Suspected Mexican cartel leader facing drug charges in Chicago sees Treasury Department freeze his assets

The Treasury Department has frozen the U.S. assets of Oscar Manuel Gastelum Iribe, the reputed leader of one of Mexico’s most powerful drug cartels, who has faced charges in Chicago for more than a decade.

Gastelum Iribe, 49, known as “El Musico,” is the head of the Beltran Leyva Organization, known as BLO, a major importer of fentanyl, cocaine and heroin to Chicago and elsewhere across the United States, according to the Treasury Department.

Gastelum Iribe, who was identified only by his alias in a 2009 indictment in Chicago, isn’t in custody.

He’s charged with conspiring to import “multi-ton” quantities of cocaine and heroin, and the government wants him to forfeit $885 million.

BLO, along with the Sinaloa cartel it splintered from in 2008, supplied Chicago cocaine traffickers Pedro Flores and Margarito Flores, according to the indictment.

The Flores twins were among the most prolific drug dealers in Chicago history. Arrested in 2008, they agreed to be informants against Sinaloa cartel kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman Loera in exchange for lenient sentences. El Chapo is serving a life sentence.

Lawyer Oscar Pulido Dias is among 14 other Mexicans whose assets also were frozen in the latest Treasury Department action. He’s accused of facilitating extortion payments for BLO and the Chapitos faction of the Sinaloa cartel. The Chapitos, including Ovidio Guzman Lopez, are sons of El Chapo.

In September, Ovidio Guzman Lopez was extradited from Mexico to Chicago, where he is now awaiting trial on federal drug charges.

AP

Also being held in Chicago: Adan Casarrubias Salgado, a reputed leader of the Guerreros Unidos cartel, who was extradited from Mexico to Chicago last year and is awaiting trial on drug charges.

The sanctions against Gastelum Iribe were announced Wednesday by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, who was in Mexico to talk with officials about combating fentanyl trafficking and illicit financing.

Thousands of people have died of fentanyl overdoses in Chicago in recent years, authorities say.

The Treasury Department says Gastelum Iribe, Pedro Inzunza Noriega and Fausto Isidro Meza Flores are now at the top of the Beltran Leyva Organization, named for five Beltran Leyva brothers who once led the cartel.

According to a criminal case unsealed in recent days in California, Gastelum Iribe was involved in two shipments with a total of 6,000 pounds of cocaine from South America to Mexico — in 2021 and 2022.