(DCNF)—U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro said on Fox News Thursday that federal authorities seized one of the largest drug precursor shipments ever headed for the Sinaloa Cartel.
The Trump administration ramped up its cartel crackdown after President Donald Trump authorized military strikes Tuesday, with the latest operation off Venezuela’s coast killing 11 alleged Tren de Aragua members. In an appearance on “Jesse Watters Primetime,” Pirro said her office — working with Homeland Security, Customs and Border Protection, the FBI, and the DEA — intercepted 1,300 barrels of methamphetamine precursors shipped from Shanghai and bound for Mexico.
“We intercepted on the high seas, brought these 1,300 barrels, enough to fill twenty-four 18-wheelers,” Pirro told host Jesse Watters. “We brought them into the Port of Houston. Now, unfortunately, every day there are millions of dollars made by these cartels.”
Pirro praised Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio for formally designating major cartels as foreign terrorist organizations, saying the move gave law enforcement new tools to target those organizations’ financial networks and disrupt supply chains.
“The Sinaloa, of course, [are] one of the most brutal, dangerous cartels around. But President Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, in designating these cartels as foreign terrorist organizations, is giving our office, giving the attorney general, Pam Bondi and the rest of us, the ability to take down these operations sooner. And to make sure that we are literally disrupting the supply chain,” Pirro said. “Now, there are all these compounds in Mexico in geographical areas controlled by the Sinaloa that were waiting for these drugs. And although it’s worth a half a billion in Houston, once they move this stuff up to New York and other places, it’s worth a lot more.”
The State Department announced Thursday that the U.S. added two Ecuadorian drug gangs, Los Choneros and Los Lobos, to the Foreign Terrorist Organization list, directing the government and armed forces to treat them as terrorist groups.
Pirro pointed to what she called the devastating toll of fentanyl and meth smuggling, which she said amounts to an undeclared war with China.
“Every day the American people see the damage in this undeclared war by China in delivering these drugs that are killing Americans. We see them in funeral homes as families lose family members. And President Trump has made the decision to give us the power to do something about it. And that’s just what we’re doing,” Pirro said.
In July, Trump signed the HALT Fentanyl Act, sweeping legislation that designates all fentanyl analogues as Schedule I substances under federal law. The law dramatically increases penalties for trafficking and gives law enforcement broader authority to prosecute dealers and traffickers, Trump said at a White House ceremony attended by families who lost loved ones to overdoses. Trump has long pressed Canada, Mexico, and China to curb fentanyl flows, using tariffs and public warnings as leverage.
(Featured Image Media Credit: Screenshot/Fox News)
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