Two of drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán Loera’s sons have confirmed they’re negotiating for a plea cope with the US authorities, an lawyer for the pair confirmed throughout a federal court docket standing listening to in Chicago on Monday.
The listening to confirmed an August report from the Mexican information group Milenio that Ovidio Guzmán and Joaquín Guzmán López have been negotiating a deal for a extra lenient sentence and to change into cooperating witnesses for the US authorities.
Throughout Monday’s listening to for Ovidio Guzmán, the federal decide additionally allowed for him and his brother to be represented by the identical lawyer, Jeffrey Lichtman, who represented El Chapo throughout his sensational 2019 federal trial.
Quite a lot of cooperating witnesses with the US authorities testified in opposition to El Chapo throughout his trial. On Monday, El Chapo submitted a letter to the Brooklyn federal court docket, the place his trial was held, requesting a brand new trial, citing “ineffective” illustration and “unlawful” extradition to New York.
Ovidio Guzmán and Joaquín Guzmán López, together with their different two brothers nonetheless at massive in Mexico, have been the leaders of “Los Chapitos”, a faction of the Sinaloa cartel in Mexico, one of many greatest organized crime teams in Mexico.
For years, their father, El Chapo, was one of many leaders of the Sinaloa cartel. El Chapo’s sons stand accused within the northern district of Illinois of a number of crimes, together with conspiracy to proceed a legal enterprise, conspiracy to distribute a managed substance and others.
Ovidio Guzmán was arrested in Mexico in 2023 and later extradited to the US. Joaquín Guzmán López was arrested in July of this yr, alongside Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, the longtime, secretive and elusive chief of the Sinaloa cartel.
El Mayo accused Joaquín Guzmán López of kidnapping him in Mexico, then flying into US territory to show him over to American officers. The Mexican lawyer common’s workplace has launched an investigation into the occasions main as much as El Mayo’s kidnapping and arrest. El Mayo claimed in a letter that he was forcibly overpowered by Joaquín Guzmán López’s males, after being deceived into arriving to a gathering with the governor and one other politician within the Mexican metropolis of Culiacán.
Final week, a listening to for El Mayo’s case at a Brooklyn federal court docket clarified that US officers have been nonetheless contemplating whether or not they need to pursue the demise penalty in opposition to El Mayo. His subsequent listening to is ready for 15 January 2025.
Since El Chapo’s 2019 trial, tensions between the 2 factions of the Sinaloa cartel, Los Chapitos and El Mayo’s group, have continued to rise, after one among El Mayo’s sons testified in opposition to El Chapo. Since Joaquín Guzmán López’s kidnapping of El Mayo, the 2 factions have been engaged in an all-out warfare in Mexico, with each teams trying to decimate the opposite for drug trafficking routes and full management over the Sinaloa cartel.
The Sinaloa cartel has lengthy been Mexico’s greatest organized crime group, dominating the drug commerce, partaking in battle with rival teams and corrupting politicians.
On Wednesday of final week, Genaro García Luna, Mexico’s former safety minister and the architect of the Mexican “warfare on medicine”, was sentenced to 38 years in jail for working with the Sinaloa cartel.
Throughout his time in workplace, García Luna had management over Mexico’s federal police and established a detailed relationship with the US authorities, working with the CIA, FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration, and different intelligence and regulation enforcement companies. Cooperating witnesses testified throughout García Luna’s 2023 trial that, throughout his time in workplace, Sinaloa cartel leaders paid him tens of millions of {dollars} in bribes in trade for cover for his or her drug trafficking operations.
Ovidio Guzmán and Joaquín Guzmán López’s subsequent listening to is ready for 7 January 2025, the place it could be confirmed whether or not they’ll signal a plea deal to change into cooperating witnesses for the US authorities. Their lawyer didn’t say whether or not they could, or might not, cooperate within the authorities’s case in opposition to El Mayo.
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