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DEA caput discusses crackdown connected cause cartels
Federal authorities said Tuesday that they person indicted the apical 2 leaders of a Mexican cause cartel and are offering up to $8 cardinal rewards for accusation starring to their seizure and conviction.
Johnny Hurtado Olascoaga and Jose Alfredo Hurtado Olascoaga, are accused of participating successful a conspiracy to manufacture cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine and fentanyl and importing and distributing the drugs successful the United States, authorities said during a quality league successful Atlanta. The recently unsealed three-count indictment was returned by a expansive assemblage successful September.
The 2 brothers are the leaders of La Nueva Familia Michoacana, a Mexican cartel that was formally designated by the U.S. authorities successful February arsenic a "foreign violent organization," authorities said.
"If you lend to the decease of Americans by peddling poison into our communities, we volition enactment relentlessly to find you and bring you to justice," Attorney General Pam Bondi said successful a statement.
The State Department is offering up to $5 cardinal for accusation starring to the apprehension and/or condemnation of Johnny Hurtado Olascoaga and up to $3 cardinal for accusation astir Jose Alfredo Hurtado Olascoaga, who besides goes by the sanction "The Strawberry." Both men are believed to beryllium successful Mexico, officials said.
Separately the U.S. Treasury announced caller sanctions Wednesday against the 2 men and good arsenic 2 different alleged leaders of the cartel, which the U.S. designates arsenic a "foreign violent organization."
In summation to cause trafficking, the Familia Michoacana cartel has besides engaged successful extortions, kidnappings and murders, according to U.S. prosecutors.
A location allegedly belonging to the La Familia Michoacana cause cartel is riddled with bullets aft a weapon conflict the erstwhile time betwixt national constabulary and cartel members successful Jilotlan, Mexico, May 28, 2011.
Raul Aguilar / AP
Last year, a Mexican quality rights enactment reported that a assemblage successful the confederate authorities of Guerrero was attacked by drones and gunmen allegedly from La Familia Michoacana cause cartel. At slightest six radical were killed and 13 others injured, the authorities prosecutor's bureau said.
In 2023, the cartel is suspected of leaving a severed quality leg recovered hanging from a pedestrian span conscionable westbound of Mexico City. Officials said the trunk of the assemblage was near connected the thoroughfare below, adjacent the city's center, on with handwritten signs signed by the Familia Michoacana cartel.
The cartel "has utilized drones to driblet bombs connected its rivals, with utter disregard for Mexico's civilian population.," the U.S. Treasury Department said Wednesday. "They besides terrorize section communities done kidnappings, killings, and extortion."
In 2022, a antheral identifying himself arsenic 1 of the cartel's leaders posted a video connected societal media claiming that an onslaught that killed 20 people was successful information aimed astatine him.
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