SAN ANTONIO (KABB) — "The Sinaloa cartel is very much responsible for importing and distributing a lot of the fentanyl in the country right now," said Dante Sorianello, the assistant special agent in charge of the Drug Enforcement Administration in the San Antonio district.
Narco Juniors, children of the older drug lords are on the rise in Mexico in one of the most powerful cartels — the Sinaloa cartel.
The U.S. is now offering $20 million for El Chapo's sons, but they're not the only 'narco juniors' on the rise.
It is currently being run ... it's kind of split right now. It's being run about 50% by El Chapo's sons, who are being investigated by the government of Mexico and DEA and the other half of it of the Sinaloa is being run by El Mio, which is Ismael Zambada Garcia. And he is a wanted subject and a large-time drug trafficker," says Sorianello.
The government is offering a reward of up to $5 million apiece for each of El Chapo’s Guzman’s four sons. It's the U.S.'s highest offer for the group known as Los Chapitos, who have taken on larger roles in the Sinaloa Cartel, but they are only a few of the "narco juniors" who are rising to power in Mexico's biggest criminal group.
"They’re a traditional heroin trafficking organization that affected this area. And now they're engaging in a lot of the fentanyl that is being smuggled into the United States," says Sorianello.
Fentanyl is killing more Americans than ever
The majority of the fentanyl being smuggled here by the Sinaloa cartel is in pill form, the counterfeit pills that we see the fake oxycodone and the fake hydrocodone that is out there. And that is how Sinaloa is affecting the San Antonio region right now," says Sorianello.
The DEA says these counterfeit pills are the most they’ve ever seen in the United States.
"Every year, the amount of fentanyl and the counterfeit pills is growing here in the country. Along with that, what we are seeing is the overdose deaths throughout the country," says Sorianello.
This is why the DEA wants to take them down
"So you can make the correlation that the drug traffickers, the cartels are killing people in the United States. They're not forcing them to take that narcotic, but they're supplying the poison that is killing people in the United States," says Sorianello.