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Narrator: Transnational organized crime—or TOC—groups, foreign gangs, and violent cartels have successfully exported their brands of violent criminal activity to America.

For decades, the FBI has leveraged its unique law enforcement authorities, capabilities, and expertise to combat TOC activity and disrupt and dismantle these groups’ illicit activities.

But as TOC threats evolve and endanger our communities in a variety of ways—including flooding our streets with fentanyl and engaging in human trafficking—the U.S. government is stepping up its offensive against these groups.

In response to a January 2025 presidential executive order aimed at addressing this threat, the FBI and our partners at Homeland Security Investigations are announcing the implementation of Homeland Security Task Forces.

On this episode of our podcast, we’ll explain how and why these new interagency task forces came to be. We’ll also define their unique tasking and explain why their work is vital to crushing violent crime and protecting the homeland from the threat of terrorism.

This episode of our show is part of "Your FBI: Crushing Violent Crime," a campaign highlighting the people, partners, and mission of Your FBI and our ongoing work to dismantle violent crime and keep our communities safe.

This is Inside the FBI.

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Narrator: Inside the FBI recently spoke with Section Chief Mark Remily, who leads the Bureau's Transnational Organized Crime Program, for an in-depth take on these Homeland Security Task Forces. Remily, who’s been leading the FBI’s implementation of the new task forces, explained that the model...

Section Chief Mark Remily: ...was originated based on Executive Order 14159.

Narrator: President Donald Trump signed this executive order in January, mandating the U.S. Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security to take the steps needed to form Homeland Security Task Forces in all 50 states.

According to the executive order, these task forces are intended “to end the presence of criminal cartels, foreign gangs, and transnational criminal organizations throughout the United States, dismantle cross-border human smuggling and trafficking networks, end the scourge of human smuggling and trafficking, with a particular focus on such offenses involving children, and ensure the use of all available law enforcement tools to faithfully execute the immigration laws of the United States.”

These task forces, which reached full implementation in September, are...

SC Remily: ...intended to be a long-term sustainable task force focused on bringing all federal, state and local partners together under one roof to have a more coordinated and integrated approach as we combat these threats.

Ultimately, it's focused on targeting and combating transnational organized crime, focusing on cartels, transnational gangs...

Narrator: ...and threats of that nature impacting the United States from around the globe and here within the United States.

HSTFs will investigate transnational criminal activity including, but not limited to:

Drug trafficking
Money laundering
Human trafficking
Alien smuggling
Homicide
Extortion
Kidnapping; and
Weapons trafficking
They'll also investigate other TCO [transnational criminal organization]-related violations where there is, or may be, a federal investigative interest.

Narrator: And while immigration enforcement isn’t a focal point for the Homeland Security Task Forces, Remily said the teams will use it as a tool in the course of their investigations.

As Remily explains...

SC Remily: ... in the course of an investigation, we will analyze and look at it strategically in terms of: There are people here committing illegal acts and violent acts that don't have status. We will look at whether it's more appropriate for the use of government resources to remove them from the country, or if it makes more of a strategic impact to pursue investigations and prosecution of those individuals.

One of the key aspects that the task force will focus on is targeting those newly designated foreign terrorist organizations, primarily those drug cartels and those transnational gangs. But there are a number of different transnational criminal organizations that are not designated as foreign terrorist organizations that will continue to be worked under the Homeland Security Task Force. And so, it'll depend on a case-by-case basis, how that investigation organically develops, and what kind of information is available to drive that investigation.

Narrator: The ultimate goal, he said, is to ensure the FBI’s finite resources are focused on pursuing the worst of the worst transnational criminal organizations in the U.S. and internationally whose illegal activities impact Americans here at home.

But the task forces aren’t just focused on response. They’re also prioritizing prevention. Homeland Security Task Forces will use intelligence, data analysis, and strategic partnerships, to stop threats before more lives are put at risk.

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SC Remily: The FBI and our partners at DHS have been designated to co-lead the creation of the task force. So, our teams came together in March and began working on building what the task force model was going to look like.

