Joaquín Guzmán López, son of notorious Mexican drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán on Monday pleaded guilty to U.S. drug trafficking charges.
Guzmán López, 39, pleaded guilty to two counts of drug trafficking and continuing criminal enterprise in overseeing the transport of tens of thousands of pounds of drugs into the United States.
He and his younger brother Ovidio stand accused of running a faction of the Mexican Sinaloa drug cartel that held efforts to send a “staggering” amount of fentanyl into the United States.
U.S. prosecutors detailed the two brothers assumed leading positions of the Sinaloa drug cartel after the arrest of their father over a decade ago. “El Chapo” Guzmán is presently serving a life sentence in 2019 for his decades-long involvement in smuggling cocaine and other drugs into the U.S. Collectively, the drug lord’s sons are commonly referred to as Los Chapitos (“The Lil’ Chapos”).
Joaquín Guzmán’s Monday guilty plea comes months after his brother Ovidio entered a plea deal in May. Breitbart News reported in November that Guzmán intended to plead guilty at U.S courts, a move that “threatens to unleash cartel secrets at the highest levels of power.”
U.S. authorities arrested Guzmán López in July 2024 as part of an operation that saw him betray Sinaloa Cartel kingpin Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, luring him out to a meeting where gunmen overpowered Zambada before loading him into an airplane and delivering him to U.S. law enforcement in Texas — an act that caused a fierce and ongoing schism that fractured the Sinaloa Cartel into two main factions.
The Associated Press reported as part of the plea deal, Joaquín Guzmán López admitted to helping oversee the production and smuggling of “large quantities of cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine, marijuana and fentanyl” into the United States. He also admitted to the kidnapping of an unnamed individual, presumed to be Zambada.
Andrew Erskine, an attorney representing the federal government, described details of the alleged kidnapping. The Attorney said Guzmán López had a window panel removed, which allowed armed men to enter through, “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,” AP reported.
Erskine said the alleged kidnapping was part of an “attempt to show cooperation with the U.S. government, which did not sanction those actions.” As such, Guzmán López would not receive cooperation credit.
Erskine reportedly said that although Guzmán could see a reduced sentence if he cooperates with cooperates with the U.S. government, he faces “at least 10 years” in prison regardless according to prosecutors, and would have no opportunity to appeal the sentence.
“The government has been very fair with Joaquín thus far,” Guzmán’s defense attorney Jeffrey Lichtman told reporters after the hearing. “I do appreciate the fact that the Mexican government didn’t interfere.”
“I don’t know how this ends up,” Lichtman said. “If he gets a ten year sentence, it’s still a lot of time for anybody to spend in prison.”
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