With Mexican drug kingpin Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán languishing in jail for life, his sons have taken over the family business and diversified into fentanyl, flooding the U.S. market to deadly effect, according to authorities.
The three sons were among 28 Sinaloa cartel members arrested last month on charges of fentanyl trafficking. El Chapo’s crimes were cocaine-related, but the sons work “to manufacture the most potent fentanyl and to sell it in the United States at the lowest price,” prosecutors said in the indictment unsealed April 14 in Manhattan.
It took less than a decade to pivot from a single makeshift lab to a network of facilities throughout Sinaloa. A single fentanyl “cook” can craft 100,000 pills a day disguised as Xanax, Percocet or oxycodone.
“These are not super labs, because they give people the illusion that they’re like pharmaceutical labs, you know, very sophisticated,” said Mike Vigil, the DEA’s former head of international operations. “These are nothing more than metal tubs and they use wooden paddles — even shovels — to mix the chemicals.”
The “Chapitos,” as they have been dubbed, are known for their violent methods.
Sons Ivan Archivaldo Guzmán Salazar and Jesus Alfredo Guzmán Salazar head the list of those charged in last month’s indictment. Another indictment covers Ovidio Guzmán López, a.k.a. “the Mouse,” who authorities say masterminded the cartel’s fentanyl pivot. He is jailed in Mexico as the U.S. requests extradition. Joaquín Guzmán López is charged in the Northern District of Illinois.
The annual fentanyl death toll surpasses the number of Americans killed in the Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan wars combined. Since the doses have little in common, it’s extremely easy to overdose on the pills, even for someone who is not a habitual user or addicted.
More than 107,000 Americans fatally overdosed between August 2021 and August 2022, and most of that came from synthetic opioids including fentanyl. In 2022, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) seized upwards of 57 million counterfeit prescription pills laced with fentanyl, the indictment in New York said.
“It’s not a drug problem; it’s a poisoning problem,” said Alejandro Hope, a security analyst in Mexico who died on Friday. “Very few people go out deliberately looking for fentanyl.”