US senators warn about illegal red snapper fishing linked to the Gulf Cartel

A dozen Republican senators from states bordering the Gulf of Mexico sent a letter to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the United States Department of Commerce to strengthen surveillance of illegal red snapper fishing, allegedly carried out by Mexican vessels linked to the Gulf cartel, and to block its entry into the US market.

“Reports from the Treasury Department indicate that these boats do not operate as isolated or subsistence fishing enterprises, but rather as organized operations increasingly linked to the Gulf Cartel, one of the most dangerous criminal organizations in Mexico. The continued ability to sell illegally caught red snapper in the US market constitutes a powerful source of financing for the cartel and undermines both US fisheries management and national security,” notes the letter dated the 14th. January and signed only by Republicans.

Senators Bill Cassidy, John Cornyn, Roger F. Wicker, Tommy Tuberville, Rick Scott, John Kennedy, Ted Cruz, Cindy Hyde-Smith, Katie Boyd Britt and Ashley Moody accuse that illegal, unreported and unregulated red snapper fishing is being recorded by Mexican vessels operating in US waters of the Gulf of Mexico (called by them the Gulf of America) and that the goods end up in the United States.

“Despite the fact that there were fewer vessel interdictions in 2025 than the previous year, the volume of illegally caught red snapper seized by the Coast Guard increased 28 percent, reaching 15,859 pounds,” which according to President Donald Trump’s co-religionists means that fewer individual boats are being detained, but “those intercepted are carrying much larger, high-value cargoes.”

According to the politicians, a report on Coast Guard activity indicates that it intercepts only one in every five foreign fishing vessels detected, leaving almost 80 percent “free to enter (United States) domestic commerce through opaque supply chains.”