Via Teleconference
12:04 P.M. EDT
MODERATOR: Thank you, everyone, for joining this call. We're going to discuss the Biden-Harris administration's counter-narcotics work.
I'm sure you've seen the various announcements today. This is a good opportunity to ask questions of our folks.
As a reminder, this call will be on background and attributable to "senior administration officials." The embargo of the call will lift at the conclusion of the call.
We have a number of speakers on today's call. And this is for your awareness, not for your reporting, but we have [senior administration official] at the White House. We have [senior administration official]. We have [senior administration official] at DEA, [senior administration official] at the FBI. We have [senior administration official] of OFAC at Treasury, [senior administration official], [senior administration official], and [senior administration official] of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and [senior administration official] at ONDCP.
With that, I'll turn it over to [senior administration official] to kick us off.
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Thank you so much. And thanks to all of you for making time for this call. I will keep this relatively brief because, as you heard, there are a lot of folks you'll get to hear from today. And I think that reflects the priority with which this administration and this government is treating the fentanyl crisis. It is something that we have mobilized as a challenge for which the various authorities, tools, talents, experience across the executive branch must be mobilized. And what you'll hear today is a reflection of that cross-government effort.
More specifically, you have seen the announcements this morning, I suspect, by the Department of Justice, the Department of the Treasury, and the Department of State about historic actions the U.S. government has taken against a global illicit fentanyl network.
The Department of Justice announced criminal charges against over two dozen defendants for their alleged involvement in, or support to, the production and proliferation of illicit fentanyl worldwide.
The Treasury Department announced complementary sanctions against two companies and five individuals linked to the global proliferation of precursor chemicals used for the synthesis of illicit fentanyl.
And the State Department announced the submission of over two dozen individuals to the Narcotics Rewards Program.
Taken together, today's actions represent an extraordinary government-wide effort to counter the global threat that's posed by the trafficking of illicit drugs, including into the United States.
These efforts demonstrate the U.S. government's commitment to dismantling this deadly criminal enterprise at every level, from those who willingly ship illicit precursor chemicals from overseas to those who traffic pills right into our homeland, killing tens of thousands of Americans every year.
President Biden has been very clear, including in his State of the Union remarks, that addressing the national security and the public health threat posed by the flow of illicit fentanyl and other synthetic drugs is a priority of the highest order. And President Biden has repeatedly called for international cooperation to combat what is truly a global problem.
Today's actions directly align with steps the President committed to take during the North America Leaders' Summit in January, alongside President Lopez Obrador of Mexico and Prime Minister Trudeau of Canada. Those commitments included intensifying efforts to prosecute drug traffickers, disrupt the supply of precursor chemicals, and prevent the trafficking of drugs and firearms across our shared borders.
Last month, Homeland Security Advisor Liz Sherwood-Randall led a high-level U.S. delegation to Mexico to further increase cooperation to combat illicit fentanyl production and to target the synthetic drug supply chain.
And just yesterday, Dr. Sherwood-Randall, joined by colleagues from departments and agencies at the highest levels, hosted a delegation from Mexico to continue discussing ways we can combat the cartels and transnational criminal organizations that are devastating both our countries and have claimed too many lives.
This partnership is and will continue to be critical to our counter-fentanyl efforts, and we look forward to continuing collaborative efforts to counter fentanyl trafficking and illicit drug consumption across North America.
We will continue to work tirelessly to hold accountable those responsible for advancing the loss of life caused by the global illicit drug trade.
President Biden commends the Department of Justice and the Drug Enforcement Administration for their relentless pursuit of justice and accountability, and is grateful to all of those at the State Department, the Department of the Treasury, the Department of Homeland Security, and ONDCP, among others, for collaboration against this global threat.
And with that, I'll turn things over to my colleague at DEA.
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Thanks, [senior administration official]. And thank you, everyone, for being on the call. So, as [senior administration official] said, we at the DEA are looking at this, obviously, because fentanyl is the deadliest drug threat that our country has ever faced.
And what we're seeing is that all of the fentanyl in the United States comes from Mexico, and most of it is trafficked by the Sinaloa cartel.
I'll give a little bit of background, and then I'll talk about this particular investigation with the indictments that we unsealed today.
Our top operational priority is to map the network of the two cartels that are responsible for the vast majority of the fentanyl coming into the United States that's killing so many Americans: the Sinaloa and Jalisco cartels.
This mapping of the network is critical for us to work with our interagency partners and across the whole of government to map the network, identify all the nodes, and then target those nodes with operational activity and bring justice to these types of cases.
As you all know, the cartel — Sinaloa cartel is based in Mexico, but it has members, associates, facilitators, and brokers in all 50 states in the U.S. and in over 47 countries around the world.
The cartel was formally led by "El Chapo" Guzman, who is now serving a life sentence in U.S. prison. Three of his sons that are subject of this investigation and these indictments — Ovidio, Ivan, and Alfredo — are known as the "Chapitos." They now lead the cartel.
They pioneered the manufacture and trafficking of fentanyl and are responsible for the massive influx of fentanyl into the United States over the last eight years. They know that they're poisoning their customers, often without the customer's knowledge, and they don't care.
They're also highly organized and a sophisticated business, employing military-grade weapons and vehicles and hundreds of people to protect the cartel and its leaders at all costs.
So what we did was, when we mapped the networks, we decided to target every single node within that "Chapitos" faction of the Sinaloa cartel. The DEA had operational activity in 10 countries, operational activity in 28 domestic cities. Thirty-two of our domestic and foreign offices were involved in this case. We had seizures in eight cities around the country, money laundering activity in 10 different states and 12 different cities.
We uncovered a weapon for fentanyl case, hundreds of kilos of fentanyl for 500 AR-15 rifles, grenade launchers, rocket-propelled grenade.
