Counter Transnational Criminal Organizations

Cartels, gangs, and other transnational criminal organizations (TCOs) threaten the safety of the American people, the security of the United States, and the stability of the Western Hemisphere. These groups traffic in dangerous drugs, including cocaine and fentanyl, that have led to the deaths of thousands of Americans. They engage in campaigns of violence that destabilize key partners and drive illegal migration to our borders. Although involved in a variety of illicit activities—including money laundering, human smuggling, and weapons trafficking—cocaine remains a major TCO profit source, fueling corruption, distorting economic growth, and undermining financial institutions.

Our Role

To defend the U.S. homeland and protect U.S. interests, SOUTHCOM provides unique military capabilities and authorities to support U.S. government and partner nation efforts targeting the operations, leadership, logistics, and finances of Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs), TCOs, and other criminal groups operating in the Area of Responsibility. These unique capabilities include Detection & Monitoring (D&M); enabling drug interdictions; counter threat finance (CTF); network and intelligence analysis; information sharing; capacity building activities like training and equipping partner nation forces; and planning, intelligence, logistical, and operational support to U.S. and partner nation law enforcement agencies.

Joint Interagency Task Force South (JIATFS) is the SOUTHCOM component tasked with executing DoD’s D&M mission. JIATFS also collects, processes, and disseminates information that enables interagency and partner nation drug interdiction operations.

SOUTHCOM’s naval component, USNAVSOUTH/U.S. 4th Fleet, leverages hybrid fleets, including combined manned and unmanned systems and Artificial Intelligence tools, to bolster maritime awareness and counter the flow of narcotics in the maritime domain.