An alleged Guatemalan drug trafficker and fugitive—who is wanted in the United States—was arrested in the Mexican state of Chiapas on Tuesday after a joint operation.
Aler Baldomero Samayoa Recinos, known as La Chicharra (The Cicada), was detained in southern Mexico on March 11, after an operation involving Guatemala, Mexico, and the United States.
Jiménez said Samayoa Recinos negotiated with Mexican cartels to traffic narcotics through Guatemala en route to the United States.
In a statement published at the time, the department said Samayoa Recinos “oversees a trafficking operation that coordinates the transportation of cocaine shipments from Huehuetenango, Guatemala into the Mexican state of Chiapas.”
The department added that Samayoa Recinos “is also engaged in money laundering activities on behalf of the Los Huistas DTO [Drug Trafficking Organization].”
In 2018, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia indicted Samayoa Recinos on charges related to cocaine trafficking following an investigation by the DEA.
Mexico’s two most powerful cartels, the Sinaloa cartel and the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion (CJNG), have been fighting for control of lucrative smuggling routes in southern Mexico.
Cultivating Poppies in Guatemala
The Department of the Treasury also said Los Huistas controlled poppy cultivation fields in the Huehuetenango and San Marcos regions of Guatemala and “has imported precursor chemicals from China to manufacture methamphetamine.”Samayo Recinos’ arrest comes as the Guatemalan Army steps up its border patrols, under pressure from the White House.
Colonel Juan Ernesto Celis, a Guatemalan army spokesman, said one of his units patrolled the Suchiate River, which forms the western end of the Guatemala-Mexico border, on Thursday.
He said border patrol operations had been stepped up since January.
When Secretary of State Marco Rubio visited Guatemala in February, President Bernardo Arévalo announced he would form a new border security force to patrol his nation’s borders with Honduras and El Salvador as well as the Mexican frontier.
Arévalo has said migration is a right, but he wants it regulated and has ordered the army to stop illegal arms, drugs, and human trafficking.
The Guatemalan and Mexican governments are also stepping up cooperation.
On Thursday, Ann Marie Argueta, a spokeswoman for Guatemala’s defense department, said the military wanted to protect Guatemalans but also prevent, “incursions into national territory by transnational organized crime.”
In July 2024, nearly 600 Mexicans fled fighting between drug cartels in their communities across the border and sought refuge in Guatemala.