CHICAGO (BN24) — A son of notorious Mexican drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán is scheduled to appear in federal court Friday morning, where he is expected to plead guilty to drug trafficking charges, according to court filings and officials familiar with the case.
Ovidio Guzmán López, 34, was initially set to enter his plea Wednesday, but the hearing was postponed until later this week. The Associated Press first reported that he is preparing to change his plea to guilty.
Guzmán López is among the group known as “Los Chapitos,” or “the little Chapos,” the four sons accused of taking over parts of the Sinaloa Cartel after their father was extradited to the United States and sentenced to life in prison in 2019.
Prosecutors say Guzmán López and his brothers — Iván Archivaldo Guzmán Salazar, Jesús Alfredo Guzmán Salazar, and Joaquín Guzmán López — oversaw a sprawling operation that trafficked fentanyl, cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine, and marijuana from Mexico into the United States.
According to a 2023 Justice Department news release, the indictment alleges the brothers became “principal leaders and drug traffickers” of the cartel, working to smuggle enormous quantities of fentanyl across the border and launder hundreds of millions of dollars in proceeds.
Ovidio Guzmán López faces a range of federal charges, including operating a continuing criminal enterprise, conspiracy to import fentanyl, conspiracy to distribute fentanyl, possession of machine guns and destructive devices, conspiracy to possess such weapons, and conspiracy to commit money laundering.
In addition to the charges in Chicago, he has also been indicted in New York. Court records show the sweeping prosecution is the result of decades of investigative work by the Justice Department’s Narcotic and Dangerous Drug Section in Washington, the U.S. Attorney’s Offices in the Northern District of Illinois and Southern District of California, and multiple law enforcement agencies.
Guzmán López was extradited to the United States from Mexico last year after a high-profile arrest in Culiacán, Sinaloa, that triggered deadly clashes between cartel gunmen and Mexican security forces.
He previously pleaded not guilty to the charges and waived his right to a detention hearing, remaining in custody without bond.
His father, Joaquín Guzmán Loera, was convicted in federal court in Brooklyn on drug trafficking and organized crime charges after a landmark trial that offered an unprecedented look inside the Sinaloa Cartel’s operations.
If Friday’s plea proceeds as planned, it would mark a significant development in U.S. efforts to dismantle the cartel’s leadership and disrupt the fentanyl trade fueling a record wave of overdoses across the country.
abcnews
