

The pair are just two links in a chain connecting the Sinaloa cartel to Chinese companies and criminal organizations, relationships that are now drawing increasing attention from the US government after years of investigation by law enforcement. The US attorney general, Merrick Garland, called the Mexico-based Sinaloa cartel “the largest, most violent, and most prolific fentanyl trafficking operation in the world” in a statement accompanying the sweeping indictments covering cartel bosses, enforcers and suppliers such as Rubio and Wu. “We are the biggest in Mexico so we can purchase a lot,” the indictment quotes Rubio telling Wu Yonghao, a sales representative for the chemical supplier Wuhan Shuokang Biological Technology Co Ltd, in an encrypted message before her arrest.


According to the arresting agency and a federal indictment released on 14 April, for almost 10 years Rubio arranged illegal imports of controlled drug-making substances, sometimes hiding them in food containers and leveraging corruption to deliver the chemicals to the cartel.
