Low-income or financially troubled American women were recruited in 2023 by members of the Sinaloa Cartel to smuggle thousands of fentanyl pills into the United States each night. The traffickers forced each woman to ingest up to two thousand pills to use them as drug mules across the land border between the two countries.
This is according to documents filed by the Department of Justice in a federal court in Manhattan, which seek an 18-year prison sentence for Juan Pablo Lozano, one of the main figures responsible for recruiting these women for the Chapitos faction.
This case stems from the same investigation and mega-trial that has led to charges against more than 30 people, from El Chapo Guzmán’s eldest sons to the former governor of Sinaloa, Rubén Rocha Moya. Furthermore, there are other arrest warrants against additional individuals, whose names remain secret.
Pablo Lozano, a U.S. citizen, is considered a mid-level operator within the criminal organization in this case, but with a key role: coordinating fentanyl trafficking operations from Mexico to the United States through the use of women. This is in addition to arms trafficking.
“The defendant seriously endangered the lives of young women by recruiting them to act as ‘mules,’ forcing them to ingest thousands of deadly fentanyl pills so they could smuggle them across the border on his behalf,” states the document signed by prosecutors from the Southern District of New York.
Although the arrest of Pablo Lozano in 2025 dealt a blow to this fentanyl trafficking mechanism and reduced its flow, as evidenced by seizures, U.S. authorities indicated that this method of drug introduction is highly likely to continue, given that the use of U.S. citizens for this purpose means a lower risk of inspections and detection by authorities, especially when the authorities have also been corrupted, as has occurred in some cases.
