The US State Department has put a $5 million bounty on the heads of imprisoned drug kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman’s sons.
The four sons of the imprisoned Sinaloa Carel drug lord are among the targets of a new federal initiative offering millions of dollars in rewards for help in the capture and conviction of the international drug traffickers, the department said Wednesday.
The announcement comes after President Joe Biden signed two executive orders “to combat transnational criminal organizations.
“For years the United States has been in the grips of the worst drug epidemic in its history, driven by overdose deaths involving heroin and illicitly manufactured fentanyl and an increase in methamphetamine availability,” the release said.
The Lopez brothers — Ovidio Guzman Lopez, Ivan Archivaldo Guzman Salazar, Jesus Alfredo Guzman Salazar, and Joaquin Guzman Lopez — are known as “Los Chapitos,” and are at the top of the government’s list.
The four took over leadership roles atop the cartel following their father’s 2014 arrest.
Joaquin Guzman, who once tunneled out of a Mexican prison, was later captured by the Drug Enforcement Administration and extradited to the US.
He was confined to a supermax prison in Colorado in 2019.
In recent years, the Sinaloa cartel has engaged in violent turf wars with rival gangs.
Last month, the jailed kingpin’s wife, Emma Coronel Aispuro, 32, was sentenced to three years in prison for helping her husband run the organization.
The US is now targeting his sons.
Also tagged by the State Department for rewards are Chinese nationals Chuen Fat Yip, a reputed major drug dealer, and accused fentanyl traffickers Fujing Zheng and Guanghua, the press release said.