A woman with extensive contacts in the pharmaceutical industry, based in Guatemala, buys tons of chemical precursors from Chinese companies, in exchange they pay her with cryptocurrencies, while that raw material -which is used to manufacture fentanyl- reaches Mexico at clandestine laboratories located in the mountains of Sinaloa and Durango, when the drug is ready it is sent to the United States, causing the death -between 2021 and 2022- of more than 107,000 citizens of that nation.
Only last year, the authorities of the American Union seized 57 million fentanyl pills, and 5,889 kilos of powder of that narcotic, which is equivalent to 410 million doses: Enough “to kill the entire American population.”
The owners of that drug would be Iván Archivaldo and Jesús Alfredo Guzmán Salazar, along with his half brother Ovid Guzman Lopez, known as the “Chapitos”, leaders of a fraction of the Sinaloa cartel, who have obtained hundreds of millions of dollars in profits laundered through cryptocurrencies and transactions with shell companies, while also using an extensive network of violence and corruption that operates on both sides of the border.
It is not a series of some platform streamingAlthough it seems so, in reality it is the extensive accusation of the United States Department of Justice, filed in the Court of the Southern District of New York, against the children of Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, who are accused of “flooding” the North American streets of fentanyl since 2014.
The 65-page document, a copy of which is owned by HIGH LEVEL, describes that the offspring of “El Chapo” Guzmán depend on Chinese companies to manufacture both the fentanyl pills and powder that they illegally export to the United States by land, sea, air, and even through underground tunnels.
“In other words, The chemicals that allow the Cartel to produce and flood the United States with the deadly fentanyl come primarily from China.” states the accusation. With these inputs, the drug is prepared, which, when it reaches the United States, is distributed by a network that also controls the same criminal organization headed by the Chapitos along with 21 accomplices.
All would be allegedly responsible for 6 criminal charges in the neighboring country, according to the criminal case that the US Department of Justice released on Friday of last week.
Specifically, they are accused of organized crime (continuous criminal enterprise); conspiracy to import fentanyl; fentanyl trafficking conspiracy; possession of machine guns and destructive devices; conspiracy to possess such weapons; and money laundering conspiracy.
The China-Germany-Mexico route
One of the main partners of the children of “El Chapo” Guzmán is allegedly Ana Gabriela Rubio Zea, alias Gaby, a 32-year-old Guatemalan woman who was arrested for extradition purposes on March 17 in her country. She is she, along with a woman and two men of Chinese citizenship, would be the main suppliers of the Chapitos of the chemical precursors to produce fentanyl.
The raw material, according to the official accusation signed by the prosecutor Damien Williams, It was allegedly provided by the company “Wuhan Shuokang Biological Technology Ltd” or “SK Biotech”, a consortium based in the city of Wuhan, capital of Hubei province, in eastern China, a metropolis of 11 million inhabitants that is today famous because there, just over three years ago, the first cases of Covid-19 in the world were registered.
In addition to Iván Archivaldo Guzmán Salazar, Jesús Alfredo Guzmán Salazar, and Ovidio Guzmán López, the United States accuses 21 other people of drug trafficking, including Ana Gabriela Rubio Zea, Yonghao Wu, Yaquin Wu and Huatao Yao, the latter allegedly “owner of Wuhan Shuokang Biological Technology Ltd”, a firm that would allegedly be responsible for selling “clandestinely fentanyl precursor chemicals to drug traffickers in Mexico.”
To pay for these supplies, which would reach Mexican soil through Germany, disguised with shipments of legal drugs, the Chapitos use cryptocurrency or cross-border bank transfers.
According to the US government, once the order has been placed, the supplies to manufacture fentanyl arrive in approximately 7 days, “carefully disguised”, they would immediately be taken to the laboratories of the Sinaloa cartel where powder and pills of the drug are prepared. Both presentations are usually mixed with “other controlled substances, such as heroin and cocaine, to maximize both the potency of the product and the volume of sales.”
Next comes the export phase that is carried out with a wide network of both Mexican and American traffickers.
The criminal cycle ends with the money launderers who work with the cartel of the sons of “El Chapo”, who repatriate the proceeds from drug sales in the United States “in cash, goods, and through untraceable cryptocurrencies, allowing the Chapitos and their cabals to reap the massive profits of flooding” that country with fentanyl.
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Corruption and lurid details
To protect and promote their fentanyl trafficking operation, the United States accuses, the Chapitos and their accomplices “depend on armed enforcers, known as hit men,” as well as on corruption, extortion, and the payment of bribes.
It is an illegal security apparatus that protects criminals both in Mexico and in the United States, whose members “regularly use military-grade weapons” to perpetrate homicides, kidnappings, and torture.
The indictment document describes in detail that the sons of “El Chapo” Guzmán, in addition to depriving Mexican officials and rival drug traffickers of life, torture their victims “through electrocution”, and even They have even fed live people to the tigers allegedly owned by Iván Archivaldo Guzmán Salazar.
This relentless violence has left “unbridled bloodshed” both in Mexico and on US soil, allowing the Sinaloa cartel to control the territory of several states in our country, not only for drug trafficking, but also for the chilling effect that is exercised by demanding “the payment of taxes” (right of floor).
The United States Attorney’s Office documents that the extortions of the Chapitos already affect Mexican civilians who carry out legal economic activities. The sale of products such as beer, toilet paper or electronic devices can only be done with the payment and permission of the Sinaloa cartel.
“In more than half of all the states of Mexico”, This criminal organization has a sophisticated security apparatus, consisting of hundreds of individuals armed with high-caliber weapons, who support the activities of the Chapitos.
Their criminal actions, the accusation concludes, “are not limited to Mexico,” since this fraction of the Sinaloa cartel is already a criminal network “that encompasses almost all major cities, from New York to Buenos Aires,” in addition to having presence in more than 45 countries around the world.
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surya palaces Journalist and lawyer, specialist in legal analysis and human rights. She has been a reporter, radio host and editor.