Chinese drug trafficker, fentanyl supplier to the CDS and CJNG, escaped the day the US issued an arrest warrant for him

Zhi Dong Zhang, alias “Brother Wang” and/or “Li Gong Sun Chang” and/or “Ku Li Hernández” and/or “Brother Wang” and/or “BW” and/or “Pancho” and/or “Heh” and/or “Chino” and/or “Summor Ownor”—alleged fentanyl supplier to the Sinaloa (CDS) and Jalisco Nueva Generación (CJNG) cartels—escaped from house arrest in Mexico City on July 11, 2025, the same day a new arrest warrant was issued for him in the United States for laundering more than $20 million in the banking system.

As reported by the newspaper Reforma, on August 5, 2025, and July 11 of the same year, the Federal Court for the Northern District of Atlanta, Georgia, issued a new arrest warrant against him for money laundering. However, Dong Zhang escaped six days later through a tunnel at a private home located in the Lomas de Padierna neighborhood of the Tlalpan municipality, where he was under house arrest during his extradition trial to the US.

According to court documents cited by the same newspaper, the new indictment was based on an investigation by the United States Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), which tracked three deposits totaling $135,000 to China and discovered that, between 2020 and 2021, Dong Zhang laundered $20 million in 170 bank accounts.

The newspaper reported that just one of his detained accomplices, Ruipeng Li—arrested in March 2021—confessed to having laundered $8.5 million in cash deposits in bank accounts belonging to Dong Zhang’s organization between 2020 and 2021, in Georgia, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Ohio, Illinois, and Texas. Of the total funds, the Department of Justice (DOJ) managed to seize $945,246 from him in various financial accounts.