Cuba has arrested a suspected Chinese fentanyl kingpin who escaped from custody in Mexico and is also wanted by the United States, the Mexican government said Wednesday.
The trafficker Zhi Dong Zhang, known by the alias “Brother Wang,” is alleged to have worked closely with Mexico’s Sinaloa and Jalisco New Generation drug cartels, designated “foreign terrorist organizations” by Washington.
His arrest was confirmed by the Security Secretariat.
After Interpol issued a red notice against him in August, official sources confirmed to BBC Mundo on Wednesday that the Chinese national is being detained in Cuba and that Mexican authorities “are waiting to see whether he will be deported or extradited.”
Quién es Brother Wang, el presunto capo chino del fentanilo capturado en Cuba tras fugarse de México https://t.co/Gn1wvmMMJu
Detained in Mexico in October 2024, Zhi Dong Zhang was held in a prison in Mexico City awaiting a hearing for his extradition to the United States, where a warrant has been issued for his arrest on money laundering charges.
He was granted house arrest, from which he escaped in July.
Zhi Dong Zhang is considered “a major international money laundering operator,” Mexican Security Secretary Omar Garcia Harfuch said last year. He is accused of laundering at least $20 million in the U.S. between 2020 and 2021 by using more than 100 shell companies and bank accounts, El Pais reported.
The trafficker was responsible for “establishing connections with other cartels for the transfer of fentanyl from China to Central America, South America, Europe, and the United States,” he added.
Washington under President Donald Trump has been applying pressure on Mexico and China to curb drug trafficking, particularly of fentanyl, the powerful painkiller behind an overdose epidemic in the United States. The Trump administration as hit both countries with steep tariffs.
Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid that is 50 times more powerful than heroin and much easier and cheaper to produce.
It has largely replaced heroin and prescription opioids such as oxycodone as a cause of overdoses in the United States.
President Claudia Sheinbaum’s government has ramped up drug seizures under tariff pressure from Trump, who has threatened further punitive measures unless the problem is solved.
Although Mexico has been the main source of fentanyl sold in the United States, Washington has increasingly focused its attention on China-based suppliers of precursor ingredients.
From Havana, two sources close to the case told AFP the detainee would be extradited to Mexico, but did not specify a date or provide details about the process.
Communist Cuba has not officially commented on the reported arrest.
The arrest comes as the U.S. continues military strikes against alleged drug traffic boats off South America. After destroying two alleged drug vessels on the Pacific side of Latin America this week, the U.S. has now carried out nine known strikes against alleged narcotics trafficking boats since last month, leading to at least 37 deaths. The first seven strikes were in the Caribbean Sea.
One of those strikes hit an alleged “narco sub,” killing two on board but leaving two survivors, a man from Colombia and a man from Ecuador. In a social media post, Mr. Trump claimed the sub was loaded with fentanyl and other drugs. There is little evidence to indicate that fentanyl is produced in the Andes region, which includes Ecuador, as the vast majority of it flows into the U.S. through Mexico.
Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona said Sunday on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan,” “We want to keep fentanyl out of the United States, … but those routes through the Caribbean on boats are predominantly used to bring cocaine to Europe,” not to the U.S. And fentanyl tends to be transported to the U.S. “from a different way,” Kelly added.
