In this deep dive, we explore the case of Ana Gabriela Rubio Zea. US prosecutors say she helped the Chapitos faction of the Sinaloa Cartel obtain precursor chemicals from China to produce fentanyl, but her name was all but lost amid the 22 others indicted with her. In fact, the role of brokers like her has largely been overshadowed by narratives and security strategies that focus on kingpins and “cartels,” the catch-all phrase so often used to describe complex criminal networks.
Brokers are not only in charge of linking different players in multiple countries, but they also act as the bridge between the mostly legal world of chemical production and the Mexican underworld. This makes them the bottleneck of the synthetic drug supply chain, and a key target for law enforcement.
