The United States files charges against 'Los Chapitos' and 25 other members of the Sinaloa cartel

The Department of Justice has announced this Friday the presentation of charges against 28 members of the powerful Mexican cartel of Sinaloa, among them the three sons of the famous drug trafficker Joaquín El Chapo Guzmán, in the framework of an extensive investigation into fentanyl trafficking.

The indictments announced Friday charge Guzmán's three sons, known as the Chapitos, who have earned a reputation as the cartel's most violent and aggressive faction: brothers Iván Archivaldo, Jesús and Alfredo Guzmán Salazar.

Together with their accomplices, the Chapitos are accused of mounting operations to flood the United States with fentanyl in order to supply the "streets full of drug addicts", in the expression of Iván Archivaldo Guzmán Salazar collected by the Department of Justice.

In the charges presented this Friday, the Chapitos, the main lieutenants and leaders of the Sinaloa cartel, are accused of different crimes of fentanyl and arms trafficking and money laundering;

the alleged manufacturers and distributors of fentanyl;

the directors of his violent armed security apparatus;

to the sophisticated money launderers who repatriate the Sinaloa cartel's drug proceeds to Mexico;

and multiple suppliers of precursor chemicals in China to make fentanyl,

“Los Chapitos and the Sinaloa cartel allegedly reaped hundreds of millions of dollars in profits by flooding the United States with fentanyl,” the Justice Department says.

Nearly 107,000 Americans died from drug overdoses in the United States in 2021. “It kills more Americans ages 18 to 45 than car accidents, than cancer, than covid.

And the number of children under the age of 14 who are dying has increased at an alarming rate," said the head of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), Anne Milgram, who announced the charges at a press conference this Friday. along with Attorney General Merrick Garland and other federal prosecutors.

Seven defendants are in custody pending extradition proceedings: Ovidio Guzmán López was arrested in Mexico;

Carlos Omar Féliz Gutiérrez and Silvano Francisco Mariano, alias “Rayo”, were arrested in Colombia;

Sergio Duarte Frías, Ana Gabriela Rubio Zea and Humberto Beltrán Cuen, alias “Don Chino”, were arrested in Guatemala;

and Anastacio Soto Vega, alias “Tachin”, was arrested in Greece.

In addition, Julio Marín González was previously detained in the United States and will appear before District Judge Katherine Polk Failla.

The notorious Sinaloa cartel kingpin was convicted in 2019 of running an industrial-scale smuggling operation.

At Guzmán's trial, prosecutors said evidence collected since the late 1980s showed he and the cartel that killed him made billions of dollars from trafficking tons of cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine and marijuana into the United States. .

[Breaking news.

There will be update soon]

Follow all the international information on