MEXICO CITY: Cuba has arrested a Chinese language fentanyl kingpin who escaped custody in Mexico in July and is also wanted by the United States, Mexican safety sources informed AFP on Wednesday (Oct 22).
The trafficker Zhi Dong Zhang, recognized by the alias “Brother Wang,” will stay in Cuba pending a call on his potential extradition, the sources stated.
Zhi is accused of working carefully with Mexico’s Sinaloa and Jalisco New Era cartels, each designated “overseas terrorist organisations” by Washington.
He was detained in Mexico in October 2024 and held in a Mexico Metropolis jail awaiting a listening to on his extradition to the US, the place he faces money-laundering costs. He was later granted home arrest, from which he escaped in July.
LINKS TO GLOBAL FENTANYL TRADE
Zhi is taken into account “a serious worldwide cash laundering operator,” Mexican Safety Secretary Omar Garcia Harfuch stated final 12 months.
The trafficker was allegedly answerable for constructing networks with cartels to maneuver fentanyl from China to Central America, South America, Europe and the US, he added.
Washington underneath President Donald Trump has pressed each Mexico and China to curb the trafficking of fentanyl, an artificial opioid 50 instances stronger than heroin and much cheaper to provide. It has additionally fuelled a lethal overdose disaster within the US.
Fentanyl has largely changed heroin and prescription opioids akin to oxycodone as a reason behind overdoses, which now kill tens of hundreds of Individuals every year.
