According to Attorney General Merrick Garland, the US Justice Department charged 28 members of Mexico’s formidable Sinaloa cartel, including sons of iconic drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, with directing a fentanyl trafficking enterprise on Friday (April 14). Indictments have also charged Chinese and Guatemalan citizens in reaction to what officials have described as one of the most extensive crackdowns on the country’s drug scourge.
So far, who has been charged, sanctioned, or arrested?
Over two dozen Sinaloa Cartel Chapitos network members were charged, with eight arrested in Colombia, Greece, Guatemala, and the United States for trafficking what the country’s Drug Enforcement Administration chief Anne Milgram referred to as the “greatest threat to Americans today.”
Furthermore, Chinese and Guatemalan citizens were charged with supplying precursor chemicals used in the production of fentanyl. Three of Guzman’s sons, known as the Chapitos, or tiny Chapos, Ovidio Guzmán López, Jes Alfredo Guzmán Salazar, and Iván Archivaldo Guzmán Sálazar, were charged, with only Guzmán López in Mexican authorities’ custody.
US authorities have also charged four Chinese chemical and pharmaceutical company owners with helping the cartel with precursor chemicals for the illicit drug’s production. This comes after the US Treasury Department sanctioned two Chinese chemical businesses, Wuhan Shuokang Biological Technology Co Ltd and Suzhou Xiaoli Pharmatech Co Ltd, on Friday.
“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 has the US government said about the crackdown?
In a news conference, Garland, Milgram, and other top federal prosecutors revealed three indictments aimed at the cartel’s global network. During the announcement, the attorney general detailed some of the horrible violent acts allegedly committed by the Sinaloa cartel, such as torturing perceived opponents, including Mexican law enforcement officers.
According to Garland, competing drug traffickers were either dead or alive fed to the Chapitos’ tigers, one woman was repeatedly injected with fentanyl until she died, and other victims were tortured with electricity 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.
Fentanyl’s Impact on the United States
“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.
In 2022, the DEA claimed to have seized enough fentanyl to kill every American. The country’s narcotics agency confiscated more than 379 million potentially lethal doses of fentanyl last year, including more than 50.6 million fentanyl-laced, fraudulent prescription tablets and more than 10,000 pounds of fentanyl powder. They also claimed that the Sinaloa cartel is responsible for the majority of fentanyl trafficking in the United States.