The United States imposed sanctions on the son of a Mexican drug lord on Tuesday Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzmanthree members of the powerful Sinaloa cartel and two Mexico-based companies who claim they smuggled fentanyl and other drugs into the United States
The sanctions came on the day Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador was supposed to do it Conversation with President Joe Biden by phone approx immigration and the fentanyl crisis.
The Treasury Department has imposed financial sanctions on El Chapo’s son, Joaquin Guzman Lopez, and others, including a freeze on American-owned assets and bank accounts and a ban on Americans doing business with them. A chemical and laboratory equipment company from Culiacan, Mexico, and a real estate company also faced sanctions.
The latest penalties from the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control follow a row of fentanyl in April Human trafficking charges against three other Guzman sonsOvidio Guzmán López, Jesús Alfredo Guzmán Salazar and Iván Archivaldo Guzmán Sálazar, known as the Chapitos or Little Chapos, and two dozen members of the Sinaloa Cartel.
fentanyl is the deadliest drug in the US today. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 71,000 people in the US will die from an overdose of synthetic opioids like fentanyl in 2021, up from about 58,000 the year before.
López Obrador has denied that drug cartels manufacture fentanyl in Mexico, although he has acknowledged that precursor chemicals and finished fentanyl are smuggled into Mexico from China, a claim China has denied.
According to the Drug Enforcement Administration, which is tasked with fighting the illicit drug trade, Mexico and China are the top sources of fentanyl and fentanyl-related substances smuggled directly into the United States.
Rising tensions between the US and China on multiple fronts have hampered efforts to halt fentanyl imports, they said a report by the Congressional Research Service.
Most of the fentanyl traded in the United States comes from the Sinaloa cartel, according to the DEA.
Treasury Department Undersecretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Brian Nelson said the department “in close coordination with the Mexican government and U.S. law enforcement agencies will continue to deploy our agencies to investigate Los Chapitos and the Sinaloa Cartel’s operations at any point.” isolate and disturb.”
Guzman Lopez was not in custody as of Tuesday, and it was unclear if he had a lawyer who could speak about the sanctions on his behalf. A lawyer for El Chapo did not immediately respond with a request for comment.
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