Mexico’s Gulf Cartel Made $38 Million in a Few Months during Last Year’s Immigration Surge

The Gulf Cartel made $38 million smuggling illegal aliens during last year’s immigration surge, taking advantage of the situation to smuggle tons of drugs with little intervention by authorities. The quantification of the cartel’s involvement was made in a report by the top law enforcement agency in Texas.

As previously reported by Breitbart Texas, the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) had prepared the report to inform lawmakers about the border surge, the potential for terrorists, and the funding needs of the agency. The report had initially been leaked by the Houston Chronicle; however that publication mainly focused on the cost of having an increased number of troopers in South Texas instead of the scores of criminal activities listed in it.

According to the assessment made by DPS, “nearly all illegal aliens who have illegally entered the United States made use of alien smuggling organizations (ASOs), nearly all of which are associated with Mexican cartels.”...

According to DPS, as of July 2014, the Gulf Cartel was receiving so many immigrants [illegal aliens] that the organization did not know what to do with them. The criminal organization charged $3,500 to move aliens over the river in Reynosa and $8,000 to move aliens over an international bridge using loaded 18-wheelers, the report revealed...

“In some cases, ASOs are suspected of forcing or compelling women and girls to work as prostitutes or delivering smuggled women and girls to sex traffickers. In some rare cases, groups of illegal aliens have been kidnapped or hijacked by criminals from smugglers, subjecting them to further exploitation,” the report revealed.