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Fatal fentanyl hits SA - Mexican cartels among drug trafficking gangs and money launderers 'active' in Mzansi

Fentanyl is a powerful opioid anesthetic and analgesic. There is a growing concern that fentanyl and its analogs are adulterated with heroin, cocaine, etc, contributing to drug-related overdose deaths. Photo: iStock

By Caryn Dolley

16 Nov 2024

Drug cartels based in Mexico are accused of fuelling the fentanyl overdose crisis in the US. Now the names of notorious cartels are starting to crop up in South Africa cases. Evidence suggests that two notorious Mexican cartels – Sinaloa and Jalisco – are among the international drug trafficking gangs active in SA.

A flat rectangular package weighing 72kg was intercepted at Mexico’s Benito Juárez International Airport at the end of September. According to a statement the airport released at the time, the package contained methamphetamine and it was destined for Johannesburg.

In January, the South African Revenue Service announced that sculpted artworks – ornaments – discovered in a cargo shed at OR Tambo International Airport in Johannesburg were found to contain crystal methamphetamine (tik) and fentanyl worth R37-million.

And about two years ago, US customs and border officials in Louisville, Kentucky, intercepted a package ostensibly containing water purification substances sent there from South Africa. However, it turned out to contain cocaine and a dose of fentanyl with the potential to kill 220,000 people.

These incidents, together with a raid on a farm in Limpopo in July, add to the evidence suggesting that two notorious Mexican cartels – Sinaloa and Jalisco – are among the international drug trafficking gangs active in South Africa.

These cartels are involved in an array of crime, including cocaine trafficking, and the production of synthetic drugs such as methamphetamine and fentanyl. The latter is a massive problem in the US.

The US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has stated: “The Sinaloa and Jalisco cartels use violent local street gangs and criminal groups and individuals across the United States to flood American communities with huge amounts of fentanyl and methamphetamine, which drives addiction and violence.”

The US has accused the Sinaloa cartel of crafting its fentanyl crisis.

An indictment in a US court case relating to fentanyl production describes it as the “single deadliest drug threat” ever encountered in the country.

“Fentanyl is 50 times more potent than heroin, and 2 milligrams – a tiny amount that could fit on the tip of a pencil – can be a deadly dose for a human being,” it said.

The indictment added that fentanyl was the leading cause of death for Americans between the ages of 18 and 49. At one stage, an average of 97 people were dying daily in cases involving synthetic opioids like fentanyl and its analogues.

In September 2022 customs officials in Louisville in the US intercepted a package from South Africa that contained enough fentanly to kill 220,000 people. Picture US Customs and Border Protection In September 2022, US Customs officials in Louisville, Kentucky, intercepted a package from South Africa that contained enough fentanyl to kill 220,000 people. (Photo: US Customs and Border Protection)

Spreading to South Africa

Hawks head Lieutenant General Godfrey Lebeya confirmed in October that fentanyl had “has entered the trafficking conveyer belts” in South Africa and that a suspect had been arrested with the drug in Cape Town in July.

“He reported to have received this drug from someone in Johannesburg to try the market in Cape Town,” Lebeya said. “One kilogram of fentanyl has the potential to kill 500,000 people.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DaGf-UkLo_k

Also in July, three suspects from Mexico were among those arrested in Limpopo for allegedly running a large production facility linked to crystal methamphetamine. Lebeya said at the time that the Mexican suspects “appear to be members” of the Sinaloa cartel.

Hawks head Lieutenant General Godfrey Lebeya. (Photo: Gallo Images / OJ Koloti)

Nadine Harker, a specialist scientist with the South African Medical Research Council, told Daily Maverick that only two cases of treating patients whose admissions were fentanyl-related had been reported over a year.

“There are anecdotal reports on trafficking, but we have not yet seen the type of explosion that the US has. That is not to say that we should be unprepared,” she said.

Sources with ties to law enforcement told Daily Maverick that, like other illicit drugs such as cocaine, different grades or qualities of fentanyl could be pushed to different income groups. They said it was generally accepted that all global cartels had operatives in this country.

Traffickers target South Africa for reasons including that it has ports where shipments of drugs can be pushed to and through. Corrupt officials are also viewed as a drawcard.

