US charges El Chapo sons, Chinese businessmen with fentanyl trafficking; Treasury imposes sanctions on Chinese companies

THE US has charged leaders of the Mexico-based Sinaloa Cartel with running a fentanyl trafficking operation fuelled by Chinese chemical and pharmaceutical companies, US Attorney General Merrick Garland said on Friday (Apr 14).

Three sons of Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, the onetime leader of the Sinaloa Cartel now imprisoned in the US, were among those charged, Garland said. Ovidio Guzman Lopez, one of his sons, was arrested in Mexico and is awaiting extradition proceedings, federal prosecutors in Manhattan said.

“They know that they’re poisoning and killing Americans. They just don’t care because they make billions of US dollars doing it,” Anne Milgram, chief of the US Drug Enforcement Administration, said of Guzman’s sons. “Their greed is shocking and without bounds.”

Prosecutors also charged four owners of Chinese companies that allegedly provided precursor chemicals to the cartel.

The US Treasury Department on Friday imposed sanctions on two entities based in China, accusing them supplying precursor chemicals to drug cartels in Mexico for the production of illicit fentanyl intended for the US.

The Treasury said it also designated five people based in China and Guatemala in the action targeting fentanyl production.

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“Illicit fentanyl is responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of Americans each year,” the Treasury’s under secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, Brian Nelson, said in the statement.

“Treasury, as part of the whole-of-government effort to respond to this crisis, will continue to vigorously apply our tools to prevent the transfer of precursor chemicals and machinery necessary to produce this drug,” Nelson said.

The Treasury in the statement said it slapped sanctions on China-based chemical companies Wuhan Shuokang Biological Technology and Suzhou Xiaoli Pharmatech, as well as four Chinese nationals.

Three of those targeted were indicted earlier this month by a federal grand jury in US District Court in New York for conspiracy charges, including fentanyl importation and money laundering, the Treasury said.

Also targeted was a Guatemala-based broker of fentanyl precursor chemicals, who the Treasury said buys fentanyl precursor on behalf of Mexico-based drug traffickers.

Mexico and the US on Thursday agreed to ramp up the fight against fentanyl trafficking. Both countries have in recent weeks asked China to help curb the shipment of precursor chemicals coming from the Asian country, in order to prevent production of the synthetic drug responsible for thousands of deaths in the US. REUTERS