Combatting The Drug Networks Supplying Chicago
CHICAGO - The vast majority of heroin consumed in the United States is produced by powerful Mexico-based transnational criminal (TCOs), such as the Sinaloa Cartel and New Generation Jalisco (CJNG), and transported to the United States across the Southwest Border. These TCOs are extremely dangerous, violent, and will continue to leverage established transportation and distribution networks within the United States.
Overdose deaths involving heroin are increasing at an alarming rate, having increased more than five-fold since 2010. Today’s heroin at the retail level costs less and is more potent than the heroin that DEA encountered two decades ago. Drug dealers operating in Chicagoland are making large sums of money distributing heroin, fentanyl as well as cocaine. Drug dealers are mixing fentanyl-related substances with heroin, increasing its potency that produces a lethal combination, causing soaring overdose deaths. Fentanyl and fentanyl-related substances represent the deadly convergence of the synthetic drug threat with the current national opioid epidemic.
DEA Chicago Division Special Agent in Charge Brian McKnight emphasized, “The DEA Mission is to protect our communities against the narcotics traffickers who prey on those who suffer the scourge of addiction. While Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman has been historically Chicago’s public enemy #1, emerging traffickers are competing to claim their stake of Chicago’s illicit drug trade. The CJNG Cartel, also known as “New Generation,” is headed by Nemesio Rubén Oseguera Cervantes, (aka “El Mencho”). Nemesio Rubén Oseguera Cervantes has used extreme violence, corruption and extortion to steadily expand the CJNG’s share of the established trafficking networks which supply Chicago’s violent street gangs. However, a new era of law enforcement is upon us. Nemesio Rubén Oseguera Cervantes is now DEA Chicago’s top TCO target.”
