On April 23, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned 23 individuals and entities comprising a sophisticated synthetic opioid procurement network with ties to “Los Chapitos” of the Sinaloa Cartel—an organization designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization.
This action targets every link in the chain: chemical precursor suppliers in India, brokers in Guatemala and Mexico, and importers and drug traffickers affiliated with the cartel.
Among those sanctioned are two Mexican women operating as chemical precursor brokers: Karina Guadalupe Carrillo Torres, based in Sinaloa and reported to have family ties to the Los Chapitos faction; and María Viridiana Rugerio Arriaga, based in León, Guanajuato.
Their inclusion on this list is neither an isolated incident nor a coincidence; rather, it serves as the latest evidence of a trend that U.S. authorities have been documenting for years. Los Chapitos have delegated control of their powerful financial and logistical networks to trusted women—entrusting them with everything from the procurement of chemical precursors to money laundering and the management of front companies.
The cases continue to mount. From Ana Gabriela Rubio Zea—the Guatemalan businesswoman nicknamed “La Gaby,” who supplied chemicals to Los Chapitos while publicly presenting herself as an environmental activist—to Martha Emilia Conde Uraga (the “Mexican Walter White” known as “Martita,” sanctioned in October 2025 for distributing precursors from Culiacán)—the pattern repeats itself: women with respectable public profiles operating in the shadows as key components of the criminal structure.
Karina Guadalupe Carrillo Torres is a chemical precursor broker based in Sinaloa and the wife of cartel member Regulo Acosta Hernández, who was also sanctioned. Authorities link her to multiple seizures of 1-Boc-4-hydroxypiperidine totaling more than 50 kilograms. Together with her husband, she controls the companies Desarrollos Cartok and Comercializadora Grupo Carhern, both of which have been blocked by OFAC. Carrillo and Acosta were arrested in Sinaloa in March 2026 on drug-related charges. OFAC reports that Carrillo has family ties to the Los Chapitos faction.
