By Bethany Blankley
The Center Square

A Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG)-affiliated baby trafficking ringleader, Martha Alicia Mendez Aguilar, also known as “La Diabla,” has been arrested as part of a joint U.S.-Mexican law enforcement operation.

Joe Kent, director of the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) said his office provided intelligence for a U.S.-Mexican interagency operation that led to La Diabla’s arrest on Sept. 2, in Juarez, Mexico. The NCTC is part of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence led by Tulsi Gabbard.

La Diabla is Spanish for “the devil.” The CJNG Mexican cartel was designated as a foreign terrorist organization by the Trump administration in February.

“The joint operation, executed by Mexican law enforcement officers, disrupted an infant trafficking network led by ‘La Diabla,’ that lured pregnant women to remote locations, performed illegal cesarean procedures, harvested the organs from the mothers’ bodies, and sold the newborns to couples in the U.S. for up to 250,000 pesos,” Kent said.

“This is one example of what terrorist cartels will do to diversify their revenue streams and finance operations,” he added. “NCTC delivered critical intelligence on ‘La Diabla’s’ location and developed comprehensive analysis that enabled U.S. and Mexican law enforcement partners to take action.”

NCTC is continuing to work with Mexican officials to disrupt terrorist cartel operations. “And, in this case, the lives of innocent women and children depended on it,” he said.

U.S.-Mexican counterterrorism operations are coordinated by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Homeland Security Task Force (HSTF), created under the Trump administration. After Secretary Marco Rubio issued cartel FTOs designations, Gabbard directed NCTC staff to surge counterintelligence resources to target FTO-designated cartels, like CJNG. Multiple federal agencies were involved in the operation, including U.S. Marshals Service-El Paso, the U.S. Department of State’s Diplomatic Security Service, FBI-El Paso, and U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

The CJNG, one of Mexico’s most powerful and ruthless transnational criminal organizations, is a primary supplier of illicit fentanyl. It came to power roughly 15 years ago, founded by members of the Sinaloa Cartel-affiliated Milenio Cartel. Its reach has expanded to 40 countries and operates in all 50 U.S. states, the DEA says. Its money laundering operation is vast and partners with Chinese money laundering networks, The Center Square reported.

La Diablo is the latest female involved in human trafficking to be arrested as women play key roles in the international multi-billion-dollar enterprise.

Last year, federal authorities arrested a high profile Peruvian gang leader and contract killer and his girlfriend in New York, The Center Square reported. The transnational criminal organization “lieutenant,” Mishelle Sol Ivanna Ortiz Ubillus, (“Vanna Ortiz” on TikTok), reportedly collected extortion money, participated in planning crimes committed against rival gangs and had “complaints for intentional injury, sexual harassment and psychological violence,” according to the Spanish language Peruvian news outlet, Redacción Trome.

In Texas, multiple women have been arrested on human trafficking charges. They include a former female Eagle Pass police officer who was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison earlier this year for operating a stash house for a human smuggling organization; El Paso women arrested for smuggling children across the border claiming to be their parents and using THC-laced gummies to sedate them; Laredo women sentenced in a child trafficking scheme involving sedating children with gummies laced with high doses of melatonin and holding them stash houses; and Starr County women and alleged human traffickers caught in an Operation Lone Star Task Force undercover operation, The Center Square exclusively reported.

At the height of the border crisis, OLS officers regularly arrested women of all ages driving south to border communities using social media aps and GPS to pick up and transport illegal border crossers north, The Center Square reported.