Read more: Cocaine by the shipload – why narco-traffickers use maritime routes to push the drug through South Africa

Some high-ranking police officers, including Crime Intelligence deputy head Major General head Feroz Khan, have been caught up in accusations of questionable actions related to drugs. Khan has denied wrongdoing.

Read more: Connecting the global drug trafficking dots – Durban and Dubai linked to cocaine smuggling ‘supercartel’

International traffickers are known to partner with local gangsters and use established South African gang networks to move drugs. Daily Maverick recently reported on Edin “Tito” Gacanin of Bosnia and Herzegovina, whom the US accused of being one of the world’s most prolific narcotraffickers.

He was involved in a cocaine consignment from Durban, which international drug syndicates seem to favour, and allegedly sent a pointman there. Gacanin’s activities suggested that a global “supercartel” – an amalgamation of different countries’ gangs – was operating via this country.

Another local-global case involves assassinated murder accused Mark Lifman. When he was shot in the Western Cape town of George on 3 November, he was on trial for the August 2017 murder of Brian Wainstein, an international steroid smuggler.

Read more: ‘If ever I encounter a bad guy, I’d want it to be me’ – murdered Mark Lifman

There were accusations that Lifman and others took over the lucrative steroid “business” after after Wainstein was killed.

Then there is the case of suspected Cape Town gang boss Peter Jaggers. He and an associate, William Petersen, were found murdered in the Vaal River last month. A report was made to the police in July that they had been kidnapped in Gauteng.

Read more: Dual legacies – Peter Jaggers’ death sparks divided opinions on gangsterism in Cape Town

Murder accused Mark Lifman (left) was shot dead on 3 November while the body of suspected gangster Peter Jaggers (right) was pulled out of a Free State river last month. (Photos: Jaco Marais / Die Burger / Gallo Images | Facebook)

Violence

Interlinked violence persisted this week. On Monday, 11 November, another Jaggers associate, Suhail Mohamed, was wounded in a shooting in Cape Town’s Netreg, where Jaggers was from.

There are suspicions that Jaggers and Petersen were linked to a major cocaine consignment that was meant to be collected from Colombian traffickers off Cape Town’s coast earlier this year.

El Chapo and Los Chapitos

As for the Sinaloa cartel, a US government organogram on how it was previously structured showed that it included individuals and companies linked to Colombia.

The cartel was once headed by Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán Loera, who is now serving a life sentence in a US prison.

According to US authorities, after his arrest and incarceration, his sons, known as the Chapitos or Los Chapitos (the little Chapos), took over the Sinaloa cartel.

The DEA’s 2024 National Drug Threat Assessment said the Sinaloa and Jalisco cartels were the main – and most dangerous – criminal organisations in Mexico.

It said “occasional” DEA reports had surfaced over the years “of the Sinaloa cartel exporting their clandestine lab expertise into Africa”.

In the Limpopo raid, which happened on a farm near Groblersdal, an alleged drug lab was discovered.

“Four structures on the property were searched and large quantities of chemicals used in the manufacturing of illicit drugs, including acetone as well as crystal meth, with an estimated street value of R2-billion were recovered,” said a Hawks statement.

Three men from Mexico – Jorge Humberto Gonzales, Alejandro Gutierrez Lopez and Ruben Vidan Rodriguez – were arrested, along with two local suspects, Simphiwe Melvin Khumalo and Roelof Frederick Botha. According to Lebeya, the Mexicans may be Sinaloa cartel members.

Read more: Breaking (very) Bad – More links between South Africa and global drug trafficking cartels exposed

They are still being detained and have not yet had a chance to tell their versions of what happened.

The National Prosecuting Authority’s Limpopo spokesperson, Mashudu Malabi-Dzhangi, said during previous court proceedings that Botha had “claimed that the accused were renting his farm, but failed to produce a lease agreement with the Mexican nationals”. As for Khumalo, he had said in an affidavit that he was a transporter hired to deliver food and acetone.

The sons of the Sinaloa cartel’s leader, who are known as ‘Los Chapitos’ (from left): Ivan Archivaldo Guzman Salazar, Jesus Alfredo Guzman Salazar, Joaquin Guzman Lopez and Ovidio Guzman Lopez. (Source: US Department of Treasury)

Importing chemicals

So far, the crux of the police investigation is that officers uncovered a huge laboratory where masses of chemicals – known as precursor chemicals – were used to make drugs.

