Latest news with #LosChapitos
ABC News
15 hours ago
- ABC News
Mexico's brutal Sinaloa cartel is at war with itself as El Chapo's son strikes a deal with the US
For more than a year, Mexican authorities said there was no reason to think criminal cartels were linked to the shooting deaths of Australian surfers Jake and Callum Robinson. Expert observers had immediate doubts. The brothers were shot in the head, and their car and campsite were torched, in an area rife with cartel violence. But the cartel link wasn't clear until a court document revealed a local prison boss had later raised concerns about two inmates. They were then moved to a higher security jail because of "their affiliation with criminal groups linked to the Sinaloa cartel". Some parts of the document were redacted, but the ABC this week confirmed those inmates were Jesús Gerardo and Irineo Francisco — two of the four people accused of the Robinson brothers' murders. (Their surnames are withheld.) As these details were coming to light, the Sinaloa cartel was coming under new scrutiny in the US. The youngest son of "El Chapo", the Mexican crime lord who once led the cartel, has just made a deal with American prosecutors, almost two years after being extradited to Chicago. Ovidio Guzmán López, or "El Ratón", had inherited control of parts of the cartel when his father was jailed for life in the US in 2019. With his three older brothers, he led "Los Chapitos" — described as a "powerful, hyperviolent faction of the Sinaloa cartel at the forefront of fentanyl trafficking" by the US government. Under the plea deal, El Ratón admitted to drug-trafficking and other crimes, and forfeited up to $US80 million in assets. He also agreed to spill the secrets of the Sinaloa cartel — and likely the corrupt officials protecting it — to help US law enforcement bring it down. The earliest iteration of the Sinaloa cartel sprung up in the 1960s in the north-western Mexican state of Sinaloa. It is now considered the dominant cartel along much of the west coast. The US government says it makes billions by flooding American streets with fentanyl and other drugs. And it is increasingly targeting Australia's lucrative methamphetamine and cocaine markets with the help of outlaw motorcycle gangs, authorities believe. But it is also "heavily diversified" beyond drug-trafficking, says Nathan Jones, an expert on Mexico's cartels from Sam Houston State University in Texas. "One of the big umbrella crimes is extortion — extorting local businesses, taking over local markets," he says. "The avocado industry, the seafood industry, illegal water sales in drought-stricken northern regions … they're touching everything." Corruption in government and law enforcement has helped the cartel spread its reach. But in recent years, its status as Mexico's biggest and most powerful has been challenged by the rise of a rival known as the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, or just Jalisco. "There's been this debate for the last 10 years over who is bigger, the Cartel de Jalisco or the Sinaloa cartel," Dr Jones says. "At this point it's pretty clear — we're going to say it's the Cartel de Jalisco." One big reason for that is a bloody factional war that's been tearing the Sinaloa cartel apart. For a long time, El Chapo — real name Joaquín Guzmán — led the Sinaloa cartel alongside Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada. When El Chapo was arrested in 2016, it left his four sons to share control of the cartel with El Mayo. But El Chapo's sons turned on El Mayo. A year ago, Joaquín Guzmán López — the son known as "El Güero Moreno" — delivered El Mayo straight into the hands of American law enforcement. Both El Mayo and El Güero Moreno were arrested on a tarmac in Texas after flying in on a private jet. It is still not totally clear how El Mayo ended up on the plane. Early reports suggested he was duped into thinking he was going to see real estate in northern Mexico. But through his lawyer, El Mayo has said he was ambushed by six men in military uniforms, who tied him up, took him to a landing strip and forced him onto the plane. It means two of El Chapo's sons are in US custody, as well as El Mayo. And the sons' betrayal of El Mayo unleashed an all-out war between the Sinaloa cartel's two big factions — the sons' Los Chapitos faction and the El Mayo faction. "That is turning into a bloody dispute that has surged violence in [the state of] Sinaloa for the last year," Dr Jones says. Parts of Sinaloa, including the capital, Culiacan, are said to be like war zones. An NPR report this month said more than 1,000 people had been killed, and another 1,000 were missing, amid "nearly daily gun battles" on city streets. There is now evidence the Los Chapitos faction is forming an alliance with the rival Jalisco cartel, Dr Jones says. "The Chapitos, as best we can tell, have formed an alliance with [Jalisco] to kind of counterbalance against the El Mayo faction," he says. "So it means it's very hard now to talk about the