Cartel bounties on ICE agents similar to bounties placed in Texas communities for years

By Bethany Blankley
The Center Square

Over the past month, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers working with federal partners have arrested more than 1,500 violent criminals in Chicago as they were attacked by rioters.

As attacks increased, Department of Homeland Security officials uncovered that Mexican cartels placed bounties for members of the public to target or murder ICE and U.S. Customs and Border Protection personnel.

Criminal gang networks in Chicago were receiving “explicit instructions … to monitor, harass, and assassinate federal agents,” DHS said.

Liberal pundits, Mexican officials and others refuted the claim although this has been a standard practice used in southwest border communities, Border Patrol, HSI, Texas Operation Lone Star officers and others have told The Center Square.

In the Pilsen and Little village neighborhoods of Chicago, cartel “subcontracted” Latin Kings gang members have organized “spotter networks.” This involves individuals watching from rooftops using radio communications to notify others in real time of federal law enforcement movement and provide coordinates. Their surveillance efforts have led to successful ambushes of ICE agents and disrupted routine enforcement actions, DHS says.

Other criminal groups like the Chilean South American Theft Group and Venezuelan Tren de Aragua are using similar methods as well as cell phone jammers to thwart law enforcement response, The Center Square has reported.

In Chicago, the tiered bounty system includes a financial incentive with payments increasing depending on the level of violence committed. At the lowest level, cartels are offering $2,000 for gang members and affiliates to gather intelligence or dox federal agents, including family members, DHS says. The payments increase to between $5,000 and $10,000 for those who kidnap federal agents or use non-lethal assaults on standard ICE/CBP officers. The highest bounty of $50,000 is for those who assassinate high-ranking officials, DHS investigators found.

One Latin Kings member was arrested in Chicago this month for putting a hit out on Border Patrol Chief Gregory Bovino.

This may be new to Chicago residents or the American public but it’s not new to law enforcement or communities in Texas, The Center Square has learned after reporting on border crime in Texas for years.

Cartel operatives have spotters, coyotes, scouts and others in border communities. They’ve threatened to kill federal agents, including firing warning shots along the Texas border. One OLS sheriff had a cartel hit placed on him; he survived because of an informant, he and other OLS sheriffs told The Center Square.

Often, neighbors, residents, family members and even members of law enforcement in Texas border communities have been involved in human smuggling or other criminal acts tied to the cartels, The Center Square reported.

Cartel operatives targeting Border Patrol agents in Texas has been going on for years, Ammon Blair, a former Border Patrol agent and now senior fellow with The Texas Public Policy Foundation, told The Center Square.

“This would happen all the time,” he said in an exclusive interview. One method he described is when cartel members make “erroneous claims about other cartel members to force Border Patrol and Texas DPS troopers to swarm a certain area with personnel and resources to contain the threat and put more pressure on that rival cartel to disrupt their operations or illicit trade.”

This redirects law enforcement resources away from cartel operations in another area, law enforcement officials explained.

Other cartels have ambushed Border Patrol officers, including near Falcon Lake, where Los Zeta cartel members have killed Americans, The Center Square reported.

As cartel infighting escalated during the height of the border crisis during the Biden administration, Border Patrol agents “received intel that there was a sniper in a tower who was going to take out Border Patrol boat crews or DPS or other law enforcement in the area,” near Falcon Lake and Fronton Island, Blair said. “They did this to try and scare us to leave the area,” he said, but they didn’t leave.

In 2023, Texas DPS tactical units and a Texas Rangers Special Operations unit operating through Gov. Greg Abbott’s border security mission, Operation Lone Star, took control of the island, The Center Square reported.

Gunfire can often be heard in the Texas border towns of Fronton and Roma, where warring Mexican cartels have fought for control over smuggling routes leading through the Mexican border towns of Los Guerra (across from Fronton) and Miguel Aleman (across from Roma) to eventually cross the Rio Grande River into Texas. The cartels waging war for control of the area have included CDG, the “Gulf Cartel,” and CDN, “Northeast Cartel.”

Border Patrol agents in the Rio Grande Valley, in the Laredo and Del Rio areas of Texas, have also been shot at, agents have told The Center Square. Threats are ongoing against Border Patrol agents stationed along the southwest border because of increased narcotics seizures.