The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) included this weekend in its list of the ten most wanted criminals Iván Archivaldo Guzmán, the eldest son of drug trafficker Joaquín El Chapo Guzmán Loera, accused of fentanyl drug
trafficking
.
The federal agency announced Saturday that it is offering a $10 million reward for information leading to his capture.
He occupies third place on the DEA's list of fugitives, where since 2018 Alfredo Guzmán Salazar, Alfredillo,
another of the sons of the former leader of the Sinaloa Cartel (who is serving a life sentence in a maximum security prison in Colorado)
has been in ninth position.
.
The sons of 'El Chapo' Guzmán and about twenty of the Sinaloa cartel face criminal charges
April 14, 202302:19
Iván Archivaldo Guzmán, known as
El Chapito
or
The King of Cocaine
, was born in 1983 and is Guzmán Loera's favorite son, according to the Mexican newspaper El Universal.
The DEA targeted him in 2005, when a protected witness accused him of being one of the main leaders of the organization.
That year he was arrested in an operation carried out in the state of Jalisco, but was released three years later when a judge dismissed all charges against him, according to El Universal.
With the arrest, extradition to the United States, and life sentence of
El Chapo
, his sons (popularly known as
Los Chapitos)
inherited a part of the fentanyl business, now presumably led by Archivaldo Guzmán.
[They burn a ton of coca seized from a semi-submarine]
The US authorities have focused their efforts on stopping the entry of this drug, which is 50 times more powerful than heroin and was responsible for two thirds of the 100,000 overdose deaths registered in 2022. In January another of the sons was arrested in Mexico of the drug trafficker, Ovidio Guzmán López,
El Ratón
, who is waiting for the Mexican authorities to decide whether to also extradite him to the United States to stand trial.
The US classifies the mixture of fentanyl with a veterinary tranquilizer as an "emerging threat"
April 12, 202300:29
The Department of Justice contemplates six charges against
Los Chapitos
and 25 other members of the cartel, according to the newspaper El País.
The second faction of the Sinaloa cartel is headed by Ismael
Mayo
Zambada, founder of the criminal organization and ex-partner of
El Chapo
, who also appears on the DEA's most wanted list, and the third was in the hands of Rafael Caro Quintero, creator of the Guadalajara cartel and arrested in 2022 in Mexico.