Pam Bondi Warns: Cartels Have Become ‘Organized Crime At Its Worst’ In The United States

Name: Pam Bondi Warns: Cartels Have Become ‘Organized Crime At Its Worst’ In The United States
Uploaded: 2025-04-23T17:39:55+00:00
Duration: 9 min 30 s
Channel: Forbes Breaking News
Description: On Wednesday, Attorney General Pam Bondi spoke about the presence of transnational cartels in the United States. <br />

Forbes Breaking News

4/23/2025

On Wednesday, Attorney General Pam Bondi spoke about the presence of transnational cartels in the United States.

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00:00off our streets.

00:03CDC recently released a promising report featuring a historic reduction in overdose deaths nationwide,

00:17nearly 30 percent over the last year.

00:21And I expect that number to get even better when the borders are almost perfectly secure

00:30that you and the President have engineered.

00:35Please share with us your idea of the importance of having that secure border

00:41and what it might mean for the fight against fentanyl and others.

00:47Well, it's going to make it a lot tougher for these cartels to get into our country.

00:55Sinaloa, there are so many major cartels in our country.

01:01Just within the last few days, we arrested a Sinaloa cartel member in Greensboro, North Carolina.

01:11What else?

01:11Almost 27 members of TDA, who had come right across our border, were arrested in Oregon, Florida, and New York.

01:21And all these – when I talk about the gangs and the border, these are not people coming to America for a better life.

01:28TDA, MS-13, they are terrorist organizations.

01:32They are highly organized.

01:34Their structure – it's like a corporate structure.

01:38They have – in D.C. a couple weeks ago, we arrested one of the top members of MS-13 living half an hour outside of Virginia.

01:49I mean, outside of D.C. in Virginia.

01:51They have infiltrated our country.

01:54It's organized crime at its worst.

01:57They're dealing drugs.

01:59They're dealing firearms.

02:00This guy had five firearms on him, living in a very nice residential neighborhood.

02:05And they have an incredible corporate structure.

02:08And the higher-ups in the organization, the leaders, insulate themselves.

02:14So we worked with Governor Youngkin in Virginia.

02:17And it's everyone working together.

02:19It's a task force that we all started partnering with states who want to work with us.

02:25And that's how we're securing our borders, by getting the people who are already here off of our streets.

02:33And that's stopping the drug flow throughout the country.

02:38We also recently sentenced a man who was arrested with 14,500 fentanyl pills, and that was in Washington State.

02:46So this stuff is all over our country.

02:51It's all over our country.

02:53And it's killing our kids.

02:54It's killing adults.

02:55And people are getting highly addicted.

02:57So that's why securing the borders are of utmost importance.

03:02But it's got to be a – it's multifaceted.

03:05You know, we can secure the borders as best we can.

03:08But then the drugs are already in our country.

03:10And the gangs are already in our country.

03:12The cartels are already in our country.

03:14So it's keeping Americans safe and getting those violent criminals off our streets.

03:20Well, congratulations on all of those great accomplishments.

03:23And in February, you announced the arrests of 29 Mexican cartel members,

03:32including a kingpin who had been on the DEA's top 10 list for four decades.

03:40Congratulations for that effort.

03:45By the way, that individual was accused of killing a DEA agent, Kiki Camarena, in the 1980s.

04:00What more can we expect from your department as it tackles these longstanding, deeply rooted criminal organizations?

04:10More of what – more of what I've been talking about, more of what you're seeing, and the drug kingpin that you just referenced.

04:19I get a credit for a lot that it's a team effort.

04:22It's not.

04:22First, it's all Donald Trump.

04:24He – it's his directive, and everything we do is working with him to keep America safe.

04:31If you've ever heard that man open his mouth, he is anti-drugs.

04:35And so that was – this guy was Rafael Quintero, and this was a lot of hard work by Marco Rubio in the State Department,

04:43because he was in Mexico, and he had escaped multiple times.

04:46So he killed Kiki Camarena in the 80s.

04:51They not only killed him, they tortured him.

04:54And Kiki Camarena's family has had to live with this since the 80s.

04:59And I got to be part of the phone call to call his widow and his son and tell them that this monster is in custody and was on a plane,

05:12and we were all there to greet him when he came back to our country, and we'll face life in prison.

