US Justice Department directs prosecutors to use terrorism laws against Mexican officials

The Justice Department this week instructed federal prosecutors to use terrorism statutes to target Mexican officials complicit in the narcotics trade, a significant escalation in the Trump administration's campaign against drug trafficking from Mexico.

The directive was announced Wednesday by Aakash Singh, an associate deputy attorney general, during an internal conference call with prosecutors in regional offices, according to a U.S. official familiar with the remarks. Singh's role includes setting priorities for the 93 U.S. attorneys.

"We should be tripling the number of indictments of corrupt government officials in Mexico who are using their power and their positions to enable terrorists and monsters who traffic in misery and poison," Singh told colleagues, according to the official, who was not authorized to speak publicly.

The initiative is the latest expansion of a hard-line policy that has defined President Trump's agenda since his return to the White House last year, when he signed an executive order designating Latin American drug cartels as terrorist organizations. Within months, the U.S. military began blowing up boats in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean, killing nearly 200 people the administration says are drug smugglers.

The Justice Department directive, which has not been previously reported, comes two weeks after federal prosecutors in New York indicted the governor of Mexico's Sinaloa state, who is also a member of the country's governing party, and nine other current and former Mexican officials. Days earlier, the death of two Central Intelligence Agency officers in a car crash in Mexico revealed a covert element of the White House's clampdown on cartels. The developments have sharply intensified cross-border tensions and are almost certain to further strain U.S.-Mexico relations.