Joaquín Guzmán López, one of the sons of Mexican drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, will appear before a federal court in Chicago (Illinois) next week, police sources reported.
According to information collected by the EFE agency, Guzmán López was arrested on Thursday near the border city of El Paso (Texas) along with Ismael ‘el Mayo’ Zambada, one of the criminals most wanted by the DEA and co-founder of the Sinaloa Cartel along with ‘el Chapo’.
In Chicago, he faces more than a dozen charges, including drug trafficking, money laundering and being part of a criminal organization.
The capture of Guzmán López and Zambada, which took place at a regional airport outside El Paso, represents one of the biggest blows to drug trafficking in recent years.
According to several American media outlets, including The New York Times, Guzmán López brought ‘El Mayo’ to the United States under false pretenses to benefit his sister Ovidio, who was extradited to the United States in September of last year.
The newspaper cites two U.S. police sources who say that Guzmán told Zambada that the trip on a private plane was intended to show him some land in Mexico.
According to the Federal Bureau of Prisons, Ovidio Guzmán was released from prison last Tuesday, although the United States Embassy in Mexico said on Friday that the drug trafficker remains “in custody.”
The New York Times also claims that Zambada himself, considered one of Mexico’s most elusive drug traffickers – he had never been arrested – had been negotiating his surrender with US authorities for three years, without having yet reached an agreement, a fact corroborated by five different sources.
If his partner Guzmán’s betrayal is confirmed, it would not be the first betrayal that Zambada has suffered: his own son, Vicente Zambada Niebla, extradited to the United States in 2010, offered to appear as a witness for the prosecution in the trial against “El Chapo” Guzmán, and gave abundant details of how the Sinaloa Cartel operated, which was run by his father and “El Chapo’s” sons, known as “Los Chapitos.”
For its part, the Mexican government denied having been associated with or even having prior knowledge of the operation to arrest “El Mayo.”
In a press conference, Secretary of Security Rosa Icela Rodríguez revealed that Mexico “did not participate” in the operation and that the United States Embassy contacted her on Thursday after the arrest of both leaders had already taken place.
#Son #Chapo #judge
2024-07-31 20:28:01
