Feds charge Sinaloa Cartel leaders with narco-terrorism

(CN) — The United States Justice Department on Tuesday charged leaders of Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel with narco-terrorism and material support of terrorism in the first such indictment in connection with the massive amounts of fentanyl, cocaine, methamphetamine and heroin smuggled into the U.S.

“The Sinaloa Cartel is a complex, dangerous terrorist organization and dismantling them demands a novel, powerful legal response,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement. “Their days of brutalizing the American people without consequence are over — we will seek life in prison for these terrorists.”

The grand jury indictment filed in federal court in San Diego charges Pedro Inzunza Noriega, 62, and his son, Pedro Inzunza Coronel, 33, with narco terrorism, drug trafficking and money laundering.

The two are the purported key leaders of the Beltran Leyva Organization, a powerful and violent faction of the Sinaloa Cartel that is believed to be the world’s largest known fentanyl production network.

Five other leaders of the organization are charged with drug trafficking and money laundering.

The indictment follows President Donald Trump’s Jan. 20 executive order designating international drug cartels and some transnational street gangs as foreign terrorist organizations.

The cartels, according to Trump’s order, functionally control — through a campaign of assassination, terror, rape and brute force — nearly all illegal traffic across the southern border of the United States.

“In certain portions of Mexico, they function as quasi-governmental entities, controlling nearly all aspects of society,” the order says. “The cartels’ activities threaten the safety of the American people, the security of the United States, and the stability of the international order in the Western Hemisphere.”

Since its inception, the Beltran Leyva faction has been considered one of the most violent drug trafficking organizations to operate in Mexico, the Justice Department said, engaging in shootouts, murders, kidnappings, torture and violent collection of drug debts to sustain its operations.

The Beltran Leyva faction controls numerous territories and plazas throughout Mexico, including Tijuana, and operates with violent impunity, trafficking in deadly drugs, threatening communities and targeting key officials, all while making millions of dollars from their criminal activities, the Justice Department claims.

Inzunza Noriega and his son work closely together, according to the prosecutors, and lead one of the largest and most sophisticated fentanyl production networks in the world.

Over the past several years, they have trafficked tens of thousands of kilograms of fentanyl into the United States, the Justice Department claims. On Dec. 3, 2024, Mexican law enforcement raided multiple locations in Sinaloa that are controlled and managed by Inzunza Noriega and his son and seized 1,500 kilograms (more than 1.65 tons) of fentanyl — the largest seizure of fentanyl in the world.

Federal drug trafficking charges are already pending against Inzunza Noriega and other leaders of the Beltran Leyva group, as well as against other leaders of the Sinaloa Cartel.

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