The US has announced a reward of up to $5 million each for information that would lead to the capture of four Mexican drug lords, including the brother of notorious trafficker "El Chapo."

The four operate under the Sinaloa Cartel, which "El Chapo" headed until his imprisonment. Apart from his brother Aureliano Guzman Loera, the three others belong to the Salgueiro Nevarez family.

The four have been "charged in US indictments for violation of US drug laws, to include international conspiracies to distribute marijuana, cocaine, methamphetamine, and fentanyl," State Department Ned Price said in a statement.

The highly dangerous synthetic opioid fentanyl is "responsible for more than 63 percent of the 96,779 drug overdose deaths in the United States between March 2020 and 2021," Price pointed out.

El Chapo was extradited in 2017 to the United States where he was sentenced to life in prison two years later in a trial held under high security.

The United States and Mexico have been working together to fight drug trafficking under the Merida Initiativ over the last decade but the menace still continues. 

Mexico has registered more 300,000 murders linked to drug cartel rivalry.  The government has been forced to deploy the army to control the drug menace.