US charges 81 in Puerto Rico gang case, as Trump cartel crackdown continues

The United States Department of Justice has indicted 81 people over alleged drug and weapons violations, as part of a crackdown on a Puerto Rican criminal group called Los Baja Deo or LBD.

Attorney General Todd Blanche announced the charges on Thursday during a visit to Puerto Rico. A day earlier, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Puerto Rico Police Department arrested 70 of the defendants.

“Let this be a warning to those that are terrorizing our communities,” Blanche said in a statement.

“Our Homeland Security Task Forces around the country are unified to end the presence of criminal cartels, foreign gangs, and transnational criminal organizations throughout the United States.”

The mass indictment arrives as part of an effort under US President Donald Trump to weaken and dismantle criminal organisations across the Western Hemisphere.

His administration has called the hemisphere “ America’s neighborhood “. It has pledged to take hardline, and sometimes lethal, action in the region against those it considers to be “narco-terrorists”, a word it frequently applies to suspected drug-traffickers.

Thursday’s indictment alleges that, starting in 2021, members of LBD began distributing drugs in and around public housing projects and neighbourhoods in Mayaguez, a city in western Puerto Rico.

They are also accused of using the US Postal Service to send drugs from the island, which is a US territory. Among the substances allegedly trafficked were heroin, fentanyl, cocaine and marijuana.