Narrator: The model is intended to take a whole-of-government approach to the TOC threat, with ground-level task forces including a mix of local, state, and federal partners.

SC Remily: Most federal law enforcement agencies are mandated to participate, but there are still other agencies that, federally, have expressed an interest in supporting it. And we rely on our state and local partners heavily.

Narrator: On a day-to-day basis, Remily said the task forces will be tasked based on leads ...

SC Remily: ... that will be generated from the National Coordination Center and through the National Counterterrorism Center, as they're analyzing all the intelligence and then doing their network analysis of the threats that exist, in large part, outside the country. So, those leads will be sent to the respective CORE regions for action, as deemed appropriate. And then, investigations will be conducted as they normally have—organically through different sources to different information that's reported to state, local and federal law enforcement.

Narration: And, from there, that lead agency can collaborate with HSTF partner agencies to pursue that investigation.

SC Remily: We will leverage their different skill sets, as well as the Bureau's, which focuses on the enterprise theory of investigation—looking at the entire organization and disrupting it regardless, not just focusing on drug trafficking, but looking at the money laundering aspect, the illicit finance. Whatever criminal activity the organization’s involved in, we will look at it holistically and target and whatever's appropriate.

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SC Remily: Every state has to have at least one Homeland Security Task Force, which is co-located and co-mingled with the federal, state and local partners. So, what we what we decided to do was use a regional model.

Narrator: This model employs regional hubs—known as Central Operations and Regional Enforcement (or CORE) offices—and a series of satellite offices to support the ground-level task forces. Like the task forces, these offices are co-led by the FBI and HSI.

The HSTF model also includes a national-level National Coordination Center (or NCC) to provide high-level support to task forces. The FBI and HSI similarly co-lead the NCC. Personnel from over 15 federal agencies—including U.S. Customs and Border Protection; the Drug Enforcement Administration; the U.S. Secret Service; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives; the United States Marshals Service, Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation; the National Counterterrorism Center; the Department of War; and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service—also staff this center.

SC Remily: The government has never had a one centralized location to really combat and coordinate the transnational criminal threats that we target.

While all the federal agencies, the FBI included, do phenomenal investigations, we have our silos of excellence. And so, we're working through the National Coordination Center to bring all those interagency partners together in more of a coordinated approach to combating this threat, which requires intelligence sharing with our IC partners, intelligence sharing with our state and local partners, and coordinating investigations, providing logistical and funding support where needed, and helping to deconflict investigations as they progress.

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Narrator: The FBI and HSI will consider a number of factors when assessing the success of these task forces, including feedback from communities and state and local partners ...

SC Remily: ...who are seeing tangible results. It'll also be an increase in arrests and indictments—hopefully extraditions into the United States, as well.

Narrator: This is because a lot of these actors are driving illegal activity from outside the United States.

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Narrator: Now, a word from FBI Director Kash Patel.

FBI Director Kash Patel: Transnational organized crime is a complex and constantly evolving threat—and it demands an equally sophisticated and agile response.

Homeland Security Task Forces are at the forefront of the U.S. government's fight to keep the tentacles of international gang, cartel, and transnational criminal organization activity from reaching our shores and victimizing innocent Americans.

The FBI is proud to be leading this charge alongside Homeland Security Investigations and our state, local, and federal interagency partners in support of President Trump's executive order and of Attorney General Bondi and Homeland Security Secretary Noem's collective vision for these specialized squads.

Together, we'll continue to disrupt and dismantle these foreign terrorist organizations, bring their members and collaborators to justice, and restore law and order in our communities. Let's get after it.

Narrator: You can visit fbi.gov/news to discover additional stories, podcasts, videos, and blog posts about the Bureau's efforts to combat violent crime and protect the American people.

This has been another production of Inside the FBI. You can follow us on your favorite podcast player, including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube.

You can also listen to our show via the myFBI Dashboard app. Visit fbi.gov/dashboardapp to learn more.

And you can subscribe to email alerts about new episodes at fbi.gov/podcasts.

On behalf of the FBI’s Office of Public Affairs, thanks for listening.

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