DPS: Mexican Cartels Recruiting HS Students

DPS warns parents of danger

Mexican cartels are recruiting high school students in Texas for their drug, human, currency and weapon smuggling operations on both sides of the border, the Texas Department of Public Safety said Friday.

The agency says these cartels and their operatives torture and kill thousands in Mexico and use prison gangs to continue their violence both there and in Texas. DPS also said that command and control networks for six of the seven cartels have already been established in Texas.

According to DPS Director, Stephen C. McCraw, "Mexican Cartels have corrupted nearly an entire generation of youth living in Northern Mexico and they seek to corrupt our youth as well to further their smuggling operations."

Within the past year, more than twenty five kids and teens have been arrested for drug trafficking in one border county. Last month, two Texas teens were lured to Mexico where they were kidnapped, beaten, ransomed, and released near a remote region along the Rio Grande River.

Last week, in Texas, the DPS apprehended a 12-year-old boy found driving a stolen pick-up truck carrying eight hundred pounds of marijuana.

DPS is advising parents to talk to their children and explain the dangers of the Mexican Cartels, especially those who live near the Texas/Mexico border.

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