Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzman was at one time the leader of the Sinaloa Cartel and widely considered the most powerful drug lord on earth. After multiple arrests and escapes from Mexican prisons, he was extradited to the US where, in 2019, he was convicted on ten counts. He is currently serving a life sentence in a supermax prison in Colorado.
Two of El Chapo’s sons, Ovidio Guzman Lopez and Joaquín Guzman Lopez, fought for control of the cartel in “El Chapo’s” absence. They were known as the “Chapitos.” Last year, Joaquín Guzman Lopez betrayed the co-founder of the cartel, Ismael ‘El Mayo’ Zambada, by forcing him onto a plane. The plane took them to America where they were both arrested on July 25, 2024. In August of this year, “El Mayo” pleaded guilty to a list of charges.
Zambada Garcia’s sentencing is set for Jan. 13, 2026. Zambada Garcia will face a mandatory minimum term of life in prison for leading a continuing criminal enterprise, and a maximum sentence of life in prison on the RICO count. As part of the plea agreement, Zambada Garcia also agreed to the entry at sentencing of a $15 billion forfeiture money judgment.
In short, Zambada is also going to spend the rest of his life in a US prison.
And that leaves the Chapitos. Ovidio Guzman Lopez was captured in 2019 in Mexico and then released on the orders of Mexico’s president after his cartel started a gun battle with police. In 2023 he was recaptured with help from the US military. A few months later he was extradited to the United States. This summer he pleaded guilty to various charges as part of a plea deal.
Lopez, the son of convicted Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, pleaded guilty to charges of drug trafficking, and running the Sinaloa Cartel in his father’s absence.
DEA officials told the ABC7 I-Team that the Sinaloa Cartel was responsible for, at one time, funneling 80% of the illicit narcotics on Chicago’s streets. That was in part due to El Chapo making Chicago a hub for his drug trafficking network, officials said.
As part of the plea agreement, Ovidio Guzman Lopez has agreed to fully cooperate with the U.S. government on all future criminal investigations into members of the cartel in hopes that prosecutors will allow him to serve a “less than life sentence” in prison.
The other son of “El Chapo,” Joaquín Guzman Lopez, pleaded guilty in a similar deal today.
Joaquin Guzman Lopez, 39, pleaded guilty to two counts of drug trafficking and continuing criminal enterprise after acknowledging his role in overseeing the transport of tens of thousands of kilograms (pounds) of drugs to the U.S., mostly through underground tunnels. With the plea deal, his attorney said, he is expected to avoid life in prison.
Security was tight at Chicago’s federal court ahead of the hearing in which prosecutors detailed events leading up to Guzman Lopez’s dramatic arrest with another longtime Sinaloa leader on U.S. soil in July 2024…
If Guzman Lopez cooperates with the U.S. government, prosecutors said, they would reduce the life sentence attached to the charges. Regardless, he faces at least 10 years in prison, said Andrew Erskine, an attorney representing the federal government.
Guzman Lopez would have no opportunity to appeal the sentence as part of the plea deal.
As for why he kidnapped “El Mayo” and brought him on the plane to the US, Lopez said he did it to curry favor with US prosecutors.
Erskine described the alleged kidnapping in court, saying Guzman Lopez had the glass from a floor-to-ceiling window removed. During a meeting in the room with the unnamed person, Guzman Lopez allegedly had others enter through the open window, 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.
Erskine said the alleged kidnapping was part of an attempt to show cooperation with the U.S. government, which did not sanction those actions. He said Guzman Lopez would not receive cooperation credit because of that.
There are still two sons of “El Chapo” who haven’t been arrested. They are currently running the cartel, though they’ve been under such pressure they’ve made a deal with a rival cartel.
The other two sons of El Chapo, Iván Archivaldo Guzmán Salazar and Jesús Alfredo Guzmán Salazar, remain at large in Mexico, where they have been relentlessly pursued both by the legitimate authorities and by Mr. Zambada García’s offspring and allies. Over the summer, the brothers reached an extraordinary deal with their longtime rivals in the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, essentially trading criminal turf for protection from their enemies.
More top cartel operatives are also facing charges in the United States. Among them are José Ángel Canobbio Inzunza and Néstor Isidro Pérez Salas, both of whom were senior members in charge of overseeing security for Los Chapitos.
It’s a shame that these violent crooks might eventually see daylight under the terms of the plea deal. It’s probably hard to calculate how many Americans have died from the drugs they sent over the border, not to mention all the Mexicans murdered by their cartel.
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