My new documentary Antagonist, about an underused opioid treatment drug, has begun filming! Please contribute at our GoFundMe. If you give $50 or more you’ll receive a free one year subscription to this newsletter, and thus be able to read this whole article.
Recently four of El Chapo’s sons were indicted by a US federal grand jury, for drug trafficking, money laundering, and violent crimes. US officials believe they lead a fentanyl-focused faction of the Sinaloa drug cartel known as El Chapitos.
The DOJ accuses these men and their associates of using “corkscrews, electrocution and hot chiles” to torture rivals, and says they have had victims "fed dead or alive to tigers.”
El Chapo, of course, is the former leader of the Sinaloa cartel, who twice escaped from Mexican prison before being successfully sentenced in the US in 2019. He is now serving his time — forever, or until he escapes again — at a supermax prison in Fremont County, Colorado.
In a statement, DEA head Anne Milgram said her organization had, over the past year and a half, “obtained unprecedented access to the Sinaloa organization's highest levels, and followed them across the world.” According to court filings, undercover agents made drug deals with top cartel operatives, and it seems likely they have paid informants on the inside as well.