One of the sons of the famous Mexican drug trafficker Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman pleaded guilty on Friday to drug trafficking leaders in the context of an agreement with American justice, according to court documents and local media.
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Known as “El Raton”, Ovidio Guzman, 35, is the only one of the four sons of the Sinaloa cartel, who purges him a life sentence in the United States, to have heard from the American justice.
Ovidio Guzman had been captured in January 2023 in a spectacular operation which had left at least 29 dead and launched intense exchanges of gunshots between the Mexican police and men in arms in Culiacan, in northwestern Mexico.
He had been extradited in the United States nine months later and has been having a reduction in sentence since last October with the prosecution, while Washington accuses the fentanyl traