Southwest
Cartels lure American teens to smuggle illegals: 'No idea what they're getting into' – and 'no way out'
Cartels are using flashy social media posts with piles of money, jewelry and luxury items to entice teens in America and Mexico to smuggle illegal immigrants across the U.S. border – and officials say the young people have no idea what they are getting mixed up in.
Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) officers arrested two Texas 19-year-olds Saturday for smuggling three migrants after they led police on a high-speed chase in a stolen vehicle, then crashed into a rancher’s fence. One of the men in the vehicle, Gerardo Jose Ojeda-Montiel, 33, was a Venezuelan national wanted on murder charges in the U.S. Virgin Islands, Texas DPS said.
Daniele Lopez-Vasquez of Austin, Texas, and Brian Guzman of Del Valle, Texas, were arrested and charged with evading arrest, smuggling of persons, unauthorized use of a motor vehicle and unlawful carrying of a weapon.
Customs and Border Protection could not be reached for comment for more details about Ojeda-Montiel.
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Daniele Lopez-Vasquez, 19, and Brian Guzman, 19, both of Texas, were caught smuggling a 33-year-old Mexican national wanted for murder, and two others, according to Texas officials. (Chris Olivarez/X)
Texas DPS spokesman Chris Olivarez told Fox News Digital that the teens likely had no idea they were transporting a murder suspect. Typically, he said, teen smugglers are recruited via TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram or other social media sites. They then use encrypted messaging apps, usually WhatsApp, to communicate anonymously with cartel members, getting audio or text messages instructing them where to pick up their human payloads.
Olivarez said the Saturday arrests followed many of the patterns his agency sees with teen smugglers.
“In most cases they evade law enforcement, they get in these high-speed chases,” he said Wednesday. “They’re not only putting themselves and the people in danger, they’re putting innocent bystanders at risk. We’ve had cases where people are killed.”
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Gerardo Jose Ojeda-Montiel, 33, of Venezuela. Ojeda-Montiel was wanted for murder in the U.S. Virgin Islands, according to Texas DPS. (Chris Olivarez/X)
“They’re not thinking about the consequences – they’re thinking about the thrill, about quick money,” Olivarez told Fox News Digital.
“[They could be smuggling] someone who is wanted for murder, someone who is on a watch list,” he said. “We often see these juveniles with handguns. We believe they have those weapons for their safety; they don’t know who they’re smuggling.”
Of 40,400 arrests made by the Texas DPS’s Operation Lone Star in March and 36,100 felony charges among them, thousands are associated with human smuggling. The ages of offenders range from 18 to 66, according to data updated in January of this year.
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Pictured is a 14-year-old who was captured transporting immigrants across the Rio Grande in a ghillie suit on the week of April 28. (Chris Olivarez/X)
Olivarez said that cartels have long recruited teens for their drug and human trafficking operations because they often aren’t charged as adults.
“The cartels are well aware that there are less consequences, less prosecution when it comes to juveniles involved in human smuggling,” Olivarez continued. “If a juvenile is caught, for the most part, they are released to a parent or family member. Then they’re doing the same thing the following day.”
In some cases, Olivarez said, the juveniles are no older than 13.
Also last week, DPS arrested a 14-year-old boy from Mexico clad in a gillie suit who had been guiding a group of migrants across the Rio Grande in McAllen. Officers swooped in after the attempt was caught on a border security camera.
“To see a 14-year-old doing that, to see them wearing a camouflage suit, shows just how these cartels are using these juveniles,” Olivarez said.
Texas Department of Public Safety spokesperson said although teens are often caught bringing migrants across the border, he’d never seen one apprehended in a ghillie suit. (Chris Olivarez/X)
The teen recruitment phenomenon extends into other border states. Last month, a 16-year-old was arrested by U.S. Border Patrol for cramming seven migrants into his car in Why, Arizona, Chief Patrol Agent John Modlin wrote in a post on X.
Former DEA Chief of Operations Michael Braun told Fox News Digital that these teens have “no idea what they’re getting into” when they get involved with the cartels, and that there’s “simply no way out once they make that first smuggling run.”
“Anyone believing differently simply doesn’t understand how the Mexican cartels operate,” Braun said. “They are the most powerful transnational drug trafficking and organized crime groups law enforcement has ever dealt with.”
Seven migrants were found packed into a van near Why, Arizona, April 28, 2024. The van was being driven by a 16-year-old American citizen, according to U.S. Border Patrol. (U.S. Border Patrol)
Mexican cartels have used Americans to conduct their smuggling operations for years – but Braun said they are now in a “full court press to exploit much younger Americans.”
“The cartels know teens are attracted to money and a sense of adventure, and their recruitment is facilitated by social media, which provides cartel recruiters with a practical level of anonymity,” he said.
Olivarez said he hadn’t seen a significant uptick in teens running migrants across the border, but that they’ve “always” been a “significant” portion of traffickers. Generally, he said, they are making $2,000 to $3,000 for every migrant they ferry into the U.S.
One of two Dallas teens arrested for smuggling in November, a 17-year-old, told NewsNation that he and his friend were offered $1,300 for the job after responding to an ad on Telegram.
They were pulled over by DPS for running a stop sign, and the teen said he knew he was “screwed” when he saw the red and blue lights.
A new state law passed by the Texas state legislature increased the minimum sentence from two to 10 years for people caught smuggling migrants, according to The Texas Tribune.
But the consequences extend further than just time behind bars, Olivarez and Braun said.
“They’re not only dealing with these criminals – there is an overall impact that this is going to have on their lives, especially if they want to go to school, college. They will have a criminal background,” Olivarez said, noting that felonies stay on juvenile’s records even after they come of age.
Braun said he feared that “it’s just a matter of time before we see American kids brutally victimized after making naive decisions and minor missteps that infuriate cartel bosses.”
“The Mexican cartels rely on the long-standing hallmarks of organized crime – corruption, intimidation and ruthless violence – to ensure mission success,” he said. “I’m talking about unconscionable forms of torture and murder that make designated terrorist organizations and traditional American organized crime families look like Boy Scouts.”
“Some will be recovered dead, whole or in pieces, after enduring ravenous forms of torture,” he continued. “Some will never be seen or heard from again. I don’t want to sound crude, I’m just telling it the way it is. This is what our government can expect if it doesn’t take its head out of the sand when it comes to border security.”
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Southwest
Arizona governor vetoes Charlie Kirk memorial license plate, sparking GOP outrage: ‘This bill falls short’
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Democratic Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs is facing fierce backlash after vetoing a bill that would have created a specialty license plate honoring slain Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk, a move Republicans are blasting as a stunning act of partisanship after his assassination.
Kirk, who was assassinated while speaking at a Sept. 10 Turning Point USA event at Utah Valley University, lived in Arizona with his wife, Erika, and two children.
The proposed specialty plate, referred to as the “Charlie Kirk memorial” plate or the “Conservative grassroots network special plate,” featured a photo of the late Kirk and the TPUSA logo in front of an American flag background.
Below the license plate number were the words “FOR CHARLIE.”
A custom Arizona license plate, featuring a Turning Point USA and Charlie Kirk design, shared by state Sen. Jake Hoffman. (Senator Jake Hoffman via X)
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Of the $25 fee required for the plate, $17 would be an annual donation deposited into the Conservative Grassroots Network Special Plate Fund, according to the legislation.
While the recipient of the Grassroots Network Special Plate Fund was not explicitly designated as TPUSA in the bill, it noted the director of the fund would allocate revenue annually to a nonprofit organization, founded in 2012, that focuses on restoring traditional values, maintaining a grassroots activist network on high school and college campuses in Arizona, and assisting college students with voter registration and absentee ballots.
People gather at a memorial to mourn Turning Point USA Founder Charlie Kirk outside Turning Point USA headquarters Sept. 12, 2025, in Phoenix. (Charly Triballeau/AFP via Getty Images)
TPUSA, founded by Kirk in 2012, is well known for its grassroots activist networks on high school and college campuses. It is headquartered in Phoenix, Arizona.
The $25 fee and annual $17 donation are consistent with the fees for the other 109 nonprofit license plates offered by the Arizona Department of Transportation (ADOT).
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The state Senate passed the bill, 16-2, with the House of Representatives voting 31-23 in favor prior to Hobbs’ veto.
Specialty plates in Arizona are authorized by the legislature and sent to the governor to be signed into law. They have been offered since 1989.
In a letter explaining the veto, Hobbs cited concerns with the bill “bring[ing] people together,” claiming it would “insert politics into a function of government that should remain nonpartisan.”
