The Justice Department under Attorney General Merrick Garland on Thursday revealed indictments charging 2 leaders of the notorious La Nueva Familia Michoacana Mexican drug cartel. File Photo by Ken Cedeno/UPI | License Photo
June 20 (UPI) — A Mexican drug cartel smuggling fentanyl and its precursor chemicals as well as migrants into the United States was struck with indictments and sanctions on Thursday, as the Biden administration targets supply chains of the narcotic fueling the country’s opioid epidemic.
Fentanyl, a artificial opioid inbetween 50 and 100 times morepowerful than morphine, and its analogues contribute to almost 70% of overdose deaths in the United States, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Biden administration hasactually introduced a whole-of-government effort to takeapart channels cartels usage to get it and its precursor chemicals stateside.
La Nueva Familia Michoacana, one of Mexico’s most well-known drug cartels, is included in not just smuggling fentanyl into the United States however likewise drug and methamphetamine.
U.S. Officials stated the cartel produces fentanyl throughout Mexico and sendsout it through Nuevo Laredo and Tamaulipas/Reynosa into southern Texas through buses.
It has likewise been implicated requiring migrants to bring the drugs over the border under hazard of their households lives.
On Thursday, the Treasury approved 8 of its leaders and the Justice Department revealed indictments versus 2 of them.
“These actions show that in addition to holding cartel leaders responsible for their criminaloffenses, we are working together with our partners at the Treasury Department to hit the cartels’ criminal operations where it injures the most — their revenues,” Attorney General Merrick Garland stated in a declaration.
“We will continue to activate a whole-of-government effort to interrupt the cartels benefiting from the drug trafficking and human smuggling that ravage neighborhoods and threaten our nationwide security.”
Rodolfo Maldonado Bustos, 59, is explained by the Treasury as a “powerful and reliedon member” of the cartel who is next in-line to Johnny Hurtado Olascoaga and Jose Alfredo Hurtado Olascoaga, its leaders who were formerly designated by the U.S. federalgovernment in 2022.
He along with Euclides Camacho-Goicochea, 51, haveactually been charged in a federal indictment revealed Thursday