Justice Department charges leaders of Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel in sprawling fentanyl-trafficking probe | CNN Politics

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The Justice Department on Friday announced charges against more than two dozen defendants, including three sons of the notorious drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, in a sprawling fentanyl-trafficking investigation.

Attorney General Merrick Garland announced the charges at a news conference in Washington, alongside Drug Enforcement Administration Administrator Anne Milgram and other top federal prosecutors.

The indictments against the leaders of Mexico’s powerful Sinaloa cartel were unsealed, including against Guzman’s sons, who are known as the Chapitos, or little Chapos.

The fentanyl trafficking, weapons and money laundering charges in three indictments involved a total of 28 defendants: 23 of whom are based in Mexico, four in China and one in Guatemala.

Charges were filed against alleged chemical suppliers, lab managers, fentanyl traffickers, financiers and weapons traffickers. Among those charged are Chinese citizens accused of supplying precursor chemicals required to make fentanyl.

During Friday’s news conference, Milgram detailed the alleged violence and brutality of the Sinaloa cartel, a criminal enterprise she says has made billions in trafficking drugs.

“Death and destruction are central to their criminal operation,” Milgram said. “To dominate the federal supply chain, the Chapitos kill, kidnap and torture anyone who gets in the way.”

“In Mexico, they fed their enemies alive to tigers,” Milgram said, “electrocuted them, waterboarded them and shot them at close range with a 50-caliber machine gun.”

Milgram also said El Chapo’s sons “inherited a global drug-trafficking empire and they made it more ruthless, more violent, more deadly.”

“And they used it to spread a new poison, fentanyl,” she said, adding that “most of the fentanyl in the United States comes from the Sinaloa Cartel.”

Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said the Justice Department and federal agencies need to expand efforts to combat the cartels and drug trafficking to “cyberspace,” specifically social media apps used by dealers to sell and buy drugs.

“Thousands of Americans, including children are dying from fentanyl marketed and distributed over social media,” Monaco said, adding that members of the Justice Department met with several social media companies last week about what they can do to stop drug trafficking on their platforms.

This story has been updated with additional developments.