SAN DIEGO (FOX 5/KUSI) -- Five people with alleged ties to the Sinaloa Cartel have been charged with multiple drug trafficking and money laundering offenses, according to a news release by the United States Attorney's Office for the Southern District of California. The release stated two federal grand jury indictments were unsealed in San Diego Monday, naming Alberto David Benguiat Jimenez, 43, Israel Daniel Paez Vargas, 45, Salvador Diaz Rodriguez, 39, Christopher Ortega-Lomeli, 38, and Christian Noe Amador Valenzuela, 36. Sheriff’s Homicide Unit probes toddler’s death in Lakeside The indictments were turned in in September and October of 2022. All defendants are fugitives, according to the attorney's office. Four of them -- Benguiat Jimenez, Paez Vargas, Diaz Rodriguez and Amador Valezuela -- and another individual, Enrique Dann Esparragoza Rosas, 39, were also the target of sanctions imposed Monday by the Department of Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), the release added. Esparragoza Rosas was previously charged with conspiracy to launder money. In addition, Paez Vargas was charged with conspiracy to import and distribute controlled substances, the attorney's office stated. The OFAC identified all of the above individuals as alleged members of a money laundering network supporting the Sinaloa Cartel. To date, 51 people have been charged due to money laundering investigations. Additionally, more than $4.1 million dollars and nearly 1,400 kilograms of drugs -- including methamphetamine, heroin, cocaine and fentanyl -- have been seized by authorities. The cases are being investigated by the Imperial County and Mexico City district offices of the Drug Enforcement Administration, the San Diego office of the Internal Revenue Service-Criminal Investigations, the Federal Bureau of Investigation's San Diego Field Office, Homeland Security Investigations Calexico Office and San Diego-Imperial County HIDTA with assistance from the OFAC. ...read more read less