El Chapo’s sons and Sinaloa cartel members charged by DOJ

The three Guzman sons charged — Ovidio Guzmán López, Jesús Alfredo Guzmán Salazar and Iván Archivaldo Guzmán Sálazar — are known as the Chapitos, or little Chapos, and have earned a reputation as the more violent and aggressive faction of the cartel.

Of the three, only Guzmán López is in custody, in Mexico.

Attorney General Merrick Garland unveiled the three indictments aimed at hitting the cartel’s global network, standing alongside Drug Enforcement Administration chief Anne Milgram and other top federal prosecutors.

The defendants span a broad swath of a complex manufacturing and supply network. They include Chinese and Guatemalan citizens accused of supplying precursor chemicals required to make fentanyl.

Others are suspected of running drug labs in Mexico or accused of providing security, weapons and illicit financing for the drug trafficking operation.

The wide-ranging case comes as the U.S. remains in the grip of a devastating overdose crisis largely by fentanyl poisonings. Nearly 107,000 Americans died of drug overdoses in the U.S. in 2021, a record-setting number.

Fentanyl seizures by U.S. Customs and Border Protection have increased by more than 400% since 2019, officials said, and this fiscal year’s seizures have already surpassed the total for all of 2022.

Most of the fentanyl trafficked in the United States comes from the Sinaloa cartel, the Drug Enforcement Administration says.

“Families and communities across our country are being devastated by the fentanyl epidemic,” Garland said. “We will never forget those who bear responsibility for this tragedy. And we will never stop working to hold them accountable for their crimes in the United States.”

The Sinaloa cartel’s notorious drug lord, known as El Chapo, was convicted in 2019 of running an industrial-scale smuggling operation. At Guzman’s trial, prosecutors said evidence gathered since the late 1980s showed he and his murderous cartel made billions of dollars by smuggling tons of cocaine, heroin, meth and marijuana into the U.S. A defiant Guzman accused the federal judge in his case of making a mockery of the U.S. justice system and claimed he was denied a fair trial.

In outlining the charges Friday,…