Ovidio Guzmán, son of “El Chapo” Guzmán, declares himself guilty of drug trafficking before a US court.

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Ovidio Guzmán López, son of the Mexican drug boss Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, declared himself guilty this Friday of several crimes related to drug trafficking before a Chicago court, in the US.

“The mouse”, as it is known, accepted its guilt in four charges of drug trafficking and organized crime.

Guzmán was extradited to the US two years ago and at that time he declared himself innocent of the positions that were presented against him.

Guzmán López's guilt declaration arrives after negotiation months with the US government, so experts estimate that the parties reached an agreement that would allow Ovid to obtain judicial benefits

The prosecutors of the case alleged that Ovid and his brothers, known as “Los Chapitos”, assumed the leadership of the Sinaloa cartel after the capture of “El Chapo”, who remains in prison in the US fulfilling a life sentence.

Under his command he would have been a millionaire operation to introduce large amounts of cocaine, heroin, methamphetamines and marijuana in the US.

A document presented to a Federal Court of New York also accuses “Los Chapitos” of being “the most powerful faction of the poster and the larger, violent and prolific fentanyl traffic operation in the world” ..

Drug trafficking, and especially Fentanilo, has been one of the issues that has recently tensioned the relationship between the US and Mexico, especially since Donald Trump assumed the presidency in January.

Now, Mexican president Claudia Sheinbaum has questioned that the details of the agreement reached by USA Guzmán were not known.

Detention of Ovidio Guzmán in Culiacán, Mexico, in 2019. — Photo foot, In 2019, Ovidio Guzmán was arrested but the Mexican authorities let him escape shortly after.

Twice detained

Ovid was arrested in January 2023 in Culiacán, in the Mexican state of Sinaloa, and subsequently extradited.

His arrest required of a great police and army deployment in which 10 soldiers and 19 alleged criminals died.

Previously, in 2019, he had been arrested, but the AMLO Government ordered his release, given the bloody violence that his arrest unleashed in Culiacán.

In that episode, baptized as “El Culiacanazo”, hundreds of hitmen blocked the streets of the city, took hostage to twenty soldiers and attacked buildings where family members of military resided.

“The mouse” is one of the four children of the relationship of “El Chapo” with his second wife, Griselda López Pérez.

Since 2012, Washington included it in a list of drug traffickers.

He is the first child of the drug trafficker in declaring himself guilty.

Ten months after the extradition of Guzmán López, his brother Joaquín arrived in Texas in a private plane and gave the US authorities together with Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, who founded the Sinaloa cartel with “El Chapo”.

Zambada said he was kidnapped by the son of his old partner and taken against his will to the US, where he is now imprisoned with 77 years and seeks to disable the risk of death penalty involved in his positions.

That alleged betrayal unleashed an internal war in the poster between forces of “El Mayo” and the “Chapitos” in Sinaloa, in an unstoppable wave of violence that adds about 1,500 dead and many other missing according to local estimates.

Iván and Alfredo Guzmán Salazar, two “chapitos” steps of the Guzmán López, are still fugitive.