El Chapo’s son pleads guilty in US drug case, cuts deal with prosecutors

Joaquin Guzman Lopez, the son of notorious Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, has pleaded guilty to two counts of drug trafficking and organized crime in a Chicago court, replacing his earlier not guilty verdict after his arrest last year.

Guzman Lopez sparingly in court on Monday while sporting an orange jumpsuit and matching pair of shoes. Sharon Coleman, the judge of the Northern District of Illinois, questioned him about his work-related activities early in the hearing.

Guzman Lopez responded, “Drug trafficking.”

Coleman chuckled back, “Oh, that’s your job.”

According to reports, Guzman Lopez is expected to avoid life in prison if he accepts a guilty plea as part of a deal that allows him to cooperate with US prosecutors and pay an $80 million fine for his crimes.

He still faces a minimum sentence of 10 years in prison, according to federal government attorney Andrew Erskine.

According to reports, Guzman Lopez will be sentenced by a judge at a later time and won’t be able to file an appeal as part of the plea deal.

After the hearing, Guzman Lopez’s defense attorney, Jeffrey Lichtman, stated that the government has treated Joaquin fairly so far.

According to Lichtman, “I do appreciate the fact that the Mexican government did not interfere.”

In the 35-page plea deal, Guzman Lopez and his brothers admitted to supporting the cartel’s activities by paying off officials and using weapons and other weapons to execute threats against law enforcement, rival traffickers, and even members of their own organization, according to a report from the Chicago Tribune.

The “Chapitos”

In the US, Guzman Lopez and his brother Ovidio are accused of leading a powerful Sinaloa cartel faction after their father allegedly inherited their father from El Chapo and are one of the four sons known as the “Chapitos” or “little Chapos” in the country.

In July, Ovidio Guzman Lopez admitted guilt on two counts of drug distribution and two counts of engaging in a persistent criminal activity in the US. He might receive a life sentence.

Two more brothers are still at large. El Chapo, their father, was sentenced to life in a maximum security prison in 2017, and was extradited to the US in 2017.

US federal authorities described the Sinaloa cartel’s activities as a “staggering” network that brought “staggering” amounts of fentanyl into the US in 2023.

As prosecutors on Monday outlined the circumstances that led to Guzman Lopez’s dramatic arrest in Chicago in July 2024, along with another long-standing Sinaloa leader, Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, the security at the federal court was raised.

After landing in a&nbsp, a small private plane, the pair were detained in Texas. In response to reports of betrayal that led to the arrests in the US, two factions of the Sinaloa cartel clashed, prompting a rise in violence in Mexico’s northern state of Sinaloa.

El Mayo’s kidnapping appears to be an admission made by Guzman Lopez.

Guzman Lopez also admits to kidnapping an unnamed person who is alleged to be Zambada in his plea deal.

The alleged kidnapping was described in court by Erskine, a federal government lawyer, who claimed Guzman Lopez had the glass removed from a floor-to-ceiling window.

Guzman Lopez allegedly arranged for someone else to enter through an open window, seize the person, stuff his head over his head, and take him to a plane while they were having a meeting there. Before the plane touched down at a New Mexico airport close to the Texas border, he was zip-tied and given sedatives.

Erskine claimed that Guzman Lopez’s alleged kidnapping was part of a campaign to show cooperation with the US government, which did not sanction his actions. Because of the kidnapping, he claimed, Guzman Lopez would not be eligible for cooperation credit.

Guzman Lopez’s information accentuates some of the details that Zambada already disclosed in a letter he signed and that his lawyer released shortly after his arrest last year.

Zambada’s attorney claimed that his client had been “forced to kidnapped” onto the US flight. Zambada claimed Guzman Lopez asked him to meet with local politicians on July 25 in the two-page letter. According to Zamboda, El Chapo’s son organized the meeting to “help resolve the political leaders’ differences.”

The document states that “the idea that I gave up or worked for others completely false.”

Source: Aljazeera