President Donald Trump’s “Shield of the Americas” initiative seeks to unite the Western Hemisphere against cartels and transnational criminal networks. But one of the most dangerous fronts in that fight is no longer abroad. It is inside an American territory.
In March, federal authorities charged 52 members of the Puerto Rican gang La Familia Nunca Muere with drug trafficking and firearms violations, linking the organization to more than 30 murders, many carried out in broad daylight. Puerto Rico — home to just 3.1 million people — recorded 471 homicides in 2025. Public housing projects, known locally as “residenciales” or “caserios,” contain only 3% of the island’s population, yet accounted for 17% of those killings. Violence inside these developments doubled during the first half of 2025 compared with the previous year.
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Other gangs have tightened their grip as well. Las Farc Playita, whose 53 members were charged and linked to more than 50 murders, and Los Vira’o, with 43 members indicted, now dominate multiple public housing complexes. They operate open-air drug markets behind barricades and have effectively denied local police freedom of movement. In some areas, officers can enter only alongside federal task forces and the local National Guard.
RESTORING AMERICA: NOEM’S SHIELD OF THE AMERICAS TRIP SIGNALS BIG CHANGE IN SECURITY DOCTRINE
Because Puerto Rico is a U.S. territory, these networks possess something most cartels do not: direct internal access to the American mainland. Drugs are repackaged on the island and illegally moved into cities across the country. In 2024, authorities seized more than 2,600 pounds of cocaine worth over $29 million off Vieques, an island part of Puerto Rico’s archipelago. The region has grown more vulnerable since the 2004 closure of Roosevelt Roads Naval Station in Ceiba — once the largest U.S. Navy facility in the Americas and a critical hub for operations targeting Venezuelan trafficking networks tied to former Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro.
Corruption inside law enforcement has deepened the crisis. Operation Guard Shack in 2010 led to the arrest of 89 police officers accused of protecting traffickers. Between 2005 and 2010, more than 1,700 officers faced charges connected to drug-related crimes. Those institutional failures allowed criminal organizations to consolidate territorial control inside American jurisdiction.
The greater danger is what this vacuum could ultimately attract. In South America’s tri-border area, weak governance, entrenched criminal networks, and major trafficking corridors created the conditions that allowed groups such as Hezbollah to establish sophisticated money-laundering, logistics, and operational hubs. Puerto Rico is beginning to mirror those same conditions in the Caribbean Sea: gang-controlled housing projects functioning as semi-autonomous zones, maritime smuggling routes already moving large volumes of narcotics, and institutions that repeatedly fail to reestablish control. If this trajectory continues, the island could evolve into a Caribbean version of the tri-border dynamic — except this one would exist inside the United States, with direct access to the mainland.
Poverty and welfare dependency have further accelerated the deterioration. Puerto Rico’s poverty rate stands near 40%, while 47% of households receive welfare assistance. Those conditions provide gangs with a steady recruitment base while weakening community resistance to criminal control.
OPINION: THE SHIELD OF THE AMERICAS AND THE BATTLE FOR OUR HEMISPHERE
Washington’s current approach is failing. The federal government should deploy the Puerto Rico National Guard to dismantle gang strongholds, condition federal funding on restoring territorial control, reform public housing projects that have become criminal enclaves, and reactivate facilities at Ceiba under direct federal oversight before Puerto Rico’s criminal networks become even harder to contain.
Puerto Rico is not simply confronting a crime wave. It is drifting toward criminalized territorial control inside the U.S. itself. Washington still has time to reverse that trajectory — but not much.
Jose Lev Alvarez is an American-Israeli scholar specializing in Middle Eastern security policy. A multilingual veteran of the Israeli special forces and the U.S. Army, he holds three master’s degrees and is completing a doctorate in intelligence and global security in the Washington, D.C., area.
