New York.- The United States Attorney’s Office accused this Thursday of fentanyl trafficking and weapons use the Mexican Iván Valerio Sainz Salazar, alias Mantecas, whom it considers a supplier of Los Chapitos, the faction of the Sinaloa cartel led by the sons of Joaquín ‘el Chapo’ Guzmán.
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Prosecutor Jay Clayton said the subject was “a major producer of the fentanyl shipments from the Sinaloa cartel that were arriving in the U.S.” and applauded the blow to the “supply chain of Los Chapitos” in the note, which cites the work of the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) against this potent synthetic drug. According to the court document, Mantecas produced between 2022 and 2025 million fentanyl pills, coordinated transactions, and reported to Los Chapitos partners who used hitmen, all in an environment marked by high-caliber weapons and armed personnel to protect the operations. Around 2023, adds, Los Chapitos consolidated the production of fentanyl in laboratories operated by Mantecas and his henchmen, and issued orders authorizing only this group to produce and distribute fentanyl in the territories under their control, it details. Los Chapitos is a faction of the Sinaloa cartel, one of the six Mexican cartels that the U.S. designated as terrorists in 2025, and is led by Iván Archivaldo Guzmán and Jesús Alfredo Guzmán, sons of Joaquín ‘el Chapo’ Guzmán. Mantecas, 40 years old, is officially charged with four counts, the most serious of which is carrying, possessing, and using automatic weapons and destructive devices to commit a conspiracy to import fentanyl, which carries a minimum sentence of 30 years and a maximum of life imprisonment. He is also charged with three counts of conspiracy: to import fentanyl, to distribute it, and to use automatic weapons, punishable in all cases by a maximum of life imprisonment. “The DEA is dismantling these (fentanyl) networks from top to bottom, and we will not stop until the labs are closed, the traffickers are behind bars, and these cartel organizations are destroyed piece by piece,” asserted DEA chief Terrence Cole.
