“Ivan” for Borderland Beat
The DEA increases the payment for information that allows finding the whereabouts of lieutenants, producers, distributors, traffickers, who make up the faction of the sons of ‘Chapo’ Guzmán
The Federal Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) had been investigating the main operators of Los Chapitos for at least 7 years, and would have used information revealed by protected witnesses in the hands of the United States, as well as by the data provided by informants who are currently part of that criminal group.
In this way, the authorities of that country confirmed to Ríodoce that the person who apparently was left in place of Ovidio Guzmán López to coordinate the production of fentanyl throughout the rural area of Culiacán is Oscar Noé Medina González, “Panu”, for whom the Department of Justice of the United States (USDOJ) offers a reward of 4 million dollars.
El Pan or Panu appears to be the cherry on the cake for the DEA, since according to reports from the USDOJ, he is the one who coordinates and takes over all the fentanyl produced in the region.
The judicial file 15-cr-00206, specifies that they began by coordinating the production of other types of drugs, such as methamphetamines, cocaine and heroin, until little by little he was delegated to coordinate the production of other synthetic drugs.
Another judicial file, number 23-cr-00180, indicates him as the fourth in command, since after the fall of El Raton, Medina González would have been in charge of fentanyl production, according to unofficial reports from the USDOJ.
Two other of the Los Chapitos operators that the DEA is also targeting and for whom it is offering 4 million dollars for information leading to their capture, are the brothers Leobardo and Martín García Corrales, two of those in charge of transferring fentanyl to United States, while a fourth objective for the government of that country is Néstor Isidro Pérez Salas, better known within the different factions of the Sinaloa Cartel as Nini.
Pérez Salas gained notoriety since the beginning of 2020, after maintaining an open war against Jesús Alexander Sánchez Félix, an operator of Ismael El Mayo Zambada, nicknamed El Ruso, for which Mayo Zambada himself would have ordered him to leave the Agua Caliente area, to the north of Culiacán, to prevent the war from escalating, demanding that he go to the north of the country.
“He did not like the order, but the Russian had to settle with the Mayo and go to Mexicali,” said a source consulted by this weekly. Other Los Chapitos operators for whom the USDOJ is also offering bounties are Jorge Humberto Figueroa Benítez, 27; Liborio Núñez Aguirre el, Karateca, Alan Gabriel Núñez Herrera, Carlos Limón Vázquez, Jesús Tirado Andrade, Noel Pérez López, el Tío, Luis Javier Benítez Espinoza, alias el Catorce, Juan Pablo Lozano, el Camarón, and Julio Marín González: for all They are offered a million dollar reward.”These rewards are offered for information that leads to the arrest of these people, all of them associated with the Los Chapitos cartel, one of the criminal groups that is most involved in the trafficking of synthetic opioids such as fentanyl,” he published on his website. the United States Department of State.
The news came days before Anne Milgram, administrator of the DEA, announced before the United States Congress that she had issued a formal petition to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Mexico (SRE), to request the immediate extradition of Ovidio Guzmán, the Mouse. , to be filed in a federal court in the Southern District of New York.
The avalanche of actions against Los Chapitos is framed by an announcement made last week by Merrick B. Garland, Attorney General of the United States, who announced that the reward for Iván Archivaldo and Jesús Alfredo Guzmán Salazar is increased from 5 million dollars that were offered for them, to 10 million, considering them as the undisputed leaders of the Sinaloa Cartel.
“The Department of Justice will take significant enforcement action against the world’s largest, most violent and most prolific fentanyl trafficking operation, led by the Sinaloa Cartel and powered by Chinese precursor chemical and pharmaceutical companies,” Garland said at a conference last week. press.
The US federal official added that the actions against Los Chapitos have been redoubling for several months now, due to thousands of overdose deaths caused by the use of fentanyl in that country. The announcement is just the start of what’s to come.
“The approach that the Department of Justice is taking to apprehend these criminals is comprehensive and in doing so is intended to disrupt the trafficking of fentanyl into the United States in order to save American lives,” Garland said.
The only one of Los Chapitos for whom the reward was not increased is Joaquín Guzmán López, for whom the authorities continue to offer 5 million dollars, apparently because they want to target Iván Archivaldo and Jesús Alfredo, and because many of the informants who collaborate with the DEA they don’t have him identified, since Joaquin Guzman Lopez it maintains a very low profile.
In addition to Los Chapitos and its operators, US authorities accused several of its suppliers in China, the country designated by the DEA as the main exporter of chemical precursors for the manufacture of fentanyl.
These Chinese citizens are Yonghao Wu, Yaqin Wu, Huatao Yao and Kun Jiang, who would be the main suppliers of precursors for the manufacture of fentanyl in Sinaloa, and who ship it via large cargo ships, to later deliver it to fishermen near the Sinaloan coasts.
”Our priority is to get those Chinese citizens arrested along with those 16 Mexicans so that they can be brought to the United States to face justice,” Milgram said.
According to the DEA, Los Chapitos are the ones in charge of the production and trafficking of fentanyl in Culiacán, and they use cargo planes, private aircraft, submarines and other vessels, container ships, supply vessels, speedboats, fishing boats, buses , railroad cars, tractor trailers, automobiles, and interstate and private commercial vessels, to move drugs into the United States.
In addition to the above, the indictments say, Los Chapitos maintains a network of tunnels connecting Mexico to the United States, as well as hideouts throughout Mexico and the United States to further their drug trafficking activities.
Currently, it is difficult to pinpoint where Los Chapitos are, and there are those who assure that they have gone to other states of the country to avoid being located, although the DEA hopes that, through the network of informants it has within the Sinaloa Cartel , they can be located in the immediate future for their arrest and subsequent extradition to the United States.
The charges for fentanyl trafficking, possession of firearms for the exclusive use of the military, and money laundering were unsealed in the Southern District of New York in the middle of this month, the first in a series of announcements made in against the children of Joaquín el Chapo Guzmán.
Article published on April 30, 2023 in edition 1057 of the weekly Ríodoce.