Narco Clans Branded Terrorists: U.S. Targets Three Guatemalan Trafficking Groups Tied to Mexico's Cartels

The Trump administration on Friday declared three Guatemalan criminal groups to be terrorist organizations and hit them with sanctions, accusing them of financing violence and crime with drug-trafficking money, the Associated Press reported in a story carried by The Washington Times ^[1].

The State Department identified the groups as Los Lorenzanas, Los Huistas and Los Mendoza. All three are based in Guatemala, the department said, and all have deep ties to Mexican cartels, helping to move and export illegal drugs ^[2].

Who was named, and how

The action comes in two tiers. The State Department designated Los Lorenzanas as both a Foreign Terrorist Organization and a Specially Designated Global Terrorist, calling it one of Guatemala's most powerful drug-trafficking clans and blaming it for numerous acts of violence against civilians, government officials and military forces inside Guatemala ^[2].

The Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control, in turn, sanctioned Los Mendoza and Los Huistas as Specially Designated Global Terrorists under Executive Orders 14059 and 13224, citing the material support both groups give to U.S.-designated Mexican cartels ^[3].

Treasury described Los Mendoza as a family-based organization founded in the 1980s and one of Guatemala's oldest and most powerful criminal groups. It serves as a key transportation and logistics intermediary for the Sinaloa Cartel across Guatemala and Honduras and is linked to contract killings and money laundering, the department said ^[3].

Los Huistas, according to Treasury, supports both the Sinaloa Cartel and the Jalisco New Generation Cartel and forms a link in the cocaine supply chain that runs from South America through Mexico and into the United States ^[3]. The department said the group has "cultivated political influence and institutional access," ties that have helped protect it from law enforcement ^[3].

What the labels mean

The two tiers carry different legal weight. The AP reported that the designations impose sanctions on all three groups and allow prosecution for material support to the one carrying the foreign-terrorist label, Los Lorenzanas ^[1]. That gives federal prosecutors a terrorism charge, not just drug statutes, to use against anyone who helps that clan. The Treasury listings for Los Mendoza and Los Huistas aim at the groups' money and the networks that move it ^[3].

The move is part of a broader campaign. Treasury noted that on Feb. 20, 2025, the State Department designated the Sinaloa Cartel and the Jalisco New Generation Cartel as Foreign Terrorist Organizations and Specially Designated Global Terrorists ^[3]. With Friday's addition of a Guatemalan group, the AP counted 22 Latin American and Caribbean criminal organizations the administration has now placed on the foreign-terrorist list ^[4].

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The logic of Friday's action is to treat the suppliers and middlemen as part of the same threat as the cartel bosses. Los Mendoza and Los Huistas were targeted specifically for the help they give to Mexican cartels already branded as terrorists ^[3]. For the many American families who have lost loved ones to drugs, that approach makes plain sense: the cocaine and the cash move through a chain, and every link is a target.

Guatemala's role and what comes next

The early reports did not include a formal response from President Bernardo Arévalo's government to Friday's designations. But Guatemala has moved in the same direction on its own. After Washington labeled the Barrio 18 gang a terrorist group in 2025, and following a mass jailbreak, Guatemala's Congress passed a law declaring Barrio 18 and Mara Salvatrucha terrorist organizations, raising prison sentences for convicted gang members and ordering a new prison built for them, the AP reported ^[5].

There are limits to that partnership. In May, after a New York Times report said Arévalo had agreed to U.S. strikes on drug traffickers, his government denied it, saying there was "no agreement authorising foreign military operations" inside the country, Al Jazeera reported ^[6]. The government did confirm that it was seeking security cooperation with Washington ^[6].

That leaves the next phase likely to unfold in courtrooms, bank records and joint police work rather than on a battlefield. The material-support provision now gives U.S. prosecutors a new tool against anyone who aids Los Lorenzanas ^[1], and the Treasury sanctions put the finances of Los Mendoza and Los Huistas squarely in Washington's sights ^[3]. Whether Guatemalan authorities follow with arrests and seizures of their own will show how far the security cooperation both governments say they want actually reaches ^[6].

For now, the message from Washington is unmistakable: in this administration's view, the clans that move cartel drugs toward American streets are not just smugglers. They are terrorists, and they will be treated that way ^[2].