One of the primary strategies in the current administration’s war against cartels and transnational criminal organizations has been to designate them as foreign terrorist organizations (FTOs) so they, and anyone who works with them, are subject to more stringent laws and regulations. Those designations have created a need for companies operating in Mexico to better understand their local connections and potential FTO risk. José Cortina, who recently joined Alvarez & Marsal as a managing director, is helping companies fill those information gaps. In an exclusive interview with the Anti-Corruption Report, he discusses his specialty in intelligence gathering, how the FTO designations landed in Mexico, what companies should be doing to protect themselves and the surprising M&A shift in mindset that has resulted. See “How the U.S. Focus on Cartels and Transnational Criminal Organizations Impacts Multinationals in Mexico” (Jul. 2, 2025).