MEXICO CITY, April 14 - The U.S. government on Tuesday placed sanctions on Raymundo Ramos, who has been a prominent human rights voice in Nuevo Laredo, alleging that he worked on behalf of a major criminal organization while presenting himself publicly as an activist.
In an official statement, the U.S. Treasury Department said Ramos, who leads the Committee for Human Rights of Nuevo Laredo, "posed as a 'human rights' activist" for more than a decade. According to the Treasury, Ramos allegedly manufactured accusations against the Mexican Army and acted to shield members of the Cartel of the Northeast (CDN).
The Treasury said Ramos was "on the CDN payroll," and that his activities were intended to "boost the public opinion of CDN and discredit Mexican authorities' law enforcement initiatives against the cartel." As a result of the designation, any assets Ramos may hold within U.S. jurisdiction are blocked, and U.S. persons are prohibited from doing business with him.
Reuters’ attempts to reach Ramos for comment did not receive an immediate reply, and the sanctions announcement noted that U.S. measures are aimed at disrupting support networks used by criminal organizations.
Ramos operates out of Nuevo Laredo, a border city in the state of Tamaulipas. Over recent years he has become one of the most visible human rights advocates in the region. In 2023 he drew attention to alleged extrajudicial killings by members of the Armed Forces, circulating video footage purportedly showing Army personnel shooting and killing five young men in a pickup truck, including one fatal shot to the back of the neck. In 2022 he publicly accused Navy personnel of forcibly disappearing civilians.
Following those allegations, Mexican officials detained military personnel and opened investigations into the incidents. The publicly available information does not make clear whether those probes led to criminal charges or convictions.
The office of the Mexican attorney general did not provide a response when asked about the U.S. accusations against Ramos or whether it has mounted its own investigation into him.
Separately, Ramos was identified in 2020 as one of hundreds of Mexican journalists and activists whose phones were targeted with Pegasus spyware, according to Mexico’s Digital Rights Defense Network and Citizen Lab, a Toronto-based digital watchdog. Those groups reported that Pegagus surveillance was used against multiple civil society figures in Mexico.
Context and implications - The U.S. action targets a single individual accused of dual roles: long-standing public advocacy for human rights and, according to U.S. authorities, covert support for a criminal cartel. The designation carries immediate legal and financial consequences for Ramos with respect to U.S. jurisdiction, while Mexican authorities' own inquiries and any resulting legal outcomes remain unspecified in public records.