The United States Department of State (DOS) has announced a reward of up to US $5 million for information leading to the arrest and/or conviction of a Sinaloa-based drug trafficker.
Jesús González Peñuelas, aka “Chuy” González, “reportedly leads an independent methamphetamine, marijuana, heroin, and cocaine distribution and production organization,” the DOS said in a statement on Wednesday in which it announced the reward.
It also said that González is “believed to be responsible for transporting and selling cocaine and M-30s (fentanyl pills disguised as oxycodone).”
He “was indicted on international narcotics charges in the District of Colorado and the Southern District of California,” the DOS added.
The United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) said in a separate statement that González’ drug production and trafficking organization is based in northern Sinaloa and “has been a prominent source for heroin distribution throughout Colorado.”
“DEA identified González as a primary supplier of heroin in the western United States over a decade ago just as Colorado experienced a spike in heroin-related overdose deaths. … In 2016, González was indicted on three counts by a grand jury in the District of Colorado. A superseding indictment was filed against him in 2018,” the agency said.
The DEA said that the suspect is a 54-year-old Mexican national with black hair and brown eyes. According to a profile on the DEA website, his last known address was in Gabriel Leyva Solano, a town in the Sinaloa municipality of Guasave.
González and his drug trafficking organization (DTO) were formally designated by the U.S. government in May 2021 as “significant foreign narcotics traffickers pursuant to the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act.”
The U.S. Department of the Treasury said at the time that González “oversees multiple heroin processing laboratories in Sinaloa” and that “the upper echelons” of his DTO hierarchy consist of his family members.
“The González Peñuelas DTO cooperates with other DTOs within Mexico, including acting as an enforcement arm for the various Mexican DTO’s trafficking routes, and is aligned with Mexican drug kingpins Fausto Isidro Meza Flores and Rafael Caro Quintero, both of whom are subject to Treasury sanctions,” the department said on May 12, 2021.
Caro Quintero, a notorious drug lord and convicted murderer of United States DEA agent Enrique “Kiki” Camarena, was arrested in northern Mexico in July 2022.
Meza Flores, an alleged leader of the Beltrán Leyva criminal organization, remains at large.
The $5 million reward for information that leads to the capture of González is offered under the Department of State’s Narcotics Rewards Program (NRP).
The DOS said that the NRP and another U.S. rewards program “have helped bring more than 90 transnational criminals and major narcotics traffickers to justice since the inception of the NRP in 1986.”
“The Department has paid more than $170 million in rewards under these programs for information leading to apprehensions and convictions,” the department added.
Mexico News Daily
