Brian Townsend, a retired supervisory special agent with the United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), discusses the Sinaloa Cartel’s operations within U.S. communities.
ICE Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) collaborated with a specialized law enforcement unit from Mexico to apprehend a cartel boss linked to the Sinaloa Cartel, identified only as “440.”
This arrest follows the head of the Drug Enforcement Administration’s statement last year, describing the U.S. as facing its “most dangerous and deadly drug crisis” ever, with fentanyl and methamphetamine flooding across the border. He emphasized that the “Sinaloa and Jalisco cartels are central to this crisis.”
Operating a vast drug trafficking empire from western Mexico, the Sinaloa Cartel was recently labeled a foreign terrorist organization by the Trump administration’s State Department. Additionally, several other Mexican cartels, the Salvadoran gang MS-13, and the Venezuelan group Tren de Aragua were also designated as foreign terrorist organizations.
Earlier, the Trump administration filed its first racketeering charges against a massive migrant terrorist group operating in the U.S.
Cartel Leader Arrested by Mexican Authorities
On April 19, ICE posted on social media that Ivan Fernando Zepeda Leyva, a known associate of the Sinaloa Cartel and head of the “Los Demonios” criminal group, was arrested by a specialized team from Mexico’s Secretariat of Security and Civilian Protection and the Secretariat of the Navy, working in cooperation with HSI. Zepeda Leyva, who controlled drug trafficking operations in Nogales and Imuris in the Mexican state of Sonora, is a key figure in the cartel’s network near the U.S.-Mexico border in Arizona.
ICE stated that Zepeda Leyva’s capture marks a “major milestone” in the battle against illegal drug trafficking and organized crime, emphasizing the success of U.S.-Mexican law enforcement collaboration.
The Trump administration has vowed to remain “ruthlessly aggressive” in its fight against cartel-related threats to American citizens.
Trump Administration Takes Action Against Sinaloa Cartel
In late March, the Trump administration imposed new sanctions targeting the Sinaloa Cartel. The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned six individuals and seven entities involved in laundering money for the cartel.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent highlighted the department’s actions, stating, “We proudly leveled new sanctions against financiers of the criminal Sinaloa drug cartel,” which he accused of flooding the U.S. with fentanyl and causing countless American deaths.
“This ends under President Trump’s leadership,” Bessent declared.
