Federal prosecutors in Southern California filed narco-terrorism charges Tuesday against two leaders of the Sinaloa drug cartel, accusing them of offering material support for terrorism in connection with their alleged efforts to smuggle large amounts of fentanyl, cocaine, methamphetamine and heroin into the United States.
The indictment filed in Federal District Court in San Diego was the first time that prosecutors had accused operatives of the Sinaloa cartel of terrorism crimes since the Trump administration designated the group a foreign terrorist organization earlier this year.
The indictment charged a father and son — Pedro Inzunza Noriega, 62, and Pedro Inzunza Coronel, 33 — with violating terrorism statutes while running a drug business that reached from Mexico to Guatemala, Panama and Costa Rica. The two men were leaders of the Beltrán-Leyva faction of the cartel, prosecutors said, and were named in the indictment with five of their subordinates, who were not accused of terrorism offenses.
The nine-page charging document did not include any details about how the men had engaged in the alleged narco-terrorism. It remains to be seen whether the case against them will reveal any evidence supporting the terrorism charges that go beyond the administration’s decision to identify the Sinaloa cartel as a terrorist organization.
Trump administration officials have also designated other criminal mafias as terrorist groups, including Mexican drug gangs like the Jalisco New Generation Cartel and more traditional street gangs like Tren de Aragua, which is based in Venezuela, and the Salvadoran group known as MS-13.
Over the past several years, prosecutors claim, Mr. Inzunza Noriega and his son trafficked tens of thousands of kilograms of fentanyl into the United States. In December, they said, Mexican law enforcement officials raided multiple locations in Sinaloa that were controlled and managed by the men, discovering nearly 20 million doses of the drug in what was described as a record seizure.
At the time, President Claudia Sheinbaum of Mexico said the operations were part of a long investigation and had resulted in “the largest mass seizure of fentanyl pills ever made.” She added that the operation had seized more than a ton of fentanyl pills worth nearly $400 million.
U.S. law enforcement officials have generally supported the idea of designating drug cartels as terrorist organizations — if only because it gives prosecutors the ability to charge cartel defendants under powerful federal statutes that often carry stiff penalties.
But prosecutors have not yet had to defend such charges in court and may face pushback not only from defense lawyers, but also from judges overseeing such cases.
Prosecutors have traditionally relied on drug conspiracy charges to go after cartel operatives.
Last week, for example, Ovidio Guzmán López, one of four sons of the former Sinaloa cartel leader known as El Chapo, indicated in court papers that he planned to plead guilty in July to a sprawling charge known as a continuing criminal enterprise.
Alan Feuer covers extremism and political violence for The Times, focusing on the criminal cases involving the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol and against former President Donald J. Trump.
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