Acting Attorney General Sally Q. Yates today announced that
Joaquin Archivaldo Guzman Loera, known by various aliases including “El Chapo,”
will face charges filed in Brooklyn, New York, following his extradition to the
United States from Mexico, alleging that he was operating a continuing criminal
enterprise and other drug-related crimes through his leadership of the Mexican
organized crime syndicate known as the Sinaloa Cartel.
Acting Attorney General Yates was joined in making the
announcement by U.S. Attorney Robert L. Capers of the Eastern District of New
York; U.S. Attorney Wifredo A. Ferrer of the Southern District of Florida;
Deputy Assistant Attorney General Kenneth Blanco of the Justice Department’s
Criminal Division; Acting Administrator Chuck Rosenberg of the Drug Enforcement
Administration (DEA); Executive Associate Director Peter T. Edge of U.S.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement Homeland Security Investigations (HSI);
Assistant Director In Charge William F. Sweeney of the FBI New York Field
Office: U.S. Marshal Charles G. Dunne of the Eastern District of New York U.S.
Marshals Service and Commissioner of the New York City Police Department James
P. O’Neill.
Guzman Loera, 59, arrived in the United States on Jan. 19,
and will be arraigned on a 17-count superseding indictment on Jan. 20, before
U.S. Magistrate Judge James Orenstein in federal court in Brooklyn. The case is
assigned to U.S. District Judge Brian M. Cogan. Following his extradition to
the United States on related charges filed in the Western District of Texas and
Southern District of California, the Mexican government approved a request by
the United States to proceed with prosecution on the charges filed in the
Eastern District of New York on May 11, 2016.
The charges in the indictment filed against Guzman Loera in
the Eastern District of New York will be prosecuted jointly by the U.S.
Attorney’s Offices in Brooklyn and Miami and the Narcotic and Dangerous Drug
Section of the Criminal Division.
The indictment alleges that between January 1989 and
December 2014, Guzman Loera led a continuing criminal enterprise responsible
for importing into the United States and distributing massive amounts of illegal
narcotics and conspiring to murder persons who posed a threat to Guzman Loera’s
narcotics enterprise.
Guzman Loera is also charged with using firearms in relation
to his drug trafficking and money laundering relating to the bulk smuggling
from the United States to Mexico of more than $14 billion in cash proceeds from
narcotics sales throughout the United States and Canada. As part of this
investigation, nearly 200,000 kilograms of cocaine linked to the Sinaloa Cartel
have been seized. The indictment seeks forfeiture of more than $14 billion in
drug proceeds and illicit profits.
“Guzman Loera is the alleged leader of a multi-billion
dollar, multi-national criminal enterprise that funneled drugs onto our streets
and violence and misery into our communities,” said Acting Attorney General
Yates. “We are deeply grateful to the Government of Mexico for their assistance
in securing Guzman Loera’s extradition. The Mexican people have suffered
greatly at the hands of Guzman Loera and the Sinaloa Cartel; Mexican law
enforcement officials have died in the pursuit of him. We will honor their
sacrifice and will honor Mexico’s commitment to combat narco-trafficking by
pursuing justice in this case.”
“Guzman Loera is accused of using violence, including torture
and murder, to maintain an iron-fisted grip on the drug trade across the
U.S./Mexico border that invaded our community and others across the country,”
said U.S. Attorney Capers. “As a result, Guzman Loera made billions of illicit
dollars. This prosecution demonstrates that we will apply all available
resources to dismantle the leadership of dangerous drug cartels, wherever they
operate, and will not rest until we have done so.”
“Guzman Loera is accused of terrorizing communities all over
the world,” said U.S. Attorney Ferrer. “With this prosecution we stand united,
with our domestic and foreign partners, in our fight against transnational
criminal organizations that profit billions of dollars off of the toxic spread
of illicit drugs in our global communities. Today’s announcement demonstrates
that international borders do not protect narcotics traffickers from criminal
prosecution. We will continue to work together to combat narco-trafficking and
the cartels that infect our streets, with the long-arm of the law.”
“This extradition is a tremendous victory for the citizens
of Mexico and of the United States,” said DEA Acting Administrator Rosenberg.
“Two principles stand out: No one is above the law and we simply do not quit in
the pursuit of justice.”
“Through investigations led by our offices in New York and
Nogales, Arizona, and the coordination efforts of our attaché in Mexico,
Homeland Security Investigations gathered significant evidence that is
instrumental in the case against Joaquin Guzman Loera in the United States for
his alleged crimes as the head of the Sinaloa Cartel,” said HSI Executive
Associate Director Edge. “We are pleased to have worked with our federal law enforcement
partners to bring about yesterday’s extradition, and look forward to sharing
the evidence gathered in this investigation in the criminal proceedings that
will follow.”