05:19He will be prosecuted in our country, and he will face life in prison.

05:22And Kiki's son, Chairman, is a circuit court judge, and we got to FaceTime with his son and talk to his son.

05:30And a little trivia is that after his father was tortured and killed,

05:35Mrs. Camarena gave her son, who's now the judge, her husband's handcuffs from DEA when he was an agent,

05:44and they had them engraved.

05:47And guess who was handcuffed with his father's handcuffs in the U.S. of A?

05:52It's not a great story.

05:55So it may take a while sometimes, but they are getting to see justice.

06:01And hearing this widow crying for something that happened to her husband in the 80s and her son, who's now a judge,

06:08it's just, it's, that's why we do what we do.

06:10If we can save one life, lock up one bad guy every single day, then hopefully we're making a difference.

06:17And the same, thank you, with what you're doing throughout our country,

06:20to fight for victims of crime, and all of you.

06:29President Trump has designated several of these cartel groups and several other people as foreign terrorist organizations.

06:43What does that mean?

06:45So it's, it's what I, what I described, friends, TDA, Trans de Agua, and MS-13.

06:52They are, MS-13 are from El Salvador, TDA are from Venezuela.

06:56Maduro opened up the prisons and let all of these people walk into our country from Venezuela.

07:03No more.

07:04And when they, they are, they are alien enemies of our country for all the reasons we've been talking about,

07:11for the reasons you're here.

07:12You know, they're killing kids with the drugs.

07:15They're killing adults every day with the drugs that they're bringing into this country,

07:19the guns that they're smuggling into this country.

07:21They're organized crime, MS-13.

07:24And what we're able to do is we're charging them with RICO, with racketeering,

07:27because they are criminal organizations and they are conspiring to destroy American lives.

07:35So we've been prosecuting them that way.

07:37I just talked about the one we arrested in Virginia.

07:40In Miami, I was in Miami all the days run together.

07:43I think that was two and a half weeks ago.

07:46In Miami, but there were, and I met with the victims' families there.

07:50There was a horrific murder where a young man was not a member of the gang,

07:58but they, to rise up in these gangs, to become in the top leadership, you have to kill someone.

08:04So these, it was a cold case.

08:06It had been around for a very long time.

08:09And these four individuals, several had, there were about 11, but four were still on the run.

08:15And they captured them, all, FBI did a great job working with DEA, working with Homeland.

08:21Everyone works together.

08:22It's a team effort.

08:23But they captured these four guys.

08:26And so what they did to this victim, we had, we had to use an interpreter.

08:31I had the families in with us.

08:33And these moms were just crying, so relieved that these monsters are off the street now

08:39because they're charged with the murder of her son.

08:42One of them coerced him to come somewhere with him, and then they stabbed him.

08:48I saw the pictures.

08:49I saw the crime scene photos over 100 times.

08:52And these guys have been on the run for a very long time.

08:55And we got them off the street.

08:57One was living in the northeast.

09:00I can't remember which state now.

09:01One was living right in Fort Lauderdale, Miami area still.

09:05And one, have you all heard of the Villages?

09:07It's a high-end retirement community in Florida.

09:10Ready for this?

09:11One was hanging drywall in the Villages, living among us.

09:16And they were able to capture them, catch them.

09:19They're now in custody, and they will be prosecuted as the terrorists and the murderers that they are.

09:28And they thought they got away with it.

09:29And they were able to capture them, catch them, catch them, catch them, catch them, catch them, catch them, catch them, catch them, catch them, catch them, catch them, catch them, catch them, catch them, catch them, catch them, catch them, catch them, catch them, catch them, catch them, catch them, catch them, catch them, catch them, catch them, catch them, catch them, catch them, catch them, catch them, catch them, catch them, catch them, catch them, catch them, catch them, catch them, catch them, catch them, catch them, catch them, catch them, catch them, catch them, catch them, catch them, catch them, catch them, catch them, catch them, catch them, catch them, catch them, catch them, catch them, catch them, catch them, catch them, catch them, catch them, catch them, catch them, catch them, catch them, catch them, catch them, catch them, catch them, catch them, catch them,

Pam Bondi Warns: Cartels Have Become ‘Organized Crime At Its Worst’ In The United States

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