U.S. officials announced charges against 28 members of Mexico’s powerful Sinaloa cartel, including four sons of Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, dubbed “Los Chapitos.” The charges stem from a sprawling investigation into a global fentanyl manufacturing and distribution operation run by the Sinaloa drug cartel. (New York Times)

Defendants named on Friday include Chinese and Guatemalan citizens accused of supplying precursor chemicals required to make fentanyl, as well as those suspected of running drug labs in Mexico and others accused of providing security, weapons and illicit financing for the drug trafficking operation, reports the Associated Press.

“The Chapitos pioneered the manufacture and trafficking of fentanyl — the deadliest drug threat our country has ever faced — and flooded it into the United States for the past eight years,” said Drug Enforcement Administration Administrator Anne Milgram, who added that her agents had “obtained unprecedented access to the organization’s highest levels” to bring the new charges. (Aristegui Noticias, Washington Post)

U.S. authorities say the charges are an ambitious response to the fentanyl crisis that has claimed hundreds of thousands of U.S. lives in recent years. (Reuters)

Lavrov kicks off LatAm tour

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov arrived in Brasilia today, kicking off a Latin America tour that will also include visits to Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua. He met with his Brazilian counterpart, Mauro Vieira, this morning and is scheduled to meet with President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva later today. (Associated Press)

Lavrov has emphasized potential for collaboration with the region, in particular increased wheat exports last year.

“The rapidly changing geopolitical landscape opens new opportunities for the development of mutually beneficial cooperation between Russia and the states of Latin America. Countries in this region are playing an increasingly important role in a multipolar world order,” Lavrov wrote in a column published by Folha de S. Paulo and Mexican magazine Buzos.

For Brazil the visit is part of a diplomatic reset under Lula, who seeks to reestablish the country as a major player on a global, multipolar stage. But Lavrov’s presence, which comes on the heels of Lula’s visit to China last week, will likely ruffle U.S. feathers, reports the Guardian.

Lula seeks to promote a group of countries to mediate peace in the Ukraine conflict, but his refusal to blame only Russia has caused discontent in the West, the Wilson Center’s Brazil Institute director Bruna Santos told the Guardian.

After his meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, the two leaders declared in a joint statement that negotiation was “the only viable way out of the crisis in Ukraine.” In the statement, they avoided the words “invasion” or “war” and didn’t offer more detail on how to pursue peace talks. (New York Times)

Speaking to reporters in China on Saturday, Lula said the U.S. should “stop encouraging the war” and that the European Union “must start talking about peace.”

Brazil’s stance is partially realpolitik, but its also related to ideology. “Lula is a long-standing critic of US foreign policy and has frequently sought to encourage the development of a “multipolar” world order in which America has less geopolitical influence,” according to the New Statesman.

Migration

• “Since 2010, no single region has experienced a greater relative increase in international migration than Latin America and the Caribbean. The number of migrants living in the region nearly doubled from 8.3 million in 2010 to 16.3 million in 2022, a dramatic shift driven by a series of displacement crises, free-movement arrangements, and former emigrants returning with foreign-born children and spouses, among other trends,” writes the Migration Policy Institute in an article covering Latin American and Caribbean migration trends, including dives into integration, growing migration through the Darien Gap, and increasingly regional approaches to migration. — Americas Migration Brief
  
  
• Mexican authorities have filed charges against the head of the country’s National Immigration Institute over conditions at the immigration center where 40 people were killed in a fire last month, reports the Guardian. (See post for March 28.)
  
  
• But President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said last week that he will not dismiss the official, Francisco Garduño, known for his hard line on northbound migration, reports the Associated Press.
  
  
• Guatemala declared three days of national mourning for the 17 Guatemalan citizens killed in the immigration center fire in Mexico last month. So far this year, the Guatemalan authorities have helped repatriate 58 dead nationals. In 2022, they brought back 427 people, 361 of whom had died in the United States, many trying to cross the border, reports the Washington Post.

Mexico

• More than a hundred Mexican media workers have been killed since 2000, most of the murders are likely related to criminal organizations. The New Yorker reports on a collective of journalists who tried to investigate one of those killings, that of Miroslava Breach, and challenge Mexico’s standard of impunity.

Colombia

• Colombia’s Estado Mayor Central, a dissident FARC group, said it is ready to begin peace talks with the government next month. EMC top leaders have been meeting on a farm in the southern San Vicente del Caguan region since the beginning of April to plot a strategy for peace negotiations, reports AFP.

Ecuador

• At least 12 inmates were killed in a gang clash at Ecuador’s La Penitenciaria jail on Friday. Ecuador has been plagued by prison riots since 2021, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of inmates, reports Reuters.
  
  
• “A massacre in Ecuador’s northern port city of Esmeraldas has underlined how competition over cocaine trafficking routes is contributing to escalating violence across the country,” reports InSight Crime.

Haiti

• United Nations launched an ambitious humanitarian response plan to raise $720 million to deal with the needs of Haitians, in the midst of a hunger crisis. The plan is targeted to help 60% of the population, or 3.2 million people, in need of urgent assistance, reports the Miami Herald.

Chile

• Chile’s Boric administration will propose a national lithium policy by the end of the month, which is expected to permit private participation in specific projects, reports El País.
  
  
• Chilean President Gabriel Boric announced a National Search Plan to find the the remains of Pinochet dictatorship victims — it is the first time in Chile’s democratic history that a government has backed a permanent search effort for the forcibly disappeared, reports the Guardian.

Jordana Timerman/Latin America Daily Briefing