Mexico City, Mexico — The United States Embassy in Mexico last week announced criminal charges against 41 members of the Jalisco Cartel Nueva Generación (CJNG), currently one of the most prolific and violent drug trafficking organizations in Mexico, linked to the smuggling of illegal drugs into the U.S.
Through a press release dated April 3, the U.S. Embassy in Mexico announced decisive action against the largest drug cartels in the country.
“Working with our partners in Mexico, we have criminally charged the leaders of the world’s largest drug cartels, such as the Sinaloa cartel, and, on April 1, we charged 41 individuals linked to the Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generación(CJNG),” read the statement.
The embassy also announced sanctions against more than 290 people as a result of an international initiative to stop the trafficking of synthetic drugs, which reportedly involves both Mexico and the People’s Republic of China.
According to a report shared by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), fentanyl is the leading cause of death in adults aged 18 to 45 in the United States. The anti-drug organization points to the Sinaloa Cartel and the Jalisco Cartel as being “primarily responsible for driving the current fentanyl and drug poisoning epidemic in the United States.”
The cartels cited by the DEA as the main actors behind the fentanyl crisis have achieved global notoriety in recent years. According to DEA head Annie Milgram, both the Sinaloa and Jalisco cartels have amassed as many as 45,000 members spanning 100 countries across the world.
In 2022, the DEA seized more than 58 million pills containing fentanyl and 13,000 pounds of fentanyl powder, equating to nearly 400 million deadly doses of fentanyl. The report on the matter stated that the seized contraband is “enough fentanyl to supply a potentially lethal dose to every member of the U.S. population.”
Initially an armed wing of the Sinaloa Cartel, the CJNG broke off to form its own criminal organization in 2011. Its rapid ascension within Mexico’s underworld led the former muscle of the Sinaloa Cartel to become the criminal organization with the largest presence in the country by the 2020s.
Currently, the “four-letter cartel,” as it is known, is found in 21 of Mexico’s 32 states and is reported to have more than 18,000 members.
