Northeast Cartel

The Northeast Cartel (Cartel del Noreste – CDN) is a Mexican criminal group involved in drug trafficking, extortion, kidnapping, human trafficking, and migrant smuggling. The organization emerged following the fragmentation of the Zetas and inherited part of the criminal infrastructure and territory that that group had established in northeastern Mexico.

Although it has faced constant law enforcement operations and the capture of several of its top leaders, the CDN has managed to maintain a significant presence along the US-Mexico border. Its ability to retain control of strategic territories and adapt to shifts in the criminal landscape has allowed it to remain one of the most influential criminal organizations in northeastern Mexico.

SEE ALSO: The Zetas Profile

The Northeast Cartel (Cártel del Noreste – CDN) is a Mexican criminal group engaged in drug trafficking, extortion, kidnapping, human trafficking, and migrant smuggling that emerged from the fragmentation of the Zetas that began in around 2012. The breaking point was the deteriorating relationship between the leaders of the Zetas, the Treviño Morales brothers—Miguel, alias “Z-40,” and Omar, alias “Z-42”—and the steady erosion of the Zetas’ central leadership. Miguel was arrested in July 2013, followed by Omar in March 2015. 

After the Trevino brothers were captured, the Zetas split and power passed to their nephew, Juan Francisco Trevino Chavez, alias “El Kiko.” He established the CDN as the Treviño family’s splinter faction, while another cell called the Old School Zetas (Zetas Vieja Escuela) coalesced around rival Zetas leaders who accused the Treviños of snitching to law enforcement.

Under the Treviño family’s leadership, the CDN operates from its home base in Nuevo Laredo, a major trade and trafficking point on the US-Mexico border in Tamaulipas state. The group taxes nearly all licit and illicit goods that cross the border. In recent years, the group has also moved into synthetic drug trafficking through a series of strategic partnerships. The Mayiza faction of the Sinaloa Cartel, according to the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), supplies the CDN with fentanyl, methamphetamine, and cocaine to move into the United States.

SEE ALSO: Profile of the Mayiza Faction of the Sinaloa Cartel

The CDN also maintains an enforcement wing known as the Tropa del Infierno, or Hell Troop, to exert control in Nuevo Laredo. In February 2025, the US State Department designated the CDN as a Foreign Terrorist Organization. Shortly after, the Treviño brothers were transferred to US custody.

The CDN has always been a family affair—its leadership succession following the lineage of the Treviño Morales brothers and their extended family. With the arrest of Z-40 in 2013 and Z-42 in 2015, Juan Francisco Treviño Morales, alias “El Kiko,” stepped forward to lead the group in Nuevo Laredo and formally named it the Northeast Cartel. In September 2016, El Kiko was arrested by US authorities in Baytown, Texas, and subsequently sentenced to two life terms on drug trafficking, firearms, and money laundering charges. Another Treviño family member then stepped into power: Juan Gerardo Treviño Chávez, alias “El Huevo,” who founded the CDN’s enforcement wing known as the Tropa del Infierno, or Hell Troop.

That enforcement wing gained notoriety starting in 2019 through a series of brutal clashes with the CJNG and Mexican security forces. Many of its top leaders have since been arrested: Fernando de Jesús Rodríguez Adame, alias “El Werko,” was captured in August 2021; Martín Rodríguez, alias “El Cadete,” was detained in September 2021; and Heriberto Rodríguez Hernández, alias “El Negrolo,” was arrested in November 2022.

SEE ALSO: US Foreign Terrorist Designations in Latin America

El Huevo’s arrest in March 2022 gave rise to his cousin Juan Cisneros Treviño, alias “El Juanito,” who assumed control of both the CDN and the Hell Troop. During 2023, the CDN formed another armed wing called “Los Chukys” to expand their control into the neighboring state of Nuevo Leon. Ricardo González Sauceda, alias “El Ricky,” led that effort and rose to become second-in-command of the CDN up until his February 2025 arrest in Nuevo Laredo. Since then, Francisco Daniel Esqueda Nieto, alias “Franky Esqueda,” has assumed control of the CDN’s tactical operations.

The CDN also relies on a number of regional commanders. The US Treasury Department has identified Abdón Federico Rodríguez García, alias “Cucho,” as the group’s second-in-command. Another high-ranking member named Antonio Romero Sánchez reportedly managed the group’s operations in the US-Mexico border town of Piedras Negras, Coahuila, as well as in Ciudad Victoria, Tamaulipas. 

As of 2025, the most identifiable leader of the CDN is Juanito Treviño. Although he maintains the Treviño family’s multigenerational hold, he is widely described as the last of the Treviños, with few family members remaining to continue the dynasty. However, US prosecutors have accused Z-40 and Z-42 of issuing orders to the CDN and the Hell Troop from inside a Mexican prison prior to their transfer into US custody.

The CDN holds near total control of Nuevo Laredo and the US/Mexico border crossing—the single busiest land crossing in the United States—inheriting the Zetas’ lucrative system of taxing all goods moving across the border, which has become its primary source of income. While the CDN is not a major drug trafficking network, the group taxes various groups that use the border crossing, including drug traffickers, migrant smugglers, and transport companies. They also use the Zetas model of systematically extorting all legal and illegal businesses throughout the city.

In recent years, the group has expanded across Tamaulipas and into the neighboring states of Coahuila and Nuevo León, as well as Chihuahua, Hidalgo, San Luis Potosí, Zacatecas, and Veracruz. However, the CDN has largely failed to establish an outsized presence outside its main hub of Nuevo Laredo.

The CDN’s alliance structure flows from its plaza-tax model: rather than building international supply chains, it taxes and forms mutually beneficial agreements with trafficking organizations needing access to the Nuevo Laredo crossing. According to US authorities, the Mayiza faction of the Sinaloa Cartel supplies the CDN with fentanyl, methamphetamine, and cocaine, which the CDN then routes into the United States using Sinaloa-controlled distribution networks. Under  this arrangement, the Mayiza gains access to the Laredo crossing, and the CDN profits from facilitating transport into the United States.

As a splinter faction of the Zetas, the CDN maintains complex relations with other Zetas offshoots, especially the Old School Zetas. Over the years, it has formed alliances when convenient and fought them when not.

SEE ALSO: Profile of the Gulf Cartel

In 2025, the CDN was battling the Gulf Cartel’s Metros faction, which had allied with the Jalisco Cartel New Generation (Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generación – CJNG), in the municipalities of Ciudad Mier and Miguel Alemán. At the same time, the CDN has asserted itself in Ciudad Victoria, Tamaulipas, a city where the Gulf Cartel had long held sway. According to US authorities, Gulf Cartel factions like the Scorpions, Metros, and Cyclones frequently dispute the CDN’s control of Reynosa and other key areas of Tamaulipas.

The CDN remains the dominant criminal force in Nuevo Laredo and faces little resistance. The CDN’s control of the border crossing gives it both a steady revenue stream to fund its defense and a strategic asset so valuable that any attempt to dislodge the group invites a maximum-force response. That said, with sustained blows from US and Mexican authorities against successive Treviño family members, the group may be running out of viable successors.