A group of family members of Sinaloa carteurers crossed the United States last week, probably as part of a deal with the Trump government, said Mexico’s Secretary of Security on Tuesday evening.
For days, rumors had spread that 17 family members, including the ex-wife of the crime boss, known as El Chapo, had flown from a cartel stronghold to Tijuana, Mexico, and then entered the United States. A news output, Pie de Nota, reported That they had surrendered to American federal authorities, with reference to anonymous sources.
The Sinaloa cartel, co-founded by Joaquín Guzmán Loera, known as El Chapo, is one of the most powerful criminal groups in the world, although it has been Shared by violence between rival factions While several of his leaders are confronted with prison and persecution in the United States.
When asked for reports that the family members entered the United States on Monday, President Claudia Sheinbaum of Mexico said “There is no more information” than what she had seen.
But the security secretary, Omar García Harfuch, then confirmed at the end of Tuesday that family members of the Karteller Ovidio Guzmán López, one of the four sons of El Chapo, had surrendered to the American authorities. Mr. Guzmán López was extradited to the United States in 2023.
“It is clear that his family goes to the US because of a negotiation or a plea that the Ministry of Justice gives him,” Mr García Harfuch told the Mexican network radio Fórmula.
“The family who left was no goals and was not sought by the Mexican authorities,” he added. Mexican officials waited for the US Department of Justice to share information, he said.
He said he believed that Mr Guzmán called López members of criminal organizations, probably as part of a cooperation agreement.
Mrs. Sheinbaum told reporters on Wednesday morning that American officials should ‘inform’ their Mexican counterparts whether there was an agreement or not, and insisted on transparency with both the American public and the Mexicans, and noticed that Mexican soldiers had died in the operation to conquer Mr Guzmán Lopez.
Ovidio Guzmán López plans to argue with federal drug charges, According to the court papersIn what would make him the first of El Chapo’s sons, often called Los Chapitos, to recognize guilt in an American federal courthouse.
Mr. Guzmán López was captured twice in the past decade by the Mexican authorities. He was held for the first time, short, in 2019, until his own shooters are involved in a bloody battle with the Mexican army in the city of Culiacán and forced His release.
Then he was arrested by Mexican security forces in 2023 in the same city and fast extradited To the United States. Together with a full brother, two half -brothers and one of his father’s former business partners, Mr. Guzmán López was mentioned in a vast indictment.
His entire brother, Joaquín Guzmán López, has also had negotiations with federal authorities in Chicago to reach his own plea. (Their father, El Chapo, was convicted of life in prison by a federal court in the United States in 2019.)
The security secretary emphasized the Mexican role in Mr Guzmán López’s case and said: “Ovidio was held 100 percent by the Mexican authorities.”
The confirmation of the security minister came on the same day that the US Department of Justice New charges announced Against men being accused of being Sinaloa carte leaders, the first since President Trump has designated a terrorist organization. These charges include narco-terrorism, drug trafficking and money laundering.
When announcing the charges, the American lawyer for the southern district of California, Adam Gordon, directly addressed Karartele leaders in a press conference, who tell them that they would be ‘betrayed by your friends’ and ‘hunted by your enemies’
The movement of the family members to the United States and the speculation that it could mean a pleid agreement with the US government-has a controversial discussion in Mexico about who may be involved by captured cartel leaders.
“The Chapitos are going to sing, and we’re going to learn a lot of things,” Senator Ricardo Anaya, an opposition legislator, told reporters This week. “Because the North -American government does not offer immunity for nothing, they offer it in exchange for information.”
Emiliano Rodríguez Mega And James Wagner contributed reporting.
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