When the Sinaloa Cartel cooks up a batch of fentanyl at a clandestine lab in Mexico, they sometimes test the drugs before shipping them north to customers in the United States. And according to prosecutors in the U.S, those experiments can be gruesome.
“Two of the defendants tested the potency of the cartel’s fentanyl on individuals who were tied down,” said Attorney General Merrick Garland, revealing a slew of new charges on Friday against the sons of Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, collectively known as Los Chapitos, and their cartel henchmen. “In another instance, those defendants experimented on a woman they had been ordered to shoot. Instead, they injected her repeatedly with fentanyl until she overdosed and died.”
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The cartel hitmen, Garland said, also “fed some of their victims dead and alive to two tigers belonging to the Chapitos.”
Garland announced new federal indictments against Los Chapitos and more than 20 alleged collaborators around the world, claiming the group “is largely responsible for the surge of fentanyl into the United States over the last eight years.”
Another time, Garland said, “after an addict died testing a batch of the cartel’s fentanyl, one of the defendants sent the batch to the United States anyway.”
Los Chapitos are led by 40-year-old Iván Guzmán Salazar, along with his younger brothers Alfredo Guzmán Salazar, 37, and 36-year-old Joaquín Guzmán López—all currently fugitives. In January, Mexican security forces captured another one of the siblings, 33-year-old Ovidio Guzmán López, after a firefight that left at least 29 people dead.
Garland dropped the new cases against Los Chapitos just days after Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador flatly denied that cartels are cooking up illicit fentanyl in clandestine labs across his country.
“We all know that we need to work together continually to strike against this enemy that is injuring people in both of our countries, is killing law enforcement and service members in Mexico, as well as individuals in Mexico,” Garland said. “So we will be working together on all of these matters.”
Garland accused Los Chapitos of running “the largest, most violent, and most prolific fentanyl trafficking operation in the world,” and said the Sinaloa Cartel relies on a network of precursor chemical suppliers in China and a broker in Guatemala who was recently captured.
A delegation of high-ranking Mexican security officials visited Washington, D.C., yesterday to meet with Garland and his team, and the attorney general told reporters in a press conference that cooperation on fentanyl was on the agenda. On Thursday, Mexico and the U.S. announced the creation of “a presidential commission to fight the trafficking of illicit synthetic drugs, firearms, and ammunition.”
“This special working group will improve coordination among Mexico’s federal government entities to support the investigation and arrest of individuals involved in the production and trafficking of fentanyl,” the White House said in a statement.
The new charges against Los Chapitos and their network come from five indictments filed by federal prosecutors in Manhattan, Chicago, and Washington, D.C. The New York charges outline the structure of the Chapitos’ organization, alleging that the eldest brother, Iván, “leads the Chapitos’ security apparatus. In that role, he commands the sicarios who perpetrate violence to protect and further the Chapitos’ operations and vast holdings.” The two middle brothers, Alfredo and Joaquín, allegedly help run the cartel’s trafficking operations.
Damian Williams, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, called the cases “the most ambitious fentanyl prosecution in American history.”
The prosecution takes special aim at Ovidio, the baby of the four brothers who became nearly as infamous as his father when a 2019 attempt to capture him prompted the streets of Sinaloa’s capital Culiacán to break out into open warfare. The new charges allege that Ovidio “bears primary responsibility for the Chapitos’ fentanyl manufacturing and trafficking activities for the Cartel.” Prosecutors say he “controlled the first fentanyl lab used by the Chapitos in or about 2014 and has since overseen the explosion of their fentanyl trafficking activity and profits.”
The Sinaloa Cartel’s first fentanyl manufacturing operation began in 2014 “in a single makeshift lab located within a modest house in Culiacán,” prosecutors allege. “Fentanyl precursors, stored in warehouses owned by the Cartel, were transported to the lab under armed guard. Once processed, Cartel workers packaged, transported to Tijuana, and smuggled the finished fentanyl across the U.S.-Mexico border.”
As fentanyl trafficking grew more lucrative, American authorities allege factions within the cartel who focused on heroin production struggled to sell their product. “As a result, Ovidio Guzman Lopez established an outpost in Mexico City, Mexico, where heroin traffickers can go to purchase fentanyl to mix in with their heroin,” prosecutors said.
By spring 2022, Ovidio allegedly “noted that he was working to centralize all fentanyl manufacturing in Sinaloa, effectively establishing a monopoly for the Cartel over the fentanyl market in Mexico.”
Ovidio is currently trying to fight his extradition to the U.S., where he would face a litany of new charges from the recently unsealed indictments.
The latest cases outline a sprawling conspiracy, where fentanyl precursors move from China to Mexico via a group of Guatemala-based smugglers. The importation was allegedly run by Ana Gabriela Rubio Zea, who brokered deals between drug traffickers and Chinese chemical manufacturers. “She puts traffickers in touch directly with those People’s Republic of China based suppliers, knowing that these chemicals will be used to manufacture fentanyl for ultimate distribution in the U.S. and elsewhere,” prosecutors said.
Rubio Zea was arrested in Guatemala City on March 17 and is currently in custody as the U.S. attempts to extradite her.
In total, 23 people were named in the new indictment, including four alleged Chinese co-conspirators who were involved in the trafficking of fentanyl precursors. It listed Kun Jiang as one of Rubio Zea’s “primary sources of supply in China,” alleging he used Chinese air carriers to send the product. It also listed three others, Huatao Yao, Yonghao Wu, and Yaqin Wu, and alleged they “are another significant source of chemicals.” The precursors were allegedly sent by Yao’s company, Wuhan Shuokang Biological Technology Ltd., also known as SK Biotech, often being paid “in cryptocurrency or via cross-border bank transfers.”
The U.S. Treasury Department also announced sanctions against Zea and the Chinese network, adding them to the so-called “kingpin list” in an effort to freeze assets and cut off their access to the U.S. financial system.
The indictment alleged that the Sinaloa Cartel has also been using cryptocurrency to launder its drug proceeds and between August 2022 and February 2023, U.S. based Sinaloa Cartel affiliated laundered more than $869,000 in narcotics proceeds for the cartel.
DEA Administrator Anne Milgram said Friday that the agency decided to take action against Los Chapitos because they are the biggest outfit in the game.
“We decided to proactively target the criminal network that is most responsible for the fentanyl flooding our communities,” Milgram said. “We looked at our data and the answer was clear. Most of the fentanyl in the United States comes from the Sinaloa cartel.”
Correction: This story originally attributed the final quote to the wrong person. It was in fact said by DEA Administrator Anne Milgram.