Democratic Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs is facing fierce backlash after vetoing a bill that would have created a specialty license plate honoring slain Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk. (Rebecca Noble/Getty Images)
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“Charlie Kirk’s assassination is tragic and a horrifying act of violence,” Hobbs wrote. “In America, we resolve our political differences at the ballot box. No matter who it targets, political violence puts us all in harm’s way and damages our sacred democratic institutions.
“I will continue working toward solutions that bring people together, but this bill falls short of that standard.”
Specialty license plates with political interests already approved by the state include the “Choose Life” Plate, which benefits the Arizona Life Coalition and its mission to promote anti-abortion advocacy and education; the “In God We Trust” Plate, which benefits conservative Christian legal advocacy group Alliance Defending Freedom; and the Arizona Realtors’ “Homes for All” Plate, which funds affordable housing projects.
Charlie Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA, speaks during the Turning Point Action conference in 2023 in West Palm Beach, Fla. (Lynne Sladky/AP Photo)
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Another approved plate, “Alice Cooper’s Solid Rock Plate,” which benefits Solid Rock Teen Centers, features a portrait of the legendary musician, who has made political comments about social issues including gender identity.
Republican state Sen. Jake Hoffman, who sponsored the bill, posted a fiery statement on social media after the governor’s action, claiming her “grotesque partisanship knows no bounds.”
“Even in the wake of a global civil rights leader — an Arizona resident and her own constituent — being assassinated in broad daylight for his defense of the First Amendment, Hobbs couldn’t find the human decency to put her far-Left extremism aside simply to allow those how wish to honor him to do so,” Hoffman wrote. “Katie Hobbs will forever be known as a stain on the pages of Arizona’s story.”
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On Saturday, TPUSA COO Tyler Bowyer shared an X post that said, “Deport Katie Hobbs.”
TPUSA, Bowyer and Hobbs’ office did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s requests for comment.
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Southwest
Air Force veteran warns ‘cartels don’t collapse — they fracture’ after notorious drug lord killed
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Nearly two weeks after Mexican forces killed notorious cartel boss Ruben “El Mencho” Oseguera Cervantes, questions remain about how the powerful Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) will respond and whether the blow will meaningfully disrupt the flow of fentanyl into the United States.
Carlos De La Cruz, a 20-year U.S. Air Force veteran who deployed after 9/11 and later served along the southern border, told Fox News the cartel leader’s death marked a major victory, but warned Americans should not mistake it for the end of the fight.
“When I say that this is a significant win, I mean it,” De La Cruz said. “El Mencho ran one of the most violent cartels on the planet.”
Oseguera, who rose to prominence in the post–El Chapo era, oversaw CJNG’s aggressive expansion across Mexico and into key trafficking corridors feeding U.S. drug markets. Under his leadership, the cartel became a central architect of fentanyl and methamphetamine trafficking and drew a $15 million U.S. reward for information leading to his capture.
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Smoke rises from burning vehicles after a military operation that a government source said killed Mexican drug lord Nemesio Oseguera, known as “El Mencho,” in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, on Feb. 22, 2026. (Screen grab obtained from a social media video. @morelifediares via Instagram/YouTube via Reuters)
But De La Cruz cautioned that removing a cartel kingpin does not dismantle the organization.
“Cartels don’t collapse when you just cut the head off — they fracture,” he said. “And part of that fracture is going to see a lot of short-term violence while all these factions fight over territory.”
Following Oseguera’s killing on Feb. 22, the U.S. State Department issued travel alerts in multiple Mexican states, citing road blockages and criminal activity tied to security operations, underscoring concerns about instability in the aftermath.
Drawing on his military background studying enemy command structures, De La Cruz described the cartel fight as a long-term campaign requiring sustained pressure.
A mughsot of Ruben “Nemesio” Oseguera Cervantes, known as “El Mencho,” beside graffiti depicting the letters of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, covering the facade of an abandoned home in El Limoncito, in the Michoacan state of Mexico. (Eduardo Verdugo/AP Images; Drug Enforcement Administration)
“You don’t win a war with just one airstrike,” he said. “The goal is dismantling the networks and going after their financing.”
De La Cruz, who is running for Congress and is the brother of Texas Republican Rep. Monica De La Cruz, argued that CJNG’s Foreign Terrorist Organization designation gives U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies expanded tools to target cartel infrastructure and financial pipelines.
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A soldier stands guard by a charred vehicle after it was set on fire in Cointzio, Mexico, Sunday, Feb. 22, 2026, after the cartel leader’s death. (Armando Solis/AP Photo)
But he stressed that the fentanyl crisis should be viewed as a domestic security emergency, not a distant foreign problem.
