Senior Sinaloa Cartel member says Trump's policies have made criminal activities more difficult

A senior member of the Sinaloa Cartel told CNN that recent US enforcement under President Donald Trump has made criminal operations harder and more costly. The source spoke to CNN correspondent David Culver anonymously, wearing goggles, a mask and a baseball cap to conceal his identity.

The interview, conducted by Culver, sees the cartel member answering “Oh yeah,” when asked if Trump’s measures were making his work tougher. Later, when asked whether he felt part of the violence tied to cartel activity, the source replied, “Yeah,” and framed violent acts as retaliatory: “You have something wrong to me, I do something bad to you.”

Culver reported that increased enforcement has pushed the cartels to raise prices for smuggling migrants. Deputies told Culver that fees have climbed from about $6,500 per person earlier this year to nearly $10,000 now, leaving many migrants unable to pay and trapped in debt to criminal networks. That dynamic, officials say, may intensify migrants’ vulnerability to exploitation.

The Trump administration has publicly prioritized dismantling Mexican drug cartels and tightening border security. Cartel leaders, law-enforcement officials and analysts have described a mix of enforcement pressure and shifting smuggling routes as squeezing cartel operations and complicating logistics for traffickers. Culver described cartel organizations as growing “increasingly desperate” in response.

CNN previously came under fire in May for an interview with another Sinaloa member, with CNN’s Isobel Yeung asking, "According to the Trump Administration, you are a terrorist. The cartels have been labeled a foreign terrorist organization. What do you make of that." The cartel member replied, "Well, the situation is ugly. But we have to eat." He said that his message for Trump would be: "my respect. According to him, he’s looking out for his people. But the problem is the consumers are [in the United States]. If there weren’t any consumers, we would stop." CNN was criticized on social media for trying to "humanize foreign terrorists."