Cartel Guns, Ammo, & Millions of Dollars Seized in South Texas
"Smuggler's Blues," Lone-Star Style!
Mexican Cartels are losing vast amounts of cash, weapons, and ammo to US authorities targeting cartel couriers moving the loot back to Mexico along South Texas highways.
The largest seizure occurred on October 8, 2025, when US Customs & Border Protection (CBP) officers at the Anzalduas International Bridge in Hidalgo, Texas, decided to take a closer look at a pick-up truck being driven by a US Citizen bound for Mexico.
When they did, they discovered he was trying to smuggle $1,033,500 in cash across the border along with what they describe as “a trove” of weapons and ammo.
That big seizure of cartel cash is hardly a “one-off.” Just north of Hidalgo, the Kleberg County Attorney’s Specialized Crimes and Narcotics Task Force has seized around a million dollars from cartel “money mules” since September.
(I recently devoted an entire article to this task force’s story. If you’d like to learn more about them, go HERE).
That task force is also making life hard for gunrunners passing through their county on the way to Mexico to re-arm their cartel bosses. On October 21, 2025, a Kleberg County Attorney’s Specialized Crimes and Narcotics Task Force Special Agent pulled over another southbound driver and discovered not only was the driver smuggling cash, but a small arsenal of weapons as well.
Two days later, on October 23, 2025, both Fox News & NewsNation report that a father and son towing two trailers into Mexico through Laredo were arrested as CBP Officers discovered hundreds of long rifles and thousands of rounds of ammunition hidden behind false walls.
This seizure was so large that it filled several tables after the trailers were emptied of their loads, and the CBP couldn’t capture it in a single photo.
October has been a bad month for southbound smugglers heading for Mexico through South Texas (and a good month for US law enforcement officers).
Should more law enforcement resources be devoted to targeting southbound smugglers to try to choke off the cartels’ cash and weaponry?
Share your opinions in the comments to this article.
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Abrazos,
Jack Beavers,
US Border News Editor
Note: a question unrelated to this article accidentally went out via e-mail. The online and in-app (Substack) versions of the article have been corrected. Apologies & Abrazos! -jack-