WASHINGTON – The United States on Tuesday sanctioned a son of Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, three members of the highly effective Sinaloa cartel and two Mexican-based companies dealing in chemical compounds and actual property, alleging they trafficked fentanyl and different medicine into the U.S.
The sanctions got here the day Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador was to speak with President Biden by cellphone about immigration and the fentanyl disaster.
The Treasury Department designated El Chapo’s son Joaquin Guzman Lopez and others for monetary sanctions, together with a freeze on American-owned belongings and financial institution accounts and a ban on Americans doing enterprise with them.
A Culiacan, Mexico, chemical and lab gear firm and an actual property enterprise had been additionally slapped with sanctions.
The newest penalties by the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control observe a set of April fentanyl trafficking expenses introduced towards three different Guzman sons, Ovidio Guzmán López, Jesús Alfredo Guzmán Salazar and Iván Archivaldo Guzmán Sálazar, generally known as the Chapitos, or Little Chapos, and two dozen members of the Sinaloa cartel.
El Chapo was extradited in 2017 to the U.S., the place he was convicted of a large drug conspiracy that unfold homicide and mayhem for greater than twenty years. He was sentenced in 2019 to life in a U.S. jail.
Fentanyl is the deadliest drug within the U.S. at the moment. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 71,000 individuals died within the U.S. from overdosing on artificial opioids corresponding to fentanyl in 2021, up from about 58,000 the yr earlier than.
López Obrador has denied that drug cartels make fentanyl in Mexico, though he has acknowledged that precursor chemical compounds and completed fentanyl are smuggled into Mexico from China, a declare China has denied.
Mexico and China are the first sources for fentanyl and fentanyl-related substances trafficked immediately into the U.S., based on the Drug Enforcement Administration, which is tasked with combating illicit drug trafficking.
Growing tensions between the U.S. and China on a number of fronts have made efforts to cease the importation of fentanyl harder, based on a Congressional Research Service report.
Most of the fentanyl trafficked within the United States comes from the Sinaloa cartel, the DEA says.
The Treasury’s undersecretary for terrorism and monetary intelligence, Brian Nelson, mentioned that the division “in close coordination with the Government of Mexico and U.S. law enforcement, will continue to leverage our authorities to isolate and disrupt Los Chapitos and the Sinaloa Cartel’s operations at every juncture.”
Guzman Lopez was not in custody Tuesday, and it was unclear if he had a lawyer who might communicate on his behalf in regards to the sanctions. A lawyer for El Chapo didn’t instantly return a message searching for remark.
Source: www.bostonherald.com”