A bunch of relations of Sinaloa Cartel leaders crossed into the US final week, probably as a part of a take care of the Trump administration, Mexico’s secretary of safety stated on Tuesday night.
For days, rumors had unfold that 17 family, together with one of many ex-wives of the crime boss referred to as El Chapo, had flown from a cartel stronghold to Tijuana, Mexico, after which crossed into the US. A information outlet, Pie de Nota, reported that they’d surrendered to U.S. federal authorities there, citing nameless sources.
The Sinaloa Cartel, co-founded by Joaquín Guzmán Loera, referred to as El Chapo, is one of the most powerful criminal groups on the earth, though it has been divided by violence between rival factions as a number of of its leaders face jail and prosecution in the US.
When requested about stories that the relations had entered the US on Monday, President Claudia Sheinbaum of Mexico said “there isn’t any extra data” than what she had seen.
However the safety secretary, Omar García Harfuch, then confirmed late Tuesday that family of the cartel chief Ovidio Guzmán López, one among El Chapo’s 4 sons, had surrendered to American authorities. Mr. Guzmán López was extradited to the US in 2023.
“It’s evident that his household goes to the U.S. due to a negotiation or a plea discount that the Division of Justice is giving him,” Mr. García Harfuch told the Mexican network Radio Fórmula.
“The household that left weren’t targets and weren’t being sought by the Mexican authorities,” he added. Mexican officers had been ready for the U.S. Division of Justice to share data, he stated.
He stated that he believed Mr. Guzmán López was naming members of felony organizations, probably as a part of a cooperation settlement.
Jeffrey Lichtman, a lawyer who has represented the elder Mr. Guzman and his sons, didn’t reply to a number of messages searching for remark.
Ms. Sheinbaum instructed reporters on Wednesday morning that U.S. officers “have to tell” their Mexican counterparts whether or not there was an settlement or not, urging transparency with each the American public and Mexicans, and noting that Mexican troopers had died within the operation to seize Mr. Guzmán Lopez.
Ovidio Guzmán López plans to plead responsible to federal drug costs, according to court papers, in what would make him the primary of El Chapo’s sons, typically known as Los Chapitos, to acknowledge guilt in a U.S. federal courthouse.
Mr. Guzmán López was twice captured by the Mexican authorities over the past decade. He was first detained, briefly, in 2019, till his personal gunmen engaged in a bloody battle with the Mexican army within the metropolis of Culiacán and forced his launch.
Then he was arrested by Mexican safety forces in 2023 in that very same metropolis and rapidly extradited to the US. Together with a full brother, two half brothers and one among his father’s former enterprise companions, Mr. Guzmán López was named in a sprawling indictment.
His full brother, Joaquín Guzmán López, has additionally been in negotiations with federal authorities in Chicago to succeed in his personal plea deal.
Ever since their father, El Chapo, was sentenced to life in prison by a U.S. federal decide in 2019, the American authorities have turned their sights on his 4 sons. Federal investigators opened a quiet again channel to the sons, making clear to them that in the event that they ever grew uninterested in the harmful narco-trafficking life, they might flip themselves in at any time.
Joaquín Guzmán López, utilizing the again channel, kidnapped his father’s former enterprise accomplice, Ismael Zambada Garcia, in Mexico this summer season and forcibly flew him throughout the border into U.S. custody.
The safety secretary burdened the Mexican function in Ovidio Guzmán López’s case, saying, “Ovidio was detained 100% by the Mexican authorities.”
The safety minister’s affirmation got here the identical day that the U.S. Division of Justice announced new charges in opposition to males accused of being Sinaloa Cartel leaders, the primary since President Trump designated it a terrorist group. These costs embrace narco-terrorism, drug trafficking and cash laundering.
In saying the fees, the U.S. lawyer for the Southern District of California, Adam Gordon, straight addressed cartel leaders in a information convention, telling them they might be “betrayed by your folks” and “hounded by your enemies.”
The motion of the relations to the US — and the hypothesis that it may imply a plea settlement with the U.S. authorities — has fueled high-profile dialogue in Mexico about who is likely to be implicated by imprisoned cartel leaders.
“The Chapitos are going to sing, and we’re going to be taught many issues,” Senator Ricardo Anaya, an opposition lawmaker, told reporters this week. “As a result of the North American authorities doesn’t supply immunity in alternate for nothing, they provide it in alternate for data.”
Alan Feuer, Emiliano Rodríguez Mega and James Wagner contributed reporting.
