Five Mexican cartel leaders were charged on Thursday with several drug trafficking crimes, with the federal government offering up to $26 million for information leading to their arrests.
The case began with a car crash in a small town in eastern Tennessee, with the feds following the money and drugs back to leaders of the group United Cartels , based in Michoacan, the Justice Department said Thursday.
Juan Jose Farias Alvarez (“El Abuelo”), Alfonso Fernandez Magallon (“Poncho”), Luis Enrique Barragan Chavez (“Wicho”), Edgar Orozco Cabadas (“El Kamoni”) and Nicolas Sierra Santana (“El Gordo”) were accused of operating a decades-long conspiracy to bring methamphetamine, cocaine and fentanyl into the U.S.
Alvarez is allegedly the leader of United Cartels, an umbrella group with sign