According to a May 16 DOJ press release, Maria Del Rosario Navarro-Sanchez, a 39-year-old Mexican national, faces unprecedented charges as the first alleged member of the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generación (CJNG) to be indicted for providing material support to terrorism. In February, secretary of state Marco Rubio designated CJNG and seven other cartels as Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs).
The press release reveals that “CJNG has conducted attacks on Mexican military and police with military-grade weaponry, the use of drones to drop explosives on Mexican law enforcement, and assassinations or attempted assassinations of Mexican officials.” The Navarro-Sanchez indictment is a result of the Trump administration’s Operation Take Back America, a DOJ initiative aimed at dismantling cartels and curbing illegal immigration, drug-trafficking, and firearms-smuggling.
On May 16, 2025, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced a superseding indictment against Maria Del Rosario Navarro-Sanchez, who was arrested in Mexico. Her arrest marks a significant escalation in the fight against transnational criminal organizations. As detailed in the press release, the charges include “providing the cartel with grenades and engaging in alien smuggling, firearms trafficking, bulk cash smuggling, and narcotics trafficking on its behalf.”
The indictment, unsealed in the Western District of Texas, also names two co-defendants, Luis Carlos Davalos-Lopez, 27, and Gustavo Castro-Medina, 28, both Mexican nationals. Davalos-Lopez is charged with conspiracy to smuggle and transport illegal aliens and firearms-trafficking, while Castro-Medina faces charges for firearms-trafficking, drug conspiracy, and possession of controlled substances with intent to distribute.
The superseding indictment shows that Navarro-Sanchez was coordinating the delivery of methamphetamine through the El Paso points of entry. Various couriers would pick up narcotics in the El Paso area, store them, and deliver them to other couriers, who would “take the narcotics to different cities throughout the United States.” Additionally, agents found “hundreds of pictures and messages about weapons” on the devices owned by co-conspirators. One such weapon, referred to as “[E]l [D]orado,” was a golden gun that her network “successfully smuggled to Mexico.”
In mid-summer of 2023, “agents with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) intercepted communications of Navarro-Sanchez,” who had allegedly “agreed to purchase 20 AK-47- type firearms and two .50-caliber rifles for $66,000.” Navarro-Sanchez allegedly “caused $3,000 to be wired to a person within the Western District of Texas as a down payment for the firearms.”
Navarro-Sanchez and her co-conspirators were allegedly planning to smuggle the weapons into the Republic of Mexico. Mexico’s strict gun laws make it exceedingly difficult to obtain legally sourced weapons in the country. The indictment states, “In Mexico, there is one gun store in the entire nation, and the Government of Mexico rarely issues gun permits.”
Navarro-Sanchez also allegedly coordinated human-smuggling operations “for the purpose of running a weapons and drug stash house in the Western District of Texas.” Intercepted communications show evidence of a tunnel between Juarez, Mexico, and El Paso, Texas. In those communications, Navarro-Sanchez and others “discussed the number of migrants that crossed through the tunnel and how much [was] charged to use the tunnel.”
According to the superseding indictment, federal agents found a “completed man-made tunnel that spanned from Mexico into the United States” in mid-January 2025. The tunnel “linked into the public storm system, was approximately six feet tall, four feet wide, equipped with lighting, a ventilation system, and was braced with wood beams throughout.” Communications indicated that aliens could still be smuggled into the United States “through other means,” even after the discovery of the tunnel.
