The US accuses the sons of “Chapo” Guzmán and Chinese businessmen of fentanyl trafficking

The United States has accused the leaders of the Sinaloa cartel of running a fentanyl trafficking operation fueled by Chinese chemical and pharmaceutical companies, the attorney general said Friday Merrick Garland.

three sons of Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzmanthe former leader of the Sinaloa cartel now imprisoned in the United States, are among those charged, Garland said.

Ovid Guzmanone of his sons, was detained in Mexico and is awaiting extradition proceedings, prosecutors in Manhattan said.

“They know they are poisoning and killing Americans. They just don’t care because they make billions of dollars doing it,” said DEA chief Anne Milgram, referring to Guzmán’s children. “Her greed for him is outrageous and knows no bounds.”

Prosecutors also charged four Chinese company owners who allegedly supplied precursor chemicals to the cartel.

The US Treasury Department also imposed sanctions on China-based chemical companies on Friday. Wuhan Shuokang Biological Technology Co Ltd y Suzhou Xiaoli Pharmatech Co Ltd, as well as four Chinese citizens.

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

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

“Illicit fentanyl is responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of Americans each year,” Brian Nelson, Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, 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 the machinery necessary to produce this drug,” Nelson said.

Also targeted was a Guatemala-based fentanyl precursor chemical broker who Treasury says buys fentanyl precursors on behalf of Mexico-based drug traffickers.

Mexico and the United States agreed on Thursday to intensify the fight against fentanyl trafficking. Both countries have asked China in recent weeks to help stop the shipment of chemical precursors from the Asian country, in order to prevent the production of the synthetic drug responsible for thousands of deaths in the United States.

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