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The infamous quartet known as the Chapitos – each of whom had $5 million U.S. bounties placed on their heads – were dubbed “the pioneers” of fentanyl’s introduction to American users by DEA Administrator Anne Milgram during an April 14 news conference in Washington, D.C.
“Death and destruction are central to their whole operation,” said Milgram, a former New Jersey attorney general.
The Chapitos aren’t the only defendants named in a trio of indictments unsealed in federal courts in Manhattan, Illinois and the nation's capitol on Friday, however.
Also cited are Chinese and Guatemalan citizens who are accused of supplying precursor chemicals required to make fentanyl, as well as alleged lab managers, direct traffickers and critical participants who the government said provided the muscle and financial backing.
"We're going after the entire network, from precursors to importation into Mexico to the manufacturer, to the weapons, to the money launderers, to the distribution in the United States," U.S. Attorney Merrick Garland told reporters during Friday’s announcement with Milgram.
More than 50 times more potent than heroin, fentanyl has become the leading cause of death for Americans ages 18 to 49, according to the government.
The synthetic opioid kills roughly 200 Americans each day, while ravaging families and communities across the country.
The man responsible for lighting that powder keg, El Chapo (“Shorty”), had been arrested several times in Mexico only to escape. Things changed after authorities there announced his capture in Sinaloa in January 2016.
Guzman was extradited to the United States the following year and was convicted in 2019 of running a massive drug trafficking operation that smuggled in tons of cocaine, heroin, meth and pot that made its way to just about every state in the union.
With their father imprisoned, El Chapo’s sons took the family business to even more violent and aggressive extremes, Milgram said.
"The Chapitos pioneered the manufacture and trafficking of fentanyl – the deadliest drug threat our country has ever faced – flooded it into the United States for the past eight years and killed hundreds of thousands of Americans," she said.
In doing so, they reaped hundreds of millions of dollars in profits, said Milgram, who was born in Perth Amboy and grew up in East Brunswick.
The Chapitos maintained a network of couriers, tunnels, and stash houses throughout Mexico and the U.S., investigators found.
The brothers collected their precursor chemicals and smuggled their drugs into the U.S. via cargo aircraft, private aircraft, submarines, container ships, supply vessels, fishing vessels, buses, rail cars, tractor trailers and automobiles, among other means, the agents said.
They also showed no mercy for alleged infiltrators or suspected enemies, feeding some of them – while still alive – to tigers, according to complaints on file in the Southern District of New York courthouse in Manhattan.
Milgram said her agents “proactively infiltrated the Sinaloa Cartel and the Chapitos network, obtained unprecedented access to the organization's highest levels, and followed them across the world.”
All told, she said, the DEA pursued the case through 10 countries: Australia, Austria, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Greece, Guatemala, Mexico, Panama and the United States.
Eight of the 28 defendants named in the resulting indictments are in custody. These include Ovidio Guzman “The Mouse” Lopez, one of El Chapo's sons, who has been awaiting extradition after being arrested in Mexico earlier this year.
Three of his brothers — Ivan Guzman Salazar, Alfredo Guzman Salazar and Joaquin Guzman Lopez — remained at large.
U.S. officials met with their counterparts in Mexico this week and agreed to unite to "continually strike against this enemy" and seek extradition of the remaining defendants, Garland said.
It's now up to the People’s Republic of China’s government, he said, to “stop the unchecked flow of fentanyl precursor chemicals that are coming out of China.”
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