Drug cartel kingpin among targets in sweeping Trump crackdown on alleged Mexican corruption network
FIRST ON FOX: The Trump administration is seeking to disrupt with a sweeping set of sanctions a sprawling Sinaloa cartel network accused of corrupting Mexican officials just across the U.S....
By Fox News · Fox News
FIRST ON FOX: The Trump administration is seeking to disrupt with a sweeping set of sanctions a sprawling Sinaloa cartel network accused of corrupting Mexican officials just across the U.S. border. Los Mayos, a powerful faction of the Sinaloa cartel, and its U.S.-born leader are accused of funneling fentanyl and drug money through California and hiring hitmen to kill rivals on American soil. The Treasury Department, according to material exclusively obtained by Fox News Digital ahead of their public release on Tuesday, will sanction 21 individuals and 25 entities in a crackdown against Los Mayos and their alleged illegal activity within U.S. borders. The targets of the sanctions include Ismael Zambada Sicairos, known as "Mayito Flaco," a dual U.S.-Mexican citizen born in Anaheim, California, whom Treasury describes as the "undisputed head" of Los Mayos. MEXICAN GOVERNOR FACING US DRUG CHARGES SEEKS LEAVE JUST ONE DAY AFTER RETURNING TO OFFICE The action lays out how one of Mexico’s most powerful cartel factions allegedly maintains its grip on two critical trafficking corridors along the U.S. border — through political and police corruption, money laundering and violence that Treasury says has extended into Southern California. It also exposes what Treasury describes as deep cartel penetration of government and law enforcement in Baja California, the Mexican state bordering California. The Treasury says Sinaloa-linked "narco-corruption has reached the highest levels" of the state government, alleging that the ex-husband of Gov. Marina del Pilar Ávila Olmeda used his political influence to protect cartel operations and that a former Mexicali public security chief accepted bribes to allow the cartel to exert control over municipal police. The allegations shed new light on a controversy that erupted last year when the U.S. revoked the visas of both Ávila and her then-husband, Carlos Torres Torres. Treasury now says the State Department revoked Torres’ visa in May 2025…