Sinaloa cartel as a coherent entity." Mexico's cartels do not often target tourists, because it can put them in the glare of unwanted international attention. An attack on an American traveller last October, almost six months after the Robinson brothers were killed, is a case in point. Veteran US Marine Nicholas Quets, 31, was killed by Sinaloa cartel members near the town of Caborca. It is in the state of Sonora, east of Baja California, where the Australian surfers were killed. Like the Robinson brothers, Quets was travelling in a pick-up truck. The US Department of Homeland Security says he "encountered a Sinaloa cartel checkpoint" while on his way to the beach resort city of Puerto Peñasco. "These cartel members attempted to steal his pick-up truck before shooting him in the back through his heart," a Homeland Security statement said. On March 31, the US government used what would have been Quets's 32nd birthday to announce new sanctions on groups suspected of money laundering for the Sinaloa cartel. The sanctions are among a string of measures taken by the Trump administration to ratchet up pressure on Mexico's cartels, and on the Mexican government to crack down on them. The US has also listed the Sinaloa and Jalisco cartels as Foreign Terrorist Organisations, and last month announced $US10 million rewards for the capture of El Chapo's two fugitive sons. His other two sons remain in US custody. The plea deal taken by the youngest, El Ratón, could help him avoid an otherwise-likely life sentence. And his brother, El Güero Moreno, has also reportedly been negotiating a similar deal since flying into the US with El Mayo. The US sees the capture and capitulation of the brothers as a big win in its war on the cartels. "So much blood and violence lay with the Guzmán family," Homeland Security special agent Ray Rede said. "No more." It is not clear exactly how the Sinaloa cartel is allegedly connected to the men accused of murdering the Robinson brothers last year. A translation of the court document that revealed the link says: "Their continued presence at the local penitentiary centre poses a threat to its safety and governance, as they have been identified as involved in smuggling substances on behalf of the Paisas gang". It also says they "belong to a criminal group affiliated with the Sinaloa cartel". The court process for Jesús Gerardo and Irineo Francisco, and two co-accused, has only just begun. It is set to resume at another hearing on Friday.
Los Angeles Times
4 days ago
- Politics
- Los Angeles Times
Case of ‘El Chapo' son cooperating with U.S. prosecutors roils Mexico
MEXICO CITY — A bitter public dispute between Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum and the New York lawyer representing a son of drug kingpin Joaquín 'El Chapo' Guzmán has raised speculation here that the deal-seeking scion of the onetime Sinaloa cartel leader may expose corrupt Mexican officials. On Tuesday, Sheinbaum said she had filed a defamation complaint in Mexico against Jeffrey Lichtman, the high-profile attorney representing Ovidio Guzmán López, who last week pleaded guilty in federal court in Chicago to fentanyl trafficking and other crimes. He has agreed to cooperate with U.S. prosecutors in a bid to reduce a potential life sentence. In comments after the court hearing, Lichtman labeled as 'absurd' Sheinbaum's repeated contentions that Washington should coordinate with Mexico on the case — especially if, as is widely expected, Guzmán López spills the beans on alleged ties between Mexican officials and cartels. In an incendiary post on X, Litchman assailed the Mexican leader's 'corrupt office and government' and charged that Sheinbaum 'acts more as the public relations arm of a drug trafficking organization than as the honest leader that the Mexican people deserve.' That sparked a flurry of denunciations from allies in Sheinbaum's ruling Morena bloc, which dominates Mexican politics. Ernestina Godoy Ramos, Sheinbaum's official counsel, labeled Lichtman's comments 'grotesque and unforgivable, breaking the ethical and legal limits of the profession.' Declared Sheinbaum: 'I'm not going to establish a dialogue with a lawyer for [a] narco-trafficker.' Lichtman also represented El Chapo — now serving a life sentence in a U.S. prison in Colorado — and is the attorney for Joaquín Guzmán López, another son of the drug lord. Like his brother, he is in U.S. custody and faces drug smuggling and other charges. El Chapo's sons, known as Los Chapitos, or the 'Little Chapos,' assumed responsibility for cartel dealings after their father's arrest in 2016, prosecutors say. Guzmán López was extradited to the United States in 2023 after being nabbed following a shootout outside Culiacán, the Sinaloa state capital, that left almost two dozen people dead, including 10 Mexican soldiers. Two other sons of El Chapo remain in Mexico directing cartel operations, according to U.S. officials. Behind the nasty contretemps between the New York barrister and la presidenta is a widespread sense here that Guzmán López is poised to dish a mound of dirt about Mexican politicians on the payroll of the Sinaloa cartel. He may have already done so. What else, political observers ask, could explain the special treatment that members of El Chapo's family received in the spring? In May, U.S. authorities escorted 17 members of El Chapo's extended family — including his ex-wife, the mother of Ovidio and Joaquín — into San Diego from Tijuana. Although the U.S. Justice Department declined to comment, Mexico's top law enforcement official said the move was probably part of a cooperation deal between Guzmán López and Washington. 