HOUSTON – Violent Mexican drug cartels are recruiting Texas students to support their criminal operations, the Texas DPS said Friday.
Six of the seven cartels have established command and control networks in the state, looking for students to help them smuggle drugs, people, currency and weapons on both sides of the Texas-Mexico border.
The DPS said the cartels and their operatives are responsible for the torture and murder of thousands of people, and they’re using transnational and Texas prison gangs to further their operations.
The DPS said the Texas border region represents just 9.7 percent of the state’s population, but it has 19.2 percent of the state’s juvenile felony drug referrals and 21.8 percent of the states’ juvenile felony gang referrals.
In one Texas border county, more than 25 juveniles have been arrested for drug trafficking within the past year. Last month, two Texas teenagers were lured to Mexico where they were kidnapped, beaten, ransomed and released in a remote area along the Rio Grande River. Last week, the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) apprehended a 12-year-old boy in a border county driving a stolen pickup truck containing more than 800 pounds of marijuana.
"Mexican Cartels have corrupted nearly an entire generation of youth living in Northern Mexico and they seek to corrupt our youth as well to further their smuggling operations" said Steven C. McCraw, DPS Director. "The Mexican Cartels value Texas teenagers for their ability to serve as expendable labor in many different roles and they have unlimited resources to recruit our children."
The DPS said parents should talk to their kids and explain how the cartels are seeking to exploit young people in Texas.
