U.S. charges ‘Chapo’ Guzman’s sons in major fentanyl trafficking operation
The U.S. Department of Justice announced Friday the indictment of the sons of ‘Chapo’ Guzman in a macro-operation against fentanyl trafficking. indictment of the four sons of the “narco of narcos” Joaquín ‘El Chapo’ Guzmán Loera.as well as against 24 other members of the Sinaloa Cartel. which he led, within the framework of a macro judicial operation, developed in a dozen countries, against fentanyl trafficking and which reaches Chinese companies that supply chemical materials.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office charges Ivan Guzmán Salazar, alias ‘Tocayo’, 40; Alfredo Guzmán Salazar, alias ‘Alfredillo’, 37; Joaquín Guzmán López, alias ‘El Güero’, 36; and Ovidio Guzmán López, alias ‘Ratón’, 33; with. “killing hundreds of thousands of Americans over the past eight years by flooding the country with fentanyl.”according to the indictment filed Friday by U.S. Attorney Merrick Garland.
Of all of ‘El Chapo’s’ sons, only Ovidio Guzman Lopez is in custody, in Mexico, following his violent arrest in January of this year following a shootout on the streets of Sinaloa.which resulted in the death of 29 people, including ten military personnel and 19 members of the narco’s security apparatus.
The accusations also reach Chinese and Guatemalan nationals of supplying precursor chemicals needed to manufacture fentanyl.as well as others involved in the drug laboratory activity, as well as providing security and weapons for the drug trafficking operation. Among them would be, for example, Néstor Isidro Pérez Salas, alias ‘Nini’, 31 years old and one of the security officers and chief assassins of “Los Chapitos”.
In general terms, the Justice Department accuses the sons of the now imprisoned ‘Chapo’ of the “use of cargo planes, private aircraft, submarines and other vessels as well as a variety of land vehicles” to. “transport both drugs and their precursor chemicals in a network of couriers, tunnels, and hideouts throughout Mexico and the U.S. to smuggle the drugs into the latter country.”
Threat to public health and safety.
The case thus holds the cartel “largely” responsible for the fentanyl crisis in the U.S., which is considered to be “a triple threat to public health, public safety and national security.”. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) overdoses of this drug, from the opioid family and extremely addictive, left approximately 107,000 dead in 2021 nationwide.
Ovidio Guzman Lopez and Joaquin Guzman Lopez allegedly. contributed to moving the drug in huge quantities. while ‘Chapo’s other two sons, Jesús Alfredo Guzmán Salazar and Iván Archivaldo Guzmán Sázar have been running the cartel’s operations alongside Ismael ‘El Mayo’ Zambada, the latter reportedly isolated in the mountains in poor health and devoting his last efforts to maintaining the cartel’s unity.
Investigations by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, the DEA, have covered a dozen countries: Australia, Austria, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Greece, Guatemala, Mexico, Panama and the United States.
“Increasing the safety of our communities.”
This announcement comes a day after Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard assured that. the country is the “main ally” of the United States in the fight against fentanyl.and on a Friday when a Mexican delegation met with senior U.S. and Canadian officials in Washington D.C. to address the issue and outline a joint plan to curb the illegal trafficking of fentanyl and weapons in North America.
Ebrard has expressed that the priority for the country is to curb arms trafficking from the United States to. “reduce the maneuvering capacity of criminal organizations and increase security in our communities.”according to a statement from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
