Joaquin Guzman Lopez, a son of Mexican drug kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, has pleaded guilty in a Chicago court to two counts of drug trafficking and organised crime for his role in Mexico’s notorious Sinaloa Cartel, reversing his original not guilty stance following his arrest last year.
Wearing an orange jumpsuit and matching shoes, Guzman Lopez spoke sparingly in court on Monday. Early in the hearing, Judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois Sharon Coleman asked what he did for work.
- list 1 of 4Once elusive Mexican drug kingpin ‘El Mayo’ Zambada pleads guilty in US
- list 2 of 4No death penalty for son of Mexican drug boss ‘El Chapo’: US prosecutors
- list 3 of 4Son of drug lord ‘El Chapo’ pleads guilty in US drug-trafficking case
- list 4 of 4Why has Mexico handed over drug cartel leaders to US? Who are they?
end of list
“Drug trafficking,” Guzman Lopez replied.
“Oh, that’s your job,” Coleman said with a chuckle.
With the guilty plea, Guzman Lopez is expected to avoid life in prison as part of a deal in which he cooperates with US prosecutors and pays an $80m charge representing the proceeds of his crimes, according to reports.
Even so, he faces a minimum of 10 years in prison, according to Andrew Erskine, a lawyer representing the federal government.
Guzman Lopez will be sentenced by a judge at a later date, and will have no opportunity to appeal the sentence as part of the plea deal, according to reports.
“The government has been very fair with Joaquin thus far,” Guzman Lopez’s defence lawyer, Jeffrey Lichtman, said after the hearing.
“I do appreciate the fact that the Mexican government didn’t interfere,” Lichtman said.
According to a report by the Chicago Tribune, in the 35-page plea deal, Guzman Lopez acknowledged that he and his brothers advanced the cartel’s operations by bribing officials and deploying firearms and other weapons to carry out violence targeting law enforcement, rival traffickers, and even members of their own organisation.
The ‘Chapitos’
Guzman Lopez and his brother Ovidio, two of El Chapo’s four sons who are known in Mexico as the “Chapitos” or “little Chapos”, are on trial in the US and accused of overseeing a powerful faction of the Sinaloa cartel that they inherited from their father.
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Ovidio Guzman Lopez pleaded guilty in the US in July to two counts of drug distribution and two counts of participation in a continuing criminal enterprise. He faces a possible life sentence.
Two other brothers remain at large. Their father, El Chapo, was extradited to the US in 2017, and is serving a life sentence in a maximum security prison.
In 2023, US federal authorities described the Sinaloa cartel’s operation as a sprawling network responsible for moving “staggering” amounts of fentanyl into the US.
Security at Chicago’s federal court was heightened as prosecutors on Monday outlined the events leading to Guzman Lopez ‘s dramatic arrest on US soil in July 2024, alongside another longtime Sinaloa leader, Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada.
The pair were arrested in Texas after they landed in a small private plane. Their surprising capture prompted a surge in violence in Mexico’s northern state of Sinaloa as two factions of the Sinaloa cartel clashed amid reports of betrayal that led to the arrests in the US.
Guzman Lopez appears to admit kidnapping ‘El Mayo’
In his plea deal, Guzman Lopez also admits to kidnapping an unnamed individual purported to be Zambada.
Erskine, the lawyer representing the federal government, described the alleged kidnapping in court, saying Guzman Lopez had the glass from a floor-to-ceiling window removed.
During a meeting in the room with the unnamed person, Guzman Lopez allegedly had others enter through the open window, seize the individual, put a bag over his head, and take him to a plane. On board, he was zip-tied and given sedatives before the plane landed at a New Mexico airport near the border with Texas.
Erskine said the alleged kidnapping was part of an attempt by Guzman Lopez to show cooperation with the US government, which did not sanction his actions. He said Guzman Lopez would not receive cooperation credit because of the kidnapping.
Guzman Lopez’s information underscores some of the details that Zambada had already described in a letter he signed, and which was released by his lawyer shortly after his arrest last year.
Zambada’s lawyer had said that his client was “forcibly kidnapped” onto the flight to the US. In the two-page letter, Zambada said Guzman Lopez asked him to attend a meeting on July 25 with local politicians. Zambada asserted that El Chapo’s son had organised the meeting to “help resolve differences between the political leaders”.
“The notion that I surrendered or cooperated voluntarily is completely false,” the document states.
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