Trump admin sanctions El Chapo's children, violent fentanyl-trafficking cartel arm Los Chapitos
The Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned Los Chapitos, which controls laboratories responsible for introducing fentanyl in counterfeit pills manufactured by the Sinaloa cartel and trafficked to the United States.
Gunmen linked to the Sinaloa cartel were involved in the Oct. 18, 2024, killing of U.S. Marine veteran Nicholas Quets in Sonora, Mexico.
Additionally, the Treasury Department designated the two sons of Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman Loera: Archivaldo Ivan Guzman Salazar and Jesus Alfredo Guzman Salazar.
"Los Chapitos is a powerful, hyperviolent faction of the Sinaloa cartel at the forefront of fentanyl trafficking in the United States," Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Monday. "At the Department of the Treasury, we are executing on President Trump's mandate to completely eliminate drug cartels and take on violent leaders like 'El Chapo's' children."
Bessent added that the Treasury Department is "maximizing all available tools to stop the fentanyl crisis and help save lives."
The Treasury Department on Monday also sanctioned a regional network of Los Chapitos associates and businesses based in Mazatlan, Sinaloa, Mexico, that allegedly engages in drug tracking, extortion, kidnapping and money laundering.
The Treasury Department coordinated with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration to take the action Monday.
Nicholas Douglas Quets, a 31-year-old Marine veteran who worked for Pima County, Arizona, on water reclamation projects, was shot and killed along the Caborca-Altar Highway in northern Mexico on Oct. 18, 2024.
Quets' father, Doug, who served 20 years in the U.S. Army and another 20 years in federal law enforcement, expressed his family's "deep and enduring gratitude to President Trump and his entire Cabinet for unwaveringly using every instrument of national power in the pursuit of justice for our beloved Nicholas."
"Nicholas Quets was an innocent American and proud U.S. Marine veteran whose bright future was stolen on October 18, 2024, when he was ambushed just south of the U.S. border by a heavily armed cell of the Sinaloa cartel," Quets said in a statement. "Cowards in cartel insignia – more than two dozen strong – pursued Nicholas and fatally shot him in the back, through the heart, during a failed carjacking, only after confirming his status as an American."
Quets added: "This was not just murder – it was a deliberate act of terror against a known American citizen."
Quets said the Treasury Department's designation of the Sinaloa cartel as a foreign terrorist organization was a "vital first step in honoring Nicholas' memory and protecting other Americans from suffering similar tragedies."
"Secretary Bessent's decisive action to target the Sinaloa cartel's financial networks strikes at the heart of this transnational threat," Quets said. "Disrupting their ability to move money, launder profits and bribe officials is essential to dismantling this criminal empire."
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