“For decades, they were using their territories as launching pads to pump chemical weapons into America — because that’s exactly what fentanyl is,” he said.
De La Cruz, who said he worked side by side with Customs agents while deployed to the border, warned that cartel networks are highly adaptive and that any gains could be temporary without sustained follow-through.
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Smoke rises after violence hit Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. (Courtesy of Scott Posilkin)
“These networks, they’re going to adjust. They’re going to adapt and they’re going to adapt quickly,” he said. “We have to continue to go after the money launderers, especially on our side of the border, because that’s the full fight.”
While Oseguera’s death removes one of the most dominant figures in Mexico’s criminal underworld, De La Cruz said the mission is personal.
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“I took an oath to defend this country,” he said. “And I intend to stand by that oath.”
Fox News Digital’s Greg Wehner contributed to this report.
Stepheny Price covers crime, including missing persons, homicides and migrant crime. Send story tips to stepheny.price@fox.com.
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TUCSON, Ariz. — More than five weeks after the suspected abduction of Nancy Guthrie — the 84-year-old mother of “Today” co-host Savannah Guthrie — Arizona authorities say cadaver dogs used earlier in the investigation are not currently being deployed as the search continues.
The elder Guthrie is believed to have been kidnapped from her home in the Catalina Foothills in northern Tucson around 2:30 a.m. on Feb. 1.
While no suspects have been publicly identified, and she has not been found, cadaver dogs had been deployed earlier in the case, according to Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos. They have not been visible in weeks.
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A member of the Pima County Sheriff’s Office remains outside of Nancy Guthrie’s home, Monday, Feb. 9, 2026 in Tucson, Ariz. (AP Photo/Ty ONeil; Nathan Congleton/NBC via Getty Images)
“They are available if needed in the future,” he told Fox News Digital.
There are a number of reasons not to be using cadaver dogs at this stage in the investigation, according to Betsy Brantner Smith, a retired police sergeant and spokeswoman for the National Police Association.
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Savannah Guthrie visits the Today show at Rockefeller Plaza in New York on Thursday, March 5, 2026. (Charles Sykes/Invision/AP)
One would be if there’s credible information that Guthrie is still alive.
“Anything is possible,” Nanos told Fox News Digital last week, adding that he would not discuss specific leads or evidence in the case.
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Brantner Smith, who is not involved in the case, said departments may hold back K-9 resources for several reasons. Those could be that authorities don’t have a good idea of where to search, they think she might be concealed in a place where dogs would have a hard time detecting her, or they believe she’s been taken to Mexico, according to Brantner Smith.
Law enforcement agents walk around the neighborhood where Annie Guthrie, whose mother Nancy Guthrie has been missing for more than a week, lives just outside Tucson, Ariz. (Ty ONeil/AP Photo)
“I do believe that the sheriff’s department has much more information that they are not releasing to the public,” she told Fox News Digital. “And I’m not sure at this point why that would be, unless they have a solid suspect and don’t want to tip them off.”
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Most departments, including the Pima County Sheriff’s, don’t have their own cadaver dogs and borrow them from state and federal authorities or neighboring jurisdictions.
An investigator looks inside a culvert in the neighborhood where Annie Guthrie, whose mother Nancy Guthrie has been missing for more than a week, lives just outside Tucson, Ariz., on Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2026. (Ty ONeil/AP Photo)
In Guthrie’s case, the sheriff’s department sought K-9 assistance from the local Border Patrol office earlier in the investigation.
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PCSD deferred further comment on the K-9s to Customs and Border Protection, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
A member of the Pima County Sheriff’s Office walks around Nancy Guthrie’s home on Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2026 in Tucson, Ariz. (Ty ONeil/AP Photo)
The biggest lead so far has been Nest camera video showing a masked intruder on Guthrie’s doorstep the morning of her abduction.
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He is described as about 5 feet, 9 inches to 5 feet, 10 inches tall and of medium build.
Nancy Guthrie, 84, has been missing from her Arizona home since Jan. 31, 2026. (Don Arnold/WireImage/Getty Images)
He was wearing a black Ozark Trail backpack.
Authorities have said they won’t consider the case cold until they run out of viable leads to follow up on — and tens of thousands have come in so far.
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Savannah Guthrie has asked anyone with information to dial 1-800-CALL-FBI.
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There’s a combined reward of more than $1.2 million for information that leads to her mother’s recovery.
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