WASHINGTON (AP) – The Justice Department indicted 28 members of Mexico’s powerful Sinaloa cartel, including the son of notorious drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, in a sweeping investigation into fentanyl trafficking.
Attorney General Merrick Garland announced the indictment on Friday, along with Drug Enforcement Administration chief Ann Milgram and other senior federal prosecutors. office director, fentanyl dealer, security leader, financier, arms dealer.
The charges, announced Friday, level Guzmán’s three sons, known as Chapito, or Little Chapo, who have earned a reputation as the more violent and aggressive faction in the cartel.
The indictment also accuses citizens of China and Guatemala of supplying the precursor chemicals needed to manufacture fentanyl. Other defendants in the case include those accused of running drug laboratories and providing security and weapons to drug traffickers, prosecutors said.
In 2021, nearly 107,000 Americans died of drug overdoses in the United States.
The notorious Sinaloa Cartel drug lord was convicted of a major smuggling operation in 2019. At his trial, prosecutors said evidence collected since the late 1980s showed he and his murderous cartels smuggled billions of dollars of cocaine, heroin, meth and marijuana into the United States.