The DEA’s 2024 National Drug Threat Assessment said the Sinaloa and Jalisco cartels “operate extensive global supply chains, from precursor chemicals to production facilities, and direct a complex web of conspirators that includes international shippers, cross-border transporters, corrupt officials, tunnel builders, shell companies, money launderers, and others”.

The cartels therefore have operatives across the board and across borders. US authorities have said the Sinaloa cartel gets chemicals from China to make fentanyl.

In October, the US charged eight chemical companies and employees based in China for trying to distribute synthetic opioids and precursor chemicals used to make the drugs.

Read more: SA’s drug dons — where are they now plus the political suspicions surrounding them

One of the companies allegedly stated that each month it sent “more than 20 kilograms [of synthetic opioids or precursor chemicals] to the United States, Africa, Canada, and other countries”.

Precursor chemicals used to produce illicit drugs are apparently being pushed into South Africa. A 2023 US government International Narcotics Control Strategy Report flagged SA as one of several “identified to be major sources of precursor or essential chemicals used in the production of illicit narcotics”.

The report added: “South Africa is a leading regional importer of chemicals used in the production of illicit drugs, particularly synthetic drugs … Ephedrine and pseudoephedrine used in South Africa to synthesize methamphetamine largely originate in Nigeria and India.”

South Africa is therefore a producer of illicit drugs, but it is also a market for these drugs and a transit country for traffickers using it to push narcotics through to other countries.

Joaquin Guzman Loera, aka ‘El Chapo’, was sentenced to life imprisonment plus 30 years in the US on 17 July 2019 for being a principal leader of the Sinaloa cartel. (Photo: DEA)

Crypto and laundering cash

As for the Sinaloa and the Jalisco cartels, the DEA’s 2024 assessment said that aside from manufacturing and trafficking drugs, the gangs were involved in crimes including arms trafficking, bribery, extortion and money laundering.

It said the cartels “have a global reach extending into strategic transportation zones and profitable drug markets in Europe, Africa, Asia and Oceania”.

Read more: Meth hidden in mats from SA linked to Chinese million-dollar money laundering gang in Australia

The assessment explained that Mexican cartels were increasingly using cryptocurrency to launder drug income.

“Money launderers who own cryptocurrency collect bulk cash from drug traffickers and transfer cryptocurrency to the drug traffickers in return,” it said.

A world map in the assessment showed where “a Sinaloa cartel-affiliated money laundering network” carried out transactions. South Africa is among the several countries highlighted on it.

What is cryptocurrency?

Cryptocurrencies are classified as “financial instruments”. They are a form of digital payment that is settled on an open, decentralised ledger, which is verified by a network of independent computers instead of a central payment processor or settlement system, like those used by banks or other traditional financial institutions and money service businesses.

Fentanyl fact sheet

It is a prescription drug, a synthetic opioid, used to treat severe pain and is 50 to 100 times more potent than morphine. Traffickers make it illegally. It can be addictive and withdrawal symptoms may include muscle pain.

Illegally produced fentanyl comes in various forms. This includes pills that look like other prescription medicine, powder, blotter paper, eyedrops and nasal sprays. Dealers mix it with other drugs.

Two milligrams of it can be lethal.

Effects range from happiness to nausea and breathing problems.

An overdose can lead to reduced oxygen to the brain – hypoxia.

The medicine Naloxone, known as an opioid antagonist, can help treat a fentanyl overdose. A report published in the Harm Reduction Journal in 2022, focusing on Cape Town, Durban and Tshwane, found: “The burden of drug overdose deaths remains unquantified in South Africa, and both knowledge about and access to Naloxone is generally poor.” In 2021 the South African Network of People Who Use Drugs (Sanpud) reported that Naloxone saved an opioid user’s life in Tshwane after team training sessions on how to administer it.

Source: US government’s National Institute on Drug Abuse, Drug Enforcement Administration, Harm Reduction Journal and Sanpud.

This story first appeared in our weekly Daily Maverick 168 newspaper, which is available countrywide for R35.

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