The department says the cartel uses fishing boats to facilitate drug and migrant smuggling; along the way, the boats catch tons of red snapper, a commercially valuable but vulnerable species.

A fishing boat with a powerful outboard motor pulls up to the shore and they scramble onboard. The cartel don balaclavas and set off at speed along an estuary that leads to the Pacific Ocean.

Five members of the notorious Gulf Cartel have been sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department for smuggling red snapper. Federal authorities announced on Tuesday that the sanctions are aimed at ...