Sons of drug kingpin "El Chapo" indicted in fentanyl trafficking probe, accused of taking over Sinaloa cartel
CHICAGO (CBS/AP) — The sons of convicted drug kingpin Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman Loera are among 28 members of Mexico's powerful Sinaloa cartel who have been indicted in Chicago, as part of a sweeping fentanyl trafficking investigation.
Attorney General Merrick Garland announced the charges Friday morning against Guzman Loera's four sons: Ivan Guzman Salazar, 40; Jesus Alfredo Guzman Salazar, 37; and Ovidio Guzman Lopez, 33.
Of the four, only Guzmán López is in custody, in Mexico.
Known collectively as "the Chapitos," they are accused of taking over control of the Sinaloa cartel after their father was arrested in January 2016 and extradited to the U.S. one year later. Guzman Loera, who infamously escaped prison twice in Mexico, is now serving a life sentence in federal prison in the U.S., after he was convicted in 2019 of all 10 counts he faced, including engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise, as well as drug trafficking and firearms charges.
A total of 28 defendants are named in the indictments aimed at hitting the cartel's global network, standing alongside Drug Enforcement Administration chief Anne Milgram and other top federal prosecutors.
The defendants span a broad swath of a complex manufacturing and supply network. They include Chinese and Guatemalan citizens accused of supplying precursor chemicals required to make fentanyl.
Others are suspected of running drug labs in Mexico or accused of providing security, weapons, and illicit financing for the drug trafficking operation.
The wide-ranging case comes as the U.S. remains in the grip of a devastating overdose crisis largely by fentanyl poisonings. Nearly 107,000 Americans died of drug overdoses in the U.S. in 2021, a record-setting number.
Fentanyl seizures by U.S. Customs and Border Protection have increased by more than 400% since 2019, officials said, and this fiscal year's seizures have already surpassed the total for all of 2022.
Most of the fentanyl trafficked in the United States comes from the Sinaloa cartel, the Drug Enforcement Administration says.
"Families and communities across our country are being devastated by the fentanyl epidemic," Garland said. "We will never forget those who bear responsibility for this tragedy. And we will never stop working to hold them accountable for their crimes in the United States."
Chicago in particular, as a transportation hub, has been one of the cities hardest hit by the fentanyl crisis.
As CBS 2 Investigator Megan Hickey reported, the indictment announcement was something for which Will County mom Kimberly Earling had been hoping.
"It's bringing happy tears to my soul," Earling said, "because this is such a big step."
Earling's daughter, Samantha Kile, was just 22 — and seven months pregnant — when she and the baby boy, named Jaxsen, lost their lives to a fentanyl overdose in 2018.
"She did not know," Earling said. "You know, she thought she was purchasing heroin - and it turned out to be laced with lethal dose of fentanyl."
The Sinaloa cartel's notorious drug lord, known as El Chapo, was convicted in 2019 of running an industrial-scale smuggling operation. At Guzman's trial, prosecutors said evidence gathered since the late 1980s showed he and his murderous cartel made billions of dollars by smuggling tons of cocaine, heroin, meth, and marijuana into the U.S. A defiant Guzman accused the federal judge in his case of making a mockery of the U.S. justice system and claimed he was denied a fair trial.
In outlining the charges Friday, Garland described the violence of the Sinaloa cartel and how its members have tortured perceived enemies, including Mexican law enforcement officials. That has included people fed to tigers owned by Guzman's sons, sometimes while the victims were still alive, Garland said.
Eight of those charged have been arrested and remain in the custody of law enforcement officials in Colombia, Greece, Guatemala, and the U.S., Milgram said. The U.S. government is offering rewards for several others charged in the case, including up to $10 million for Guzman's other two sons.
Friday's indictments were filed in New York, Illinois, and Washington, D.C.
In the federal jurisdiction of the Northern District of Illinois, narcotics, money laundering, and firearms charges were unsealed against four of the "Chapitos."
"The damage that these dangerous drugs have caused in Chicago neighborhoods is truly immeasurable," said Morris Pasqual, Acting United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois.
Prosecutors noted that Chicago has long been a transportation hub and a significant market for the cartel.
According to Cook County Medical Examiner's office data analyzed by the CBS 2 Investigators, the number of fentanyl-related overdose deaths in Cook County has skyrocketed in recent years - from 652 deaths in 2017 to more than 1,800 deaths last year.
So far in 2023 there have been 218 fentanyl-related deaths in Cook County, according to the Medical Examiner's office.
"The violence resulting from that trafficking has had a particularly destructive impact in the Chicago area," Pasquale said.
Earling said she sees the news of the indictments Friday a huge step forward in her fight to keep others from the same heartbreaking fate as her daughter and grandson.
"You know, the fact that they're finally doing something bigger - and they're hearing our voices," Earling said.
Along with the five defendants from China and Guatemala accused of supplying the cartel with precursor chemicals, two Chinese firms were also sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control Friday.
U.S. government officials are pressing Chinese officials to do more to stem the shipment of those chemicals. With Washington-Beijing relations strained, the Biden administration says it has looked to allies in Europe, the Middle East and elsewhere to make clear to China that the issue is a global problem, according to senior Biden administration officials who briefed reporters following the announcement of the indictment.
Ovidio Guzmán López, one of Guzmán's sons, was arrested in January in the Sinaloa capital of Culiacan. Ovidio Guzmán, nicknamed the Mouse, had not been one of El Chapo's better-known sons until an aborted operation to capture him three years earlier. This time Mexico successfully got Guzmán out of Culiacan. In 2019, authorities had him, but they released him after his gunmen began shooting up the city.
Some 30 people among authorities and suspected gunmen died in the operation, which unleashed hours of shootouts shutting down the city's airport. The U.S. government is currently awaiting the younger Guzmán's extradition.
Ovidio Guzmán López and another brother, Joaquín Guzmán López, allegedly helped move the Sinaloa cartel hard into methamphetamines, producing prodigious quantities in large labs. They were previously indicted in 2018 in Washington on drug trafficking charges.
The other two sons, Jesús Alfredo Guzmán Salazar and Iván Archivaldo Guzmán Sálazar, are believed to have been running cartel operations together with Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada. They were previously also charged in the U.S. in Chicago and San Diego.
Zambada had been rumored to be be in poor health and isolated in the mountains leading the sons to try to assert a stronger role to keep the cartel together.
The DEA said it investigated the case in 10 countries: Australia, Austria, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Greece, Guatemala, Mexico, Panama, and the United States.
"Death and destruction are central to their whole operation," Milgram said of the cartel.
