Justice Department to announce charges against more than 24 Mexican drug cartel members

The Justice Department plans to announce charges against more than 24 Mexican drug cartel leaders and members, according to senior law enforcement officials. 

The announcement is expected on Friday morning and is part of the Drug Enforcement Administration’s push to target the Sinaloa and Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) groups, the officials say. This includes the arrest of Sinaloa Cartel members earlier this year, like Ovidio Guzman, the son of the cartel’s former drug lord, Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, Jorge Ivan Gastelum Avila and Jose “N.“

It’s unclear if charges will be announced against the three sons of El Chapo Guzman, Ovidio, Ivan and Alfredo, who allegedly help lead the Sinaloa Cartel.

Several suspects are in custody at the time but most are still wanted, the officials said.

The Biden administration also announced Friday that it is increasing cooperation with Mexico to combat the trafficking of fentanyl coming north into the U.S. while also cracking down on the trafficking of guns going south into Mexico.

NBC News was first to report that the two countries were negotiating such an agreement.

Biden visited Mexico in January and senior Biden administration officials headed to Mexico City last month for pre-arranged talks about the fentanyl crisis as the news unfolded that drug cartel gunmen had kidnapped four Americans in Mexico, two of whom were shot dead.

Ahead of the talks with senior Biden officials, Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador stood before television cameras to proclaim that fentanyl is America’s problem and falsely stated that none of the dangerous drug is produced in Mexico, marking just how badly the relationship between the two countries has deteriorated in what used to be called the drug war.

U.S. officials and international experts say the vast majority of the fentanyl sold in the U.S. is produced in Mexico using precursors imported from China.

“The Sinaloa cartel and the Jalisco cartel and their affiliates control the vast majority of the fentanyl global supply chain, from manufacture to distribution,” DEA Administrator Anne Milgram told Congress last month. “The cartels are buying precursor chemicals in the People’s Republic of China,, transporting the precursor chemicals from the PRC to Mexico, using the precursor chemicals to mass produce fentanyl, pressing the fentanyl into fake prescription pills, and using cars, trucks and other routes to transport the drugs from Mexico into the United States for distribution.”

The Sinaloa cartel “remains the most powerful” drug trafficking organization in Mexico despite the conviction of El Chapo, experts said.

The Sinaloa cartel has maintained a strong leadership that has prospered under a more “horizontal structure,” in which “decision-making authority flows all along the chain,” Mike Vigil, the former chief of international operations for the Drug Enforcement Administration said in 2019.

Adding to the cartel’s ongoing success was a “diversified portfolio” of criminal activity, Vigil said, which includes a lucrative drug trade which has expanded to include synthetic opioids, as well as other crimes such as extortion, kidnapping and theft of petroleum from Mexico’s pipelines.

Sinaloa’s main rival, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), has grown in Guzmán’s absence, but still faces internal power struggles and a crackdown from law enforcement after several high-profile episodes of violence, Vigil said. El Chapo’s arrest also led to intensification of bloody clashes with the CJNG, which split from the Sinaloa Cartel in 2010.

In 2020, the Justice Department announced more than 750 arrests after a six-month investigation targeting the CJNG as part of “Project Python.” Officials at the time said the organization is responsible for trafficking tons of cocaine, methamphetamine and fentanyl-laced heroin into the United States.

“CJNG has contributed to a catastrophic trail of human and physical destruction in Mexico,” said Assistant Attorney General Brian Benczowski at the time. “It is the most well-armed cartel in Mexico. Its members willingly confront rival cartels and even the security forces of the Mexican government. CJNG is responsible for grisly acts of violence and loss of life.”