The Department of Justice (DOJ) has charged several top operatives of Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel that are allegedly responsible for fueling America’s fentanyl epidemic, according to a Friday press release.
The newly-unsealed charges from the Southern District of New York, Northern District of Illinois, and District of Columbia target Ivan Guzman Salazar, 40, Alfredo Guzman Salazar, 37, Joaquin Guzman Lopez, 36, and Ovidio Guzman Lopez, 33, all of whom smuggled large sums of cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine and fentanyl across the southern border, the DOJ said. The Sinaloa cartel is largely responsible for the illicit fentanyl entering the U.S. that is largely responsible for killing roughly 70,000 Americans in 2021, according to the DOJ. (RELATED: Biden Admin Collaborates With Mexico, Which Denies Role In Fentanyl Crisis, To Curb Drug Trafficking)
Ivan Guzman Salazar, Alfredo Guzman Salazar and Lopez are part of a network comprised of what are known as “Chapitos,” that allegedly used cargo planes, private planes, submarines, container ships, fishing vessels, buses, train cars, tractor trailers and other forms of vehicles to transport drugs and the chemicals used to produce them, according to the DOJ. The network also utilized couriers, tunnels and stash houses on both sides of the border.
Members of the Mexican army drive on a road a day after an operation to arrest the son of Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, Ovidio Guzman, in Culiacan, Sinaloa state, Mexico, on January 6, 2023. – Mexican security forces on Thursday captured a son of jailed drug kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, scoring a high-profile win in the fight against powerful cartels days before US President Joe Biden visits. Ovidio Guzman, who was arrested in the northwestern city of Culiacan, is accused of leading a faction of his father’s notorious Sinaloa cartel, Defense Minister Luis Cresencio Sandoval told reporters. (Photo by JUAN CARLOS CRUZ / AFP)
“Today’s indictments send a clear message to the Chapitos, the Sinaloa Cartel, and criminal drug networks around the world that the DEA will stop at nothing to protect the national security of the United States and the safety and health of the American people,” DEA Administrator Anne Milgram said in a statement Friday.
“The Chapitos pioneered the manufacture and trafficking of fentanyl – the deadliest drug threat our country has ever faced – flooded it into the United States for the past eight years and killed hundreds of thousands of Americans. Over the last year and a half, the DEA proactively infiltrated the Sinaloa Cartel and the Chapitos network, obtained unprecedented access to the organization’s highest levels, and followed them across the world. I am grateful to the men and women of the DEA for their exceptional work on this case, which is the beginning of our work as ‘One DEA’ to dismantle every part of the criminal cartels that are killing Americans at record rates,” Milgram said.
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