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.
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.” Interpol had issued a red notice against him in August.
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 has hit both countries with steep tariffs.