Federal prosecutors announced charges against three men and one woman from Amarillo, Texas, for terrorism-related charges connected to a weapons purchasing and smuggling operation that would move firearms into Mexico to supply the Sinaloa Cartel. The terrorism charges come after the U.S. government designated the Sinaloa Cartel and five other Mexican cartels as foreign terrorist organizations.
While the criminal indictment was originally filed last month, it wasn’t until this week that a federal judge unsealed the documents following the arrests of Loyd Walter Hall, Jesus Quezada Maza, Omar Velazquez, and Caytlin Hall. The 12-count indictment revealed that the four members of the group conspired to “provide material support” to the terrorist group known as the Sinaloa Cartel.
Loyd Hall is believed to be the leader of the conspiracy that ran the weapon smuggling operation and is also facing drug manufacturing and distribution charges for allegedly moving various quantities of fentanyl, cocaine, and heroin for the Sinaloa Cartel.
Cayltin Hall is accused of having carried out various straw purchases at sporting goods stores and pawn shops. Straw purchasing is the practice of using a person with a clean background to purchase a gun from a store and fill out the federal forms where they claim to be the owner of the firearm, when in reality they are buying the firearm for someone else.
Federal prosecutors claim that Quezada helped run the operation, and he himself took part in the purchasing of various firearms from pawnshops in the Amarillo area.
Velázquez is accused of the actual smuggling of the weapons into Mexico. Court documents do not specify how many weapons were purchased and moved by the group; the indictment points to the group having operated at least since February 2025 until this week, when federal authorities arrested them.
Elsewhere in Texas, federal officials in San Antonio announced a “Don’t Lie for the Other Guy” campaign to curtail straw purchases of firearms in the Alamo City, Breitbart’s Randy Clark reported.
Ildefonso Ortiz is an award-winning journalist with Breitbart News Foundation. He co-founded Breitbart News Foundation’s Cartel Chronicles project with Brandon Darby and senior Breitbart management. You can follow him on Twitter and on Facebook. He can be contacted at Iortiz@breitbart.com.
Brandon Darby is the managing director and editor-in-chief of Breitbart Texas. He co-founded Breitbart News Foundation’s Cartel Chronicles project with Ildefonso Ortiz and senior Breitbart management. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook. He can be contacted at bdarby@breitbart.com.