Cartel issues stark warning to fentanyl traffickers

Texas lawmen may have an unlikely ally in their ongoing fight against traffickers of the potent synthetic opioid fentanyl, a product that’s known to have caused the death of at least two Lavaca County residents in the last year.

Sons of the former Sinaloa cartel leader Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzmán, known collectively as the “Chapitos,” reportedly issued a letter to The Associated Press in Mexico City last week that not only denied any involvement in the production and distribution of the deadly narcotic fentanyl, but they further issued warnings to street dealers that sales of such products—particularly in areas their father once controlled in Mexico—will cease immediately, or else.

The letter was provided to The Associated Press by José Refugio Rodríguez, a lawyer for the Guzmán family. Despite not being signed, Rodríguez said he could confirm that the letter was from Guzmán’s sons. The Mexican government did not explicitly confirm the letter’s authenticity, but President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said Thursday it had been analyzed by the country’s security council.

Guzmán’s sons reportedly wrote “we have never produced, manufactured or commercialized fentanyl nor any of its derivatives,” they said in their letter. “We are victims of persecution and have been made into scapegoats."

Milenio Television first reported the letter back in May. Subsequent warnings resulted from a federal indictment issued against the “Chapitos” last month, where U.S. prosecutors detailed in court documents how the Sinaloa cartel had become the largest exporter of fentanyl to the United States, resulting in tens of thousands of overdose deaths.

Guzmán, the father, is serving a life sentence in the United States for drug trafficking.

Named as lead defendants among the 23 names listed in the New York indictment are Iván Archivaldo Guzmán Salazar and Jesús Alfredo Guzmán Salazar, the AP reported. Ovidio Guzmán López—AKA “the Mouse,” who allegedly pushed the cartel into fentanyl—faces charges in another indictment in the same district.

Mexico arrested him in January and the U.S. government has requested extradition. Joaquín Guzmán López is charged in the Northern District of Illinois. U.S. prosecutors say the “Chapitos” have tried to concentrate power through violence, including torturing Mexican federal agents and feeding rivals to their pet tigers.

The sons deny that, too, saying they are not the leaders of the Sinaloa cartel and do not even have tigers. They describe a loose federation of independent drug producers and manufacturers in the state of Sinaloa, many of whom appropriate their name for their own advantage.

Mexico arrested Ovidio Guzmán in January and has since seized several fentanyl laboratories, but President López Obrador has repeatedly denied that Mexico produces the drug, even going so far as to accuse U.S. authorities of spying and espionage after the indictments were unsealed.

That the de facto Sinaloa cartel has essentially outlawed the drug would come as good news to Americans who have died by the thousands since the lethal drug first made headlines in 2020 were it not for the fact that most agencies monitoring their activities suggest that the cartel will likely boost production of other addictive drugs, such as methamphetamines, to try and make up for the losses it might otherwise suffer with loss of fentanyl on the street, which by itself is believed a multi-billion-dollar business.

The arrival of fentanyl in several Texas towns prompted several lawmen to hold press conferences as it was detected ever farther north into the United States. Several took place about this time last year along the Interstate 35 Corridor near San Marcos, especially after fentanyl overdoses were confirmed on local campuses there.

Fentanyl, incidentally, often proves lethal to even casual drug users, not because they purchase it specifically, but because it is often found laced among other drugs that users might otherwise view as “safe” products, like marijuana or any of the powdered goods traded on the street.

Readers might recall an illustration we ran with one of our initial stories about fentanyl a year ago showing that just a few flecks of the substance—an amount just a fraction the size of a pencil point—can prove a lethal dosage to most people, especially for those who have no idea it’s there.

Although no specific announcements were ever made regarding fentanyl deaths locally, the review of recent autopsy reports revealed that at least two deaths had occurred in the Hallettsville area, one dating back to late April and another from just last month. In addition, there have been at least as many meth overdose cases within that same time frame, as large quantities of both drugs have moved through the area as well as those that have been intercepted by local law enforcement.

“Lavaca County has a serious drug problem. It’s coming from the border and we need to do something about it now,” Precinct 1 Justice of the Peace Steven Greenwell recently told reporters with the online news service The Center Square, following a September car chase that began in Schulenburg and ended in Lavaca County with the arrest of a Hallettsville man who was reportedly found in possession of 11 kilograms of methamphetamine.

That’s almost 25 pounds of the stuff, for those not up on their metric conversions. According to Greenwell, who before moving to Lavaca County spent several years working with federal investigators in their Victoria field office as part of the recently established Homeland Security divisions which set up house there, that’s more than enough to kill the entire population of the county. Twice.

A lethal meth dosage is estimated at roughly 200 milligrams, which puts 11 kilos at enough to kill about 55,000 people. Sadly, it was just one of several drug seizures over the last couple of months, locally. Most involved meth, though cocaine, marijuana and even fentanyl have also been confiscated.

“Just one carload was enough to kill more than double the population of entire county,” Greenwell said. “What’s more troubling is what isn’t being caught. A seizure of this size in our county should ring alarm bells loudly in the ears of all Lavaca County residents.”