'He [Ovidio] must be singing,' said Guillermo Valdés Castellanos, a former intelligence chief in the administration of former President Felipe Calderón, a political adversary of Sheinbaum. 'I think it's part of a very clear strategy by the government of Donald Trump to pressure Mexico … to take action against the profound links between organized crime and and Mexican politics.' While frequently praising Sheinbaum, Trump has denounced the 'intolerable alliance' between Mexico's government and organized crime. Trump has imposed punishing tariffs on Mexico in what he calls an effort to shut down fentanyl trafficking. Though critics have called Trump's characterizations overblown, the narco-government collaboration in Mexico goes back decades. Calderón's top security official, Genaro García Luna, was convicted of taking millions of dollars in bribes from Sinaloa cartel traffickers and is serving a 38-year U.S. prison sentence. Sheinbaum and her political mentor, former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, hailed the U.S. prosecution of García Luna — a case that exposed deep corruption among their political rivals. But the tables may now be turning. There have been no public disclosures about what Guzmán López may be secretly revealing to U.S. prosecutors. But speculation in Mexico has focused on the suspected crookedness of so-called narco-governors serving under the banner of Sheinbaum's dominant Morena political bloc. None have been charged. But even more explosive, experts say, would be any fresh allegations against López Obrador, Sheinbaum's predecessor and the founder of Morena. During his six-year term, López Obrador repeatedly denied unconfirmed reports of having received political donations from people tied to organized crime. By all accounts, any public airing of new accusations against López Obrador from U.S. authorities could trigger a political earthquake in Mexico. 'There is total uncertainty and fear in the presidency,' said José Luis Montenegro, a Mexican journalist who wrote a book on Los Chapitos. 'The politicians of Morena must be trembling.' Sheinbaum has won widespread acclaim for her 'coolheaded' approach to Trump provocations on issues such as tariffs, immigration and drug smuggling. But the Mexican president has sharply rebuked U.S. prosecutors' apparent deal-making intentions with El Chapo's son. She has accused U.S. authorities of hypocrisy — seeking cooperation from Guzmán López at a time when the Trump administration has designated the Sinaloa cartel and other Mexican crime groups as terrorist organizations. 'So where is their position of 'not to negotiate with terrorist groups'?' Sheinbaum asked this month. Mexican leaders are still outraged about what they call the U.S.-orchestrated kidnapping almost a year ago of Ismael 'El Mayo' Zambada — co-founder of El Chapo's Sinaloa cartel — who is now also in custody in the United States. Mexican officials suspect that U.S. authorities recruited Joaquín Guzmán López to abduct El Mayo, bundle him into a private plane and fly him to an airfield outside El Paso, where U.S. agents arrested both El Mayo and Joaquín Guzmán López. Washington has never clarified its role in the sensational case. The apparent betrayal of El Mayo set off a civil war in the cartel — pitting El Mayo loyalists against Los Chapitos — that has cost hundreds of lives in Sinaloa state. Now, three top accused Sinaloa cartel capos sit in U.S. custody, and at least one, Guzmán López, appears keen to make a deal that could expose a web of official corruption, roiling Mexican politics. Special correspodent Cecilia Sánchez Vidal contributed to this report.
Washington Post
12-07-2025
- Washington Post
El Chapo's son Ovidio Guzmán López pleads guilty to U.S. drug charges
A son of notorious Mexican drug kingpin Joaquín 'El Chapo' Guzmán Loera pleaded guilty Friday to federal drug charges in Chicago under a deal with the U.S. government. Ovidio Guzmán López, 35, was captured in Mexico and extradited to the United States in 2023. Prosecutors have accused Guzmán López and three of his brothers — known as 'Los Chapitos' or 'little Chapos' — of taking over their father's role in the Sinaloa cartel following his arrest. Last month, the U.S. State Department sanctioned the Los Chapitos faction of the cartel, which it said was 'at the forefront of trafficking fentanyl into the United States.'
