US charges El Chapo sons, Chinese businessmen amid crackdown on fentanyl network
US Justice Department
The United States Justice Department, on Friday (April 14), charged 28 members of Mexico’s powerful Sinaloa cartel, which includes sons of infamous drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, with running a fentanyl trafficking operation, said Attorney General Merrick Garland. The indictments have also charged Chinese and Guatemalan citizens in response to what the officials have called one of the most ambitious crackdowns on the drug epidemic plaguing the US.
Who has been charged, sanctioned or arrested, so far?
Over two dozen members of the Sinaloa Cartel’s Chapitos network were charged out of which eight were arrested in Colombia, Greece, Guatemala and the US who were involved in trafficking what the country’s Drug Enforcement Administration chief Anne Milgram called the “greatest threat to Americans today.”
Additionally, the Chinese and Guatemalan citizens were charged with supplying precursor chemicals required to make fentanyl. Three of Guzman’s sons also known as the Chapitos, or little Chapos, Ovidio Guzmán López, Jesús Alfredo Guzmán Salazar and Iván Archivaldo Guzmán Sálazar were charged out of whom only Guzmán López is in the custody of Mexican officials.
US prosecutors have also charged four owners of Chinese chemical and pharmaceutical companies for allegedly providing the precursor chemicals to the cartel to create the illicit drug. This also comes after the US Treasury Department, on Friday, sanctioned China-based chemical companies Wuhan Shuokang Biological Technology Co Ltd and Suzhou Xiaoli Pharmatech Co Ltd.
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“The PRC (People’s Republic of China) government must stop the unchecked flow of fentanyl precursor chemicals that are coming out of China,” said Garland.
What have the US officials said about the crackdown?
Garland alongside Milgram and other top federal prosecutors, in a press conference, unveiled three indictments aimed at hitting the cartel’s global network. During the announcement, the attorney general outlined some of the heinous violent crimes allegedly committed by the Sinaloa cartel like the torture of perceived enemies including Mexican law enforcement officials.
According to Garland, rival drug traffickers were fed to the Chapitos’ tigers dead or alive, one woman was injected repeatedly with fentanyl until she died, and other victims were tortured via electrocution and waterboarding. “The cases we are announcing today exemplify the comprehensive approach the Justice Department is taking to disrupt and hold accountable those who bear significant responsibility for this fentanyl epidemic,” said the attorney general.
Impact of Fentanyl on the US
“They know that they're poisoning and killing Americans. They just don't care because they make billions of dollars doing it,” said Milgram. She added, “Their greed is shocking and without bounds.” In 2021, a record number of nearly 107,000 Americans lost their lives to drug overdoses in the US.
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The DEA, in 2022 said that they seized enough fentanyl to kill every American. Last year, more than 379 million potentially deadly doses of fentanyl which included more than 50.6 million fentanyl-laced, fake prescription pills and more than 10,000 pounds of fentanyl powder, were seized by the country’s drug agency. They also said that most of the fentanyl trafficked in the US comes from the Sinaloa cartel.
(With inputs from agencies)
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