The son of jailed Sinaloa Cartel boss Joaquín ‘El Chapo’ Guzmán Loera, and another cartel leader were arrested Thursday in El Paso, Texas, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said.
Joaquín Guzmán Lopez and Sinaloa Cartel co-founder Ismael Zambada Garcia are facing “multiple charges” in connection with the Mexico-based criminal organization, “including its deadly fentanyl manufacturing and trafficking networks,” Garland said in a statement.
The crime kingpin known as “El Chapo” was arrested in Mexico and extradited to the United States, and is serving a sentence of life plus 30 years that was handed down in New York in 2019.
The Sinaloa Cartel, as well as the Jalisco Cartel, “are at the heart” of the synthetic drug crisis in the United States, which includes fentanyl and methamphetamine, the Drug Enforcement Administration said in its 2024 National Drug Threat Assessment.
“Fentanyl is the deadliest drug threat our country has ever faced, and the Justice Department will not rest until every single cartel leader, member, and associate responsible for poisoning our communities is held accountable,” Garland said in the statement.
Another son of “El Chapo,” Ovidio Guzmán Lopez, who was also an alleged cartel leader, was arrested in Mexico in January 2023 and has been extradited to the U.S. to face drug and money laundering charges. He pleaded not guilty in September of that year.
Joaquín Guzmán Lopez and Ovidio Guzmán Lopez were indicted by the U.S. federal grand jury in 2018 on charges that alleged a conspiracy to distribute cocaine, methamphetamine and marijuana into the U.S.
Joaquín Guzmán López, Ovidio Guzman Lopez, and two other sons of “El Chapo” were also indicted by a federal grand jury in 2023, the Justice Department said at the time.
The two other sons, Ivan Guzmán Salazar and Alfredo Guzmán Salazar, have not been apprehended. The four sons are known as the “Chapitos,” federal officials said, and they took over their father’s drug trafficking networks and his faction of the cartel.
There are currently four criminal organizations that make up the Sinaloa Cartel, the Drug Enforcement Administration says, including the “Los Chapitos” that was run by the four “El Chapo” sons.
The brothers promoted making fentanyl a larger part of the cartel’s business, the DEA said in the 2024 report.
“The Sinaloa Cartel has been producing bulk quantities of fentanyl since at least 2012, but the Chapitos faction is responsible for pushing the importance of fentanyl to the cartel’s ‘bottom line,’” the report says.
There were an estimated 107,543 drug overdose deaths in the U.S. last year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and most of those — an estimated 74,702 — were from synthetic opioids, which includes fentanyl. The second-most was from psychostimulants like methamphetamine, with an estimated 36,251 deaths, it said.
The Sinaloa and Jalisco cartels make fentanyl in labs in Mexico and then ship it into the U.S., the DEA said in this year’s report.
Both cartels in 2023 allegedly ordered subordinates to stop trafficking in fentanyl, and the “Chapitos” made a public show about it, but the DEA concluded concluded that “the ban is probably a public relations stunt.”
“Throughout 2023, fentanyl was seized at the border in equal or higher quantities as in previous years, and no DEA field office reported that fentanyl is less available or more expensive, either of which would point to a decrease in the supply,” the agency said
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