The American authorities announced sanctions on Friday April 14 against networks involving China and Mexico in the trafficking of fentanyl, a very powerful synthetic opiate and responsible for the death of tens of thousands of people a year in the United States.
US justice is thus attacking "the most extensive, violent and prolific fentanyl trafficking operations, managed by the Sinaloa cartel and fueled by chemical compounds from Chinese pharmaceutical companies", declared the US attorney general, Merrick Garland. He also said that four sons of Mexican cartel founder Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, the "Chapitos", were facing charges.
These lawsuits "send a clear message to the 'Chapitos', the Sinaloa Cartel and criminal drug trafficking networks around the world that the United States Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) will take all measures to protect the national security of the United States. United and the health and safety of Americans,” Mr. Garland added.
In 2021, 81,000 deaths linked to opioid overdoses
The US State Department announced bounties of ten million dollars per person for the capture of two of the "Chapitos", Ivan and Alfredo Guzman Salazar, and five million for Joaquin Guzman Lopez. The fourth brother, Ovidio Guzman Lopez, was arrested in Mexico in January and is expected to be extradited to the United States. In all, bounties for any information leading to the arrest or indictment of twenty-seven people linked to this traffic have been made public by American diplomacy.
At the same time, the Treasury Department sanctioned two entities in China and five individuals, based in China and Guatemala, involved in supplying chemical compounds needed to manufacture fentanyl. Beijing "must stop the uncontrolled flow of fentanyl chemicals from China," Garland insisted. "Illegal fentanyl is responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of Americans every year," Brian Nelson, Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Affairs, said in a separate statement.
"It kills more Americans between the ages of 18 and 45 than terrorism, car accidents, cancer and Covid-19," said Anne Milgram, director of the DEA. In the United States, between 2020 and 2021, deaths linked to opioid overdoses jumped by 17%, from 69,000 to 81,000. And of 106,000 people who died of overdoses in 2022, 70,000 were linked to fentanyl, recalled Senator Lindsey Graham in March, accusing the Mexican cartels of flooding the United States with this synthetic opiate fifty times more powerful than heroin.
