Mexico’s notorious Sinaloa cartel, once ruled by now-imprisoned drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, has banned the production of fentanyl — under penalty of death.
A face-off by a narco crew — the main traffickers of deadly synthetic opioids flooding the US — has emerged as El Chapo’s sons bow to a growing law enforcement crackdown on the drug trade, the Wall Street Journal reported Monday.
The order came from “Chapitos” — the name for Guzman’s son, who took over the operation.
“In Sinaloa, the sale, manufacture, transport or any type of business involving the substance known as fentanyl, including the sale of chemical products for its detailing, is permanently banned,” said one of several banners hung on billboards and overpasses in Culiacan .
“You have been warned,” the message read. “Sincerely, Chapitos.”
US law enforcement officials are skeptical of the decree, and say the ban is expected to do little to curb the fentanyl trade — and could lead to an increase in the trafficking of heroin and cocaine.
Mexican police display more than $15 million in drug money seized from the Sinaloa drug cartel in 2011.EPA Mexican and US law enforcement authorities have stepped up pressure on the Sinaloa drug cartel in recent years.AP
“In the aggregate, it means nothing,” a law enforcement official told the Journal. “They think if they do this, they won’t take as much heat.”
Still, the cartel sent a chilling message in June, when three bodies covered in blue fentanyl pills were found on the outskirts of Culiacan – a grim reminder that Chapitos meant business.
Over the past 10 days, about a dozen more people have been kidnapped in Sinaloa, most of them believed to be linked to the area’s fentanyl trade.
“We believe these kidnappings and disappearances are linked to the banning of fentanyl because their relatives have submitted official complaints to the authorities,” said Michael Angel Murillo, a human rights activist with the Sinaloa Civic Front, a grassroots group.
“These people are very scared.”
Mexican security forces arrested a son of El Chapo in January, part of a crackdown on the cartel. AFP via Getty Images Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, the former head of Mexico’s notorious Sinaloa drug cartel, was extradited to the US in 2017, and sentenced to prison two years later. He is in a supermax federal prison serving his sentence. EPA Fentanyl has flooded the US in recent years and has become a leading cause of overdose deaths. Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel, once run by jailed kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, is one of the deadliest drug traffickers. US DEA officials doubt the ban can actually be effective.Getty Images
El Chapo ran a drug empire for decades before he was extradited to the US in 2017.
He was found guilty of drug trafficking two years later and ordered to prison in a supermax federal prison in Colorado.
US drug enforcement and Mexican officials turned their attention to the former king’s son, and in January captured Ovidio Guzman, the Chapitos’ top leader, after a deadly gun battle that left at least 29 people dead — including a Mexican army colonel.
Ovidio Guzman was extradited to the US last month, while four of Guzman’s brothers and about two dozen Sinaloa associates were indicted by US federal prosecutors in April.
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
