The United States has charged leaders of the Mexico-based Sinaloa Cartel with running a fentanyl trafficking operation fuelled by Chinese chemical and pharmaceutical companies, US Attorney General Merrick Garland said on Friday.
Three sons of Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, the one-time leader of the Sinaloa Cartel now imprisoned in the United States, were among those charged in what authorities called one of the most ambitious responses to date to a drug epidemic that has killed hundreds of thousands of Americans in the past eight years.
“We’re going after the entire network, from precursors, to importation into Mexico, to the manufacturer, to the weapons, to the money launderers, to the distribution in the United States,” Garland told reporters.
Federal prosecutors unsealed three separate indictments charging more than two dozen defendants based in Mexico, China and Guatemala, eight of whom are in custody.
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Among those awaiting extradition is Ovidio Guzman Lopez, one of El Chapo’s sons, who was arrested in Mexico earlier this year.
