Attorney General Alan Wilson urges Biden administration to designate Mexican drug cartels as Foreign Terrorist Organizations

(COLUMBIA, S.C.) – Attorney General Alan Wilson joined a coalition of 21 states calling on President Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken to designate Mexican drug cartels as Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs) under federal law. 

The opioid crisis has affected every state, county, city, town, and community in the United States. Last year, more than 100,000 Americans died from drug overdoses—and synthetic opioids like fentanyl were responsible for more than half. In the letter sent today, Attorney General Wilson explains that the U.S. Government knows precisely how this poison is entering our country. Cartels like the Sinaloa cartel and Cartel Jalisco New Generation import raw materials from China, use them to produce deadly synthetic opioids at low cost, and traffic those poisons across the southwestern border and into our communities. Between October 2021 and June 2022, U.S. Customs and Border Protection seized 8,425 pounds of fentanyl smuggled into the United States. These cartels are doing much more than just smuggling poison into the United States. They are assassinating rivals and government officials, ambushing and killing Americans at the border, and engaging in an armed insurgency against the Mexican Government.

"The drugs in South Carolina are often coming directly from Mexican drug cartels. These cartels are knowingly killing people with their poison and the violence used to protect their business. It's past time they're officially considered a terrorist organization and treated as such," said Attorney General Wilson. 

Last year, the State Grand Jury in the Attorney General's office announced several indictments in a case called "Los Banditos," where Mexican drug cartels were trafficking serious levels of methamphetamine, fentanyl, cocaine, marijuana, Xanax, and more in South Carolina. 

Last month, close to 200 indictments were announced in the case "Las Señoritas" where the Mexican drug cartel, Jalisco New Generation Cartel, was trafficking methamphetamine in the Upstate.

According to the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control, from 2019 to 2020, drug overdose deaths involving fentanyl increased 105 percent in South Carolina, from 537 to 1,100. Fentanyl was involved in 79 percent of all opioid-involved overdose deaths.

Designating major cartels as Foreign Terrorist Organizations will give state and federal law enforcement agencies increased authority to freeze cartel assets, deny entry to cartel members, and allow prosecutors to pursue stricter punishments against those who provide them material support. Doing so will free up resources to confront the deadly opioid crisis with the seriousness it deserves.

You can read the letter here.