Gunmen have killed a high-ranking member of Mexico’s Sinaloa drug cartel, who was wanted by the United States on drug trafficking charges, a source in Sinaloa’s state government said on Friday, confirming Mexican media reports.
Eliseo Imperial Castro, alias “Cheyo Antrax”, was the cousin of cartel co-founder Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada. Both are fugitives from the US and the State Department has offered a $5 million reward for information leading to Zambada’s arrest.
Imperial Castro was ambushed on Thursday on a highway in Sinaloa, northwestern Mexico, according to Mexican media.
The US Treasury Department had previously described him as “a senior member of the Los Antrax organization, the enforcement group of the Sinaloa Cartel.”
In 2016, he was charged in a US court with trafficking in methamphetamine, cocaine and marijuana, and with money laundering.
Last year, the U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned three Mexican citizens — including a fugitive dubbed “The Anthrax Monkey” — for alleged involvement in the production and trafficking of the powerful synthetic opioid fentanyl.
In 2015, a high-ranking member of the Sinaloa Cartel known as “Chino Antrax” pleaded guilty in federal court, admitting that he coordinated the transportation of tons of cocaine and marijuana into the U.S. and ordered or participated in cartel-related violence.
The Sinaloa Cartel is one of Mexico’s most powerful and violent criminal organizations.
Its founder Joaquin ‘El Chapo’ Guzman is serving a life sentence in the United States.
Last week a suspected top murderer in the Mexican drug cartel Sinaloa extradited to the United States, where he will be charged in connection with drug and weapons smuggling, the Justice Department announced.
Nestor Isidro Perez Salas, known as ‘El Nini’, was one of the Sinaloa Cartel’s ‘leading sicarios’ or assassins and was responsible for the murder, torture and kidnapping of rivals and witnesses who threatened the cartel’s criminal drug trade. General Merrick Garland said in a statement.
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