NDTV
11-07-2025
- NDTV
Son Of Mexico's 'El Chapo' Pleads Guilty In US Drugs Case
Washington: A son of Mexican drug kingpin Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman pleaded guilty to drug charges in Chicago on Friday in a deal struck with prosecutors in return for a reduced sentence. Nicknamed "El Raton," or "The Mouse," Ovidio Guzman Lopez pleaded guilty to two counts of drug conspiracy and two counts of knowingly engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise. Guzman Lopez, who took over control of a faction of the Sinaloa Cartel with three of his brothers -- collectively known as "Los Chapitos" -- following their father's arrest in 2016, was facing a maximum sentence of life in prison. But prosecutors said in the plea agreement, which came after months of negotiations, that they would recommend a lesser sentence in exchange for Guzman Lopez's pledge to "fully and truthfully cooperate" with investigators. District Judge Sharon Johnson Coleman has not set a date yet for sentencing. Mike Vigil, former head of operations for the Drug Enforcement Administration, told AFP that Guzman Lopez could offer US authorities "valuable information" about the cartel and its protectors. In the plea agreement, Guzman Lopez said he coordinated the smuggling of vast quantities of cocaine, heroin, fentanyl, and other drugs and precursor chemicals from Mexico to the United States. One of his brothers, Joaquin Guzman Lopez, was arrested last year after arriving in the United States in a private plane with Sinaloa Cartel co-founder Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada, who claimed that he had been kidnapped. Both men are awaiting trial. The arrests sparked cartel infighting that has left more than 1,200 people dead and 1,400 missing in Sinaloa state, located in northwestern Mexico. - 'Crystal-clear message' - The two other "Chapitos" -- Ivan Archivaldo Guzman Salazar and Jesus Alfredo Guzman Salazar -- have also been indicted on drug trafficking charges in the United States but remain at large. Their father was convicted in a high-profile trial in 2019 and is serving a life sentence in prison. Guzman Lopez gained prominence in October 2019 when the Mexican authorities detained him -- only to release him later on orders from then president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador amid a standoff between law enforcement and gang members. He was recaptured in January 2023, while Lopez Obrador was still in office, and extradited to the United States. The Sinaloa Cartel is one of six Mexican drug trafficking groups that US President Donald Trump has designated as global "terrorist" organizations. In its aggressive policy against drug cartels, the Trump administration announced additional sanctions against Los Chapitos in June for fentanyl trafficking and increased the reward to $10 million for each of the fugitive brothers. US Attorney Andrew Boutros said Guzman Lopez's guilty plea "sends yet another crystal-clear message that this administration is going to shut down and hold accountable transnational criminal organizations and their highest-ranking members and associates."
Al Etihad
11-07-2025
- Politics
- Al Etihad
Son of Mexico's 'El Chapo' pleads guilty in US drugs case: report
12 July 2025 00:12 NEW YORK (AFP)A son of Mexican drug kingpin Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman pleaded guilty to narcotics charges in a Chicago court Friday, US media said, part of a deal he struck with prosecutors in return for a reduced "El Raton," or "The Mouse," Ovidio Guzman signed a deal dated June 30 indicating he would enter a guilty plea to avoid a jury trial and a potentially harsher sentence had he been guilty plea was formalised during a hearing in a Chicago court after months of negotiation with the justice department -- the first time one of El Chapo's sons has inked a deal with Guzman, 35, is accused of conspiring in a continuing criminal enterprise, importing and distributing fentanyl, laundering money, and using formal guilty plea, reported by the local CBS2 broadcaster, will likely result in a far shorter prison term than the life sentence given to his father El Chapo following a high-profile trial held in could offer US authorities "valuable information" about the cartel and its protectors, Mike Vigil, former head of operations for the Drug Enforcement Administration, told lawyers and prosecutors did not respond to requests for Guzman gained prominence in October 2019 when Mexican authorities detained him -- only to release him later on orders from then president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador amid a standoff between law enforcement and gang Guzman was recaptured in January 2023, while Lopez Obrador was still in office, and later extradited to the United authorities accuse Ovidio and his three brothers of leading Los Chapitos, a faction of the Sinaloa Cartel designated by the administration of US President Donald Trump as a global "terrorist" father, one of the world's most infamous drug traffickers, is serving a life sentence in a US United States alleges Ovidio Guzman and his associates trafficked fentanyl into the country, where the opioid epidemic is linked to tens of thousands of Sinaloa cartel is one of six Mexican drug trafficking groups that Trump has designated as terrorist son, Joaquin Guzman Lopez, was arrested after arriving in the United States last July on a private plane with cartel co-founder Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada, who claimed he had been arrests sparked cartel infighting that has left more than 1,200 people dead and 1,400 missing in Sinaloa state, located in northwestern Mexico. In its aggressive policy against drug cartels, the Trump administration announced additional sanctions against Los Chapitos in June for fentanyl trafficking and increased the reward to $10 million for each of the fugitive brothers.
