Washington plans to pay a reward of up to five million dollars if clues lead to the arrest of a drug lord. At the top of the list: the brother of Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán Loera.
Washington – The US State Department has launched an award for tracking down several Mexican drug lords.
For information that led to the arrest or conviction of the four victims, each would be offered up to five million US dollars, said the Ministry in Washington. Among them is the brother of the once most powerful drug lord in the world, Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán Loera, whose Sinaloa cartel flooded the United States with drugs.
His brother Aureliano and the brothers Ruperto Salgueiro-Nevárez, Jose Salgueiro-Nevárez and Heriberto Salgueiro-Nevárez all operated under the umbrella of the Sinaloa cartel, the US State Department said. All four are charged with violating American narcotics laws in the United States.
“El Chapo”, leader of the powerful Sinaloa cartel in Mexico for 25 years, was tried after his extradition in the USA. A court in New York sentenced him to life imprisonment plus 30 years in July 2019. A jury found Guzmán, now 64, guilty of all ten counts in one of the largest drug trials in American history – including involvement in a criminal organization, the manufacture and international distribution of cocaine and heroin, as well as money laundering and the use of firearms. He is sitting in a maximum security prison in the US state of Colorado.
Mexico’s government had recently announced a blow against the Sinaloa cartel: On Thursday, the Mexican Ministry of Defense announced that the alleged leader of a cell of the Sinaloa cartel had been arrested. In this context, 118 kilograms of fentanyl paste were seized in a drug laboratory. The drug has an estimated value of 970 million pesos (around 41 million euros). dpa
