(May 28) -- Texas' Falcon Lake is best known for its sport fishing, but lately it's the armed Mexican pirates that have attracted quite a bit of attention.

In recent weeks, groups of men with assault rifles and high-powered machine guns have boarded leisure boats demanding drugs and cash, leading authorities to believe that drug cartels are operating on the popular bass-fishing lake on the Mexican border.

"It's gotten more brazen," Colonel Peter Flores, director of the law enforcement division for the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, told Aol News Friday.

"We believe that these are some offshoots of gangs on that side that are going into different types of criminal activity aside from the smuggling and poaching that they do. A few of them have gone into sideline robbery and are diversifying," he said.

The lake has been the site of three armed robberies since April 30, and the Texas Department of Public Safety has issued a bulletin urging fishermen to remain in U.S. waters.

"The robbers are believed to be members of a drug trafficking organization," the warning read. The Texas agency added that fishermen "could be in danger if they cross into Mexican waters."

"It's piracy," Zapata County Sheriff Sigifredo Gonzalez told ABC. "It may not be on the high seas, but they are taking advantage of people on this lake by threatening and robbing them



Mexican Pirates Prey on Boaters on Texas' Falcon Lake - AOL News

wow that is crazy