Video shows black-clad, rifle-wielding men stalk Texas island caught up in cartel turf war
Shocking video shows a group of black-clothed, rifle-carrying men — assumed Mexican drug cartel operatives — patrolling a Texas island just over the US-Mexico border.
At least 10 people were seen stalking through the woodland of Fronton Island on Saturday, according to drone footage released by the Texas Department of Public Safety.
Grainy images showed a man with a backwards cap and a backpack carrying a weapon, while a man behind him was dressed in full tactical gear.
The incident comes two weeks after another video showed rival cartel operatives throwing explosives at each other across the border.
Locally the island is known as an extremely dangerous place as it is used by the warring cartels to stash contraband.
“It’s an island of death,” Jaeson Jones, a retired captain in the Texas Department of Public Safety’s Intelligence Division, told the Daily Mail.
“It’s dangerous, man.”
Fronton Island, nestled in the Rio Grande and claimed as US territory, has been used by both the Gulf Cartel and the Northeast Cartel to smuggle drugs, weapons and human-traffic migrants into the country.
The rival cartels often get into shooting matches over loot they stash in the undergrowth and in scrub land.
Each night, according to Jones, hundreds of migrants cross through the island to get into the United States — which the drug cartels use to their advantage, sending their foot soldiers undercover to blend in with the crowds.
In an effort to secure the border and prevent further violence, Texas officials declared the island a state territory in September.
It was already technically within the Texas state border, but Texas Land Commissioner Dawn Buckingham said her office found it necessary to declare it owned by the state to allow law enforcement to operate in the area.
She added that the request for Texas to seize the land has been in place for nearly a decade.
“This is Texas land, it has been Texas land,” Buckingham told News 4 San Antonio. “But now that it’s officially claimed, law enforcement can gain access to that property.”
Texas Department of Public Safety Regional Director Victor Escalon explained the state was forced to act because the federal government “is not able to cover all these areas and provide for the safety and security of landowners.
“You have people out here saying, ‘Hey man, I’m out feeding my cows and I see three men coming across with backpacks and they’re armed. Why do I have to live like that?’”
Since declaring the island state territory, Department of Public Safety personnel have moved into the area and cleared out much of the vegetation so that they could better monitor cartel activity in the area.
However, so far the department is still regularly confronting cartel members on the island.
“We’ve encountered armed gunmen, cartel members that have come across on Fronton, we’ve encountered ammunition,” Lt. Chris Olivarez said.
Some local officials are even starting to doubt whether the efforts to take over the island will really make a difference in the fight against cartels.
“[The cartels] will still be able to move whatever commodity north or south,” said Mike Salinas, a recently retired Border Patrol agent who served for 30 years.
“It’s going to be a speed bump for them. They have the resources, money and time” to get through.
