Argentina adds two Mexican cartels to terrorism registry
Original reporting: Tribuna Sonora
What happened
Tribuna Sonora reports that an October 22 resolution added two Mexican cartels and three Colombian and Ecuadorian groups to RePET, following the presidency’s announcement a day earlier.
Reporting and context
Argentina designated the Sinaloa Cartel and La Nueva Familia Michoacana as terrorist organizations in a measure adding five groups to its public terrorism registry, according to Tribuna Sonora.
The outlet reported that a joint resolution from the ministries of National Security and Foreign Affairs, International Trade and Worship was published in the Official Bulletin on Thursday, October 22. President Javier Milei’s office had announced the decision in a statement the previous day.
The two Mexican organizations were added to the Public Registry of Persons and Entities Linked to Acts of Terrorism and Its Financing, known as RePET, alongside Colombia’s FARC-EP and ELN and Ecuador’s Los Tiguerones.
The Argentine government says the listing is intended to strengthen prevention and early detection of terrorism-related activities and speed up information sharing with other countries. Tribuna Sonora reported that the resolution draws on confidential reports from the two ministries, which cite the groups’ operations across borders, regional expansion and diversified illegal activities as risks to people and property in Argentina.
The presidential statement describes the Sinaloa Cartel as a transnational organization involved in drug trafficking, smuggling and kidnapping for ransom. It links La Nueva Familia Michoacana to international drug trafficking and illegal mining. Those descriptions are the Argentine government’s stated grounds for the decision.
The same statement describes Los Tiguerones as a drug-trafficking and contract-killing group and classifies FARC-EP and ELN as far-left insurgent guerrilla organizations.
The foreign ministry, the National Security and Justice ministries, and the State Intelligence Secretariat, SIDE, coordinated the decision. For context, Tribuna says SIDE had already added another Ecuadorian organization, Los Chone Killers, to the registry in August.
At the time Tribuna published its report, Mexico’s government, led by President Claudia Sheinbaum, had not commented on the designation or its implications.
Original reporting by Tribuna Sonora