We have over $50 million in drug proceeds laundered through this investigation.

Following a multi year effort by U.

S.

Officials, the Department of Justice announcing charges against 24 people accused of being connected to the cartel.

The cartels and Chinese money laundering groups with partnering together to perpetuate a cycle of destruction in this country.

The investigation, dubbed Operation Fortune Runner, uncovered how 45 year old Edgar Joel Martinez Reyes allegedly ran the sophisticated network suspects, some of them Chinese collected backs of cash from cartel associates in the Los Angeles area.

That cash was then deposited into a Chinese bank controlled by a money laundering broker.

Investigators say the broker then used that money to purchase goods in China, including precursor chemicals used to make both meth and fentanyl.

Chinese associates would then send those purchase goods to Mexico, where they were sold or chemicals further processed into drugs.

The cash from both eventually ended up in the hands of the cartel to pay for smuggling drugs to the United States.

Martinez Reyes attorneys did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Federal authorities credit China with cooperating with the investigation to make arrests, but Chinese officials still question the extent of their country's involvement.

The fentanyl problem is rooted in the U.

S.

Itself.

Officials say the U.

S.

Fentanyl crisis started from over prescription and developed due to many complicated factors.

This is not the first time we're seeing ties between China and these criminal organizations have such a desire for U.

S.

Dollars in cash that they're getting into a variety of criminal enterprises to create that cash.

A U.

S.

Treasury official told her own Jacob Sober off the Chinese criminal organizations than launder money from cartel meth, fentanyl and other drugs through cash loans sometimes given to unsuspecting Chinese nationals.

By working together, they've been able to get billions, if not into the United States, and they've been able to use a synthetic drug trade to do it.

A transcontinental web of crime now coming into focus, but far from being solved.

And Morgan joins us now from Los Angeles.

Morgan, you mentioned authorities have charged 24 individuals in all.

Do we have any idea if they are in custody tonight?

Yeah, Allison, it appears authorities are not wasting any time here whatsoever of those 24 that were indicted.

We know that 22 are already in custody.

One of them was brought into custody in China back in May.

Another track down in Mexico just last week.

Thanks for watching.

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