The Mexican Army has captured three key men within the inner circle of Aureliano El Guano Guzmán, El Chapo’s older brother and one of the leaders of the Sinaloa Cartel. During a security operation in Tamazula, Durango, Abel N, the drug trafficker’s right-hand man and most trusted person; Eber Israel N, his financial and logistical operator; and Etzair Lugo N, head of security and responsible for combating the Beltrán Leyva Cartel and the Mayo Zambada faction, have been apprehended. The military, along with the National Guard and the Navy, have arrested a total of 10 members of the group La Gente del Guano (GDG), part of the Pacific Cartel.
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The federal Secretary of Security, Omar García Harfuch, reported this Wednesday in a press conference that an operation had resulted in several arrests in Badiraguato, the birthplace of the Guzmán family in Mexico’s Golden Triangle of drugs. However, the official noted that the presence of El Guano among those arrested during the maneuver to capture one of the most wanted drug traffickers had not yet been confirmed. Ultimately, authorities could only report a significant blow to the drug trafficker’s inner circle.
The operation also secured a cache of weapons and ammunition in the town of La Cebadilla, a small municipality in the heart of the mountains where the alleged members of the GDG were arrested. Authorities seized a machine gun, a dozen long guns, explosives, and a handgun along with magazines and cartridges. The report from the Secretariat of National Defense indicates that Eber Israel N, in addition to being in charge of finances, was also responsible for the purchase of weaponry, drones, and bombs.
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The eldest of the first generation of Guzmán drug traffickers has been evading authorities’ operations to capture him for several years. The military tightened the net in his own territory on several occasions, between the borders of the states of Sinaloa, Durango, and Chihuahua, even managing to arrest R8, his lieutenant and a man from his inner circle. However, the man considered one of the leaders of one of the Sinaloa Cartel’s factions has remained a fugitive despite the five-million-dollar reward the United States placed on his head for accusations of trafficking heroin, cocaine, fentanyl, methamphetamine, and marijuana.
New Sanctions on the Sinaloa Cartel
Thursday’s arrests coincide with a statement from the U.S. Department of State announcing new sanctions against the Sinaloa Cartel. The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has published a list of 23 individuals and entities involved in the synthetic opioid acquisition network within the Mexican cartel’s production chain. “Chemical suppliers and distributors, including those designated today, have transformed the drug trafficking landscape by enabling Mexican cartels to synthesize illicit drugs from chemical precursors primarily imported from Asia,” U.S. authorities noted in a statement.
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