The Justice Department indicted leaders of the Sinaloa drug cartel who are accused of murder, torture, and other heinous crimes including feeding people both dead and alive to tigers. Those charged include sons of Joaquin Guzman Loera, better known as El Chapo, who is now serving a life sentence at a maximum security prison in Colorado.
“The Justice Department is announcing significant enforcement actions against the largest, most violent, and most prolific fentanyl trafficking operation in the world. That operation is run by the Sinaloa Cartel and fueled by Chinese precursor chemical and pharmaceutical companies,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said when making the announcement.
The nearly 30 defendants have been charged with fentanyl trafficking, weapons and money laundering, witness tampering and other crimes. The indictments target everyone involved in the fentanyl supply chain, from people making precursor chemicals in China, to manufacturers in Mexico, to those who distribute the final product.
El Chapo’s sons and other leaders of the cartel, known as “Chapitos” were the biggest targets of the indictments. They are accused of taking over the Sinaloa cartel using violence and threats after El Chapo’s extradition to the United States in 2017. They are accused of using aircraft, submarines, tunnels and just about every means of transportation there is to maintain their drug distribution network.
“Each of the nearly 30 defendants in these cases represent part of the machine that is pumping poisonous fentanyl into cities and towns across our country,” Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said. “We won’t grind the cartel machine to a halt unless we attack it from every angle. And to do that, we need to use every tool we can and join forces with partners around our government and around the globe.”
The Justice Department is seeking to extradite eight defendants who are already in custody in other countries. Many are still on the loose. The State Department is offering $56 million in rewards for information that leads to their arrest or conviction. The Treasury Department also levied sanctions against two Chinese companies and five individuals for the sale of precursor chemicals in China to the Sinaloa cartel. It’s all part of a nearly whole of government effort to end a fentanyl crisis that killed 107,735 from August 2021 to August 2022.
