Attorney General Merrick B. Garland announced that the Department of Justice successfully executed an operation aimed at disrupting the Sinaloa Cartel’s American drug distribution network. He made this statement in a press release on June 5.
"With this takedown, the Justice Department has dealt yet another blow to the Sinaloa Cartel and its associates," said B. Garland, according to U.S. Department of Justice. "I am grateful to the more than 400 law enforcement officers whose work in this operation resulted in dozens of arrests, charges against 47 defendants, and the seizure of firearms, meth, cocaine, heroin, and two million potentially lethal doses of fentanyl. We will continue to be relentless in our fight to protect American communities from the cartels."
According to a press release from the Department of Justice, forty-seven members of a California-based, Sinaloa Cartel-linked drug trafficking organization were charged with crimes ranging from drug trafficking to firearms offenses to money laundering on June 5. In a coordinated effort across several states, 36 of those defendants were arrested.
During the operation, law enforcement confiscated over eight pounds of fentanyl, 714 pounds of methamphetamine, large amounts of cocaine and heroin, and 52 firearms. The amount of fentanyl seized is equivalent to two million potential fatal doses.
Law enforcement discovered that the price of fentanyl has fallen dramatically during the course of the investigation. When it first started around June 2021, the price per pill of fentanyl was about $1.65 to $1.75 per pill. As of May this year, they were being sold for only 45 cents per pill, indicating that the deadly drug is becoming even more accessible.
As reported in a previous story by Federal Newswire, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has assessed that the Sinaloa Cartel relies on local associates to distribute drugs throughout the United States, especially fentanyl. The cartels utilize street-level gangs across the U.S. for drug dissemination and associated violence, monopolizing the illicit drug trade in the country through this method.
According to the U.S. Department of Justice, Garland was sworn in as the 86th Attorney General of the United States on March 11, 2021. He oversees approximately 115,000 employees within the Justice Department and was previously a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
