CIUDAD VICTORIA, Tamaulipas – The Gulf Cartel is actively recruiting local teens since young offenders are not sent to prison and only spend a few weeks in a juvenile center if arrested. Some defendants are not old enough to legally drive.

Tamaulipas authorities are noticing a spike in the number of teen offenders arrested in Ciudad Victoria for various crimes on behalf of the Gulf Cartel. A law enforcement official who spoke with Breitbart News on the condition of anonymity said that when underage offenders are arrested, they are sent to a minimum-security juvenile center and are back on the streets in mere days.

In one arrest, state police responded to several calls about cartel gunmen along a highway in the northern part of the city. Authorities arrested a group of seven minors and 20-year-old Daniel de Jesus Carrizales. Police seized several backpacks with marijuana and pistols.

Days later, state police arrested a 12-year-old male who was part of a group of cartel lookouts riding scooters. After a short chase, authorities were able to arrest the young male, but two other teens managed to escape. During a search of the teen’s backpack, authorities found two tactical vests, a ballistic plate, a loaded magazine, other tactical items, and a sex toy.

The teenager reportedly revealed during a police interview that he was part of a Gulf Cartel cell making incursions into the Ciudad Victoria turf.

The presence of a Gulf Cartel cell in Victoria comes at a time when that organization is joined with a faction of Los Zetas called “Vieja Escuela” to continue a longstanding fight against another faction of Los Zetas called “Cartel Del Noreste” or CDN. The violence between the factions is spreading terror throughout Tamaulipas.

Editor’s Note: Breitbart News traveled to the Mexican States of Tamaulipas, Coahuila, and Nuevo León to recruit citizen journalists willing to risk their lives and expose the cartels silencing their communities. The writers would face certain death at the hands of the various cartels that operate in those areas including the Gulf Cartel and Los Zetas if a pseudonym were not used. Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles are published in both English and in their original Spanish. This article was written by “Francisco Morales” from Tamaulipas.