchez supported the operations of CJNG in locations around El Paso, Texas. Among the illicit activities that she is charged with by operating around El Paso include trafficking in firearms and people smuggling as well as smuggling drugs across the border to be distributed in cities across the country.
She is also accused of using stash houses in and around El Paso for her smuggling operations.
According to court records, in August 2023, Rene Hernández-Cordero of Cd, Juárez and a former police officer met with Jesus Gerardo Ramos at a gasoline station in El Paso to purchase 20 AK-47 and two Barrett .50 caliber rifles. This purchase of the guns was part of a gun smuggling operation that had been operating for at least a year. El Pasoan Brian Alexis Muñoz Castro, who pleaded guilty in April 2024 to firearms trafficking, was also a coconspirator the smuggling operation.
A third conspirator that remained at large was Navarro-Sanchez. She was the coordinator of the smuggling operation, according to court records.
U.S. officials took notice of Navarro-Sanchez in September 2019 after raiding a stash house where they found an August 2, 2019, receipt for money she wired to the stash house operator. The following year, Navarro-Sanchez began operating additional stash houses where she coordinated the delivery of methamphetamine through El Paso’s ports of entry. She used “different couriers around the El Paso area,” who would “unload the narcotics, store the narcotics, and then deliver the narcotics to other couriers,” who would then take them “to different cities throughout the United States” from El Paso.
One of her couriers was detained in March 2023. In his telephone, officials “found hundreds of pictures and messages about weapons” they smuggled into México, including a picture of el dorago a gold-plated AR-15/M-16 with what appears to be a grenade launcher.
A picture of what appears to be an AR-15 or M-16 with a grenade launcher, Mexican Government handout, May 2025, Martín Paredes/El Paso Herald Post.
Several empty boxes for rifles along with drugs were found in the house. According to the indictment, Navarro-Sanchez would use couriers and straw purchasers to collect firearms from across the country to be smuggled into México.
Navarro-Sanchez made the down payment of $3,000 to purchase the 20 AK-47 and two .50 caliber rifles that led to the arrest of Hernández-Cordero at the El Paso gas station.
Photograph of 20 AK-47 and two Barrett rifles Hernández-Cordero was allegedly shown at the gas station in anticipation of their purchase. Court exhibit, Martín Paredes/El Paso Herald Post.
In addition to the gun smuggling operation that Navarro-Sanchez faces charges on, she was also charged with using stash houses in the El Paso area for people smuggling. To get the smuggled people across the border, Navarro-Sanchez used a tunnel that led from Juárez to El Paso.
Photograph of tunnel discovered by federal agents in El Paso on January 10, 2025. Court exhibit, Martín Paredes/El Paso Herald Post.
The indictment charges María del Rosario Navarro-Sanchez, also known as “Chayo” and “Fernanda” with 13 counts including drug, gun, money and people smuggling, as well as “conspiracy to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization” because her work supported the illegal activities of CJNG.
At the time of her arrest, FBI Director Kash Patel said that her arrest “should send a clear message to people who wish to align themselves with terrorist groups.”
She is now in U.S. custody awaiting trial.
Because of the extradition agreement made with México, Navarro-Sanchez cannot be sentenced to death leaving the sentence of life in prison as the most punitive sentence she can receive.
Note: Executive order designating certain drug cartels as terrorist organizations is EO 14157.
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