MCALLEN, Texas, (Reuters) – U.S. authorities accused two dozen top bosses of Mexico’s Sinaloa drug cartel, including leader Joaquin El Chapo Guzman, of murder, money laundering and racketeering while shipping tons of illicit drugs into the United States.
None of the defendants in the indictment unsealed on Tuesday have been arrested by U.S. authorities. The most serious charges carry maximum sentences of life in prison and millions of dollars in fines.
The U.S. government has offered a $5 million award for information leading to the capture of Guzman, who was previously indicted in California and Arizona.
The 28-page indictment filed April 11 in U.S. District Court in El Paso, Texas, targets Guzman and 23 other men with overseeing the cartel’s primary task: moving thousands of pounds of narcotics into the United States.
The cartel kidnapped, tortured and murdered its enemies to further its operations in Mexico and the United States, according to the charges. Also named in the indictment is Ismael “Mayo” Zambada Garcia, labeled as a co-leader of the Sinaloa cartel, named for the Pacific coast state where El Chapo – Spanish for “Shorty” – was born.