“One of the most dangerous and feared drug kingpins will now
be held accountable for his alleged crimes in the United States after decades
of eluding law enforcement,” said FBI Assistant Director in Charge Sweeney.
“After years of gathering evidence in multiple investigations, the FBI and our
law enforcement partners will do everything we can to bring El Chapo to
justice.”
“The U.S. Marshals Service will undertake this mission with
the same sense of duty that we have undertaken previous missions for the last
228 years,” said U.S. Marshal Dunne. “We will preserve the integrity of the
judicial process. We will protect the members of the Eastern District of New
York family. We will secure this individual in a humane manner and we will
bring him to court on time.”
As detailed in the superseding indictment and other court
filings, Guzman Loera and Ismael Zambada Garcia, as leaders of the Sinaloa
Cartel, conspired to import more than 200 metric tons of cocaine into the
United States. The Sinaloa Cartel shared drug transportation routes and
obtained drugs from various Colombian drug trafficking organizations, in
particular, the Colombian Norte del Valle Cartel, the Don Lucho Organization,
and the Cifuentes-Villa Organization. The cocaine was transported from Colombia
via planes, boats, and submarines into ports the enterprise controlled in
Southern Mexico and other locations throughout Central America. From there, it
was shipped through Mexico to distribution hubs in the United States.
As one of the principal leaders of the Sinaloa Cartel,
Guzman Loera allegedly also oversaw the cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine, and
marijuana smuggling activities by the Sinaloa Cartel to wholesale distributors
in Atlanta, Chicago, Miami, New York, as well as in various locations in
Arizona, Los Angeles and elsewhere. The billions of dollars generated from drug
sales in the United States were then clandestinely transported back to Mexico.
To evade law enforcement and protect the enterprise’s
narcotics distribution activities, Guzman Loera and the Sinaloa Cartel
allegedly employed various means including the use of “sicarios,” or hit men,
who carried out hundreds of acts of violence in Mexico, including murder, to
collect drug debts, silence potential witnesses, and prevent public officials
from taking action against the cartel. To intimidate and eliminate his rivals,
during the Sinaloa Cartel’s internecine war for territory with the Juarez
Cartel from approximately 2007 through 2011, Guzman Loera directed these
assassins to kill thousands of drug trafficking competitors, during which many
of his victims were beheaded.
The government’s case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S.
Attorneys Andrea Goldbarg, Hiral Mehta, Patricia Notopoulos, Gina Parlovecchio
and Michael Robotti from the Eastern District of New York; Assistant U.S.
Attorneys Adam Fels, Lynn Kirkpatrick and Kurt Lunkenheimer from the Southern
District of Florida; and Trial Attorneys Amanda Liskamm, Anthony Nardozzi and
Michael Lang of the Criminal Division’s Narcotic and Dangerous Drug Section.
The case was investigated by the DEA, ICE and the FBI, in
cooperation with Mexican and Colombian law enforcement authorities. Substantial
assistance was provided by the U.S. Attorney’s Offices in the Northern District
of Illinois, the Western District of Texas, the Southern District of New York,
the Southern District of California, and the District of New Hampshire. The
Department of Justice’s Office of International Affairs also provided
assistance in bringing Guzman Loera to the United States to face charges. The
investigative efforts in this case were coordinated with the Department of
Justice’s Special Operations Division, comprising agents, analysts, and
attorneys from the Criminal Division’s Narcotic and Dangerous Drug Section,
DEA, FBI, ICE, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the
U.S. Marshals Service, the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation, the
U.S. Bureau of Prisons, and the New York State Police.
The United States would like to extend its appreciation to
the Government of Mexico and, in particular, President Enrique Peña Nieto,
Secretary of Foreign Affairs Luis Videgaray Caso and Attorney General Raul
Cervantes Andrade for their assistance in this case.
This case is also the result of the ongoing efforts by the
Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF) a partnership that brings
together the combined expertise and unique abilities of federal, state and
local law enforcement agencies. The principal mission of the OCDETF program is
to identify, disrupt, dismantle and prosecute high level members of drug trafficking,
weapons trafficking and money laundering organizations and enterprises.
An indictment is a formal charging document notifying the
defendant of the charges. All persons charged in an indictment are presumed
innocent until proven guilty. Guzman faces a sentence of mandatory life
imprisonment, if convicted of the continuing criminal enterprise charge, and a
maximum sentence of life on the remaining charges.
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