In the border city of Laredo, Texas, what started as a regular traffic stop by local police turned into a criminal investigation as federal officials found thousands of high-caliber bullets inside a vehicle that were headed to Mexico to supply a drug cartel.
A complaint filed on Feb. 7 before the Southern District of Texas says Laredo police officers pulled over a Toyota pickup truck with two passengers near the intersection of U.S. Highway 83 and La Pita Mangana Road. They began asking questions after running a background check on the driver's name and found out that Julio Cesar Hernandez had a "lengthy criminal history" in Webb County.
After inspecting the vehicle, officers located approximately 5,000 rounds of 5.56-caliber ammunition in the rear seat of the vehicle and a small amount of cocaine inside the passenger's pants pockets, who was later identified as Marcos Ulises Salazar Esquivel.
Officers also found a 9mm Taurus G3c pistol and two magazines loaded with eight and six bullets each in another part of the truck, as detailed by Border Report.
Laredo police arrested the suspects, with Hernandez later telling investigators that he is "closely tied" to a Mexican drug cartel and was transporting the ammunition along with Salazar, a Mexican national illegally living in the United States, who would then smuggle the cargo into Mexico.
The driver said he was in the middle of a drug transaction with Salazar when Laredo police stopped him less than 10 miles from the U.S.-Mexico border. Court records say Hernandez gave Salazar an ounce of cocaine as a "sample" in anticipation of the purchase of half a kilogram of cocaine.
Court documents also say that Hernandez gave Salazar a round of the 5.56-caliber ammunition, which is commonly used by AR-15-style rifles. Salazar later confirmed Hernandez's version, the affidavit showed.
Legal records reference Hernandez as having ties to the Cartel del Noroeste, known to operate in cities along the U.S.-Mexico border, and more concretely around the Nuevo Laredo region.
Records show Hernandez made his initial appearance before U.S. Magistrate Judge Christopher Dos Santos in Laredo on Feb. 10. A preliminary examination and detention hearing is scheduled for Feb. 14.
What is the Cartel del Noroeste?
According to InSight Crime, the criminal group known as Cartel del Noroeste emerged from the remnants of the Zetas and it has long controlled the border city of Nuevo Laredo.
Since at least 2019, the CDN has been in constant clashes with other Gulf Cartel and Zetas cliques, as well as parts of the Sinaloa cartel and the Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generación (CJNG).
The criminal group has made of Nuevo Laredo its stronghold. And according to government officials, the Cartel del Noroeste is the "law and order" around the region.
"The [Northeast Cartel] decides what's permitted and what isn't," a government official who works with at-risk youth in a neighborhood controlled by the group told InSight Crime.
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