Members of a Mexican cartel shot at migrants who were taking Ubers to cross the southern border illegally — leaving one woman dead, The Post has learned.
The Feb. 20 shooting in Caborca highlights the stronghold cartels continue to have on the flow of illegal immigration into the US.
The cartel members gunned down one woman from Ecuador and left four others with gunshot injuries, according to an internal Border Patrol memo leaked to The Post.
The migrants, who were all from Ecuador, were riding in three Ubers at the time.
Chief of Border Patrol’s Tucson sector in Arizona John Modlin testified to the House Homeland Security Committee in July that “absolutely everyone” crossing into the region has to enter with cartel permission.
“No one does without. We have experienced when people try to, and we’ve seen them beaten for trying to cross without paying the fees,” Modlin said at the time.
The latest attacks occurred because the migrants didn’t have cartel permission to be in the area, which is where rival criminal organizations have been fighting for control, the memo stated. It’s unclear which cartel was responsible for the Feb. 20 assault.
“Transnational Criminal Organizations (TCOs) continue target migrants approaching the US/Mexico. In the past several weeks there have been several attacks on vehicles carrying migrants to the US/Mexican border, resulting in deaths and injuries,” the memo stated.
Cochise County Sheriff Mark Dannels said that migrants can’t cross the border without cartel permission and payment to the criminal groups.
“I see the intel reports, I’ve seen the control they have on people coming across the border, the fear they dominate with and it’s just reality,” Dannels told The Post while chasing a car full of suspected smugglers.
Meanwhile, an alleged drug cartel trafficker was charged with murdering two people, including one who was pregnant, and burying their remains in the desert around Yakima, Washington, in an apparent attempt to silence potential witnesses in a federal case against him, the US Attorney’s Office for Southern District of California said March 5.
“The cartels and drug trafficking organizations have reached beyond our borders, bringing their criminality to every city and small town in our interior,” Special Agent in Charge Robert Hammer, who oversees HSI operations in the Pacific Northwest, said in a statement regarding the murders.
“The murder of witnesses is an affront to our rule of law but HSI, along with our law enforcement partners, have the resources to uncover these horrible crimes and the dedication to dismantle the organizations harming our population, wherever they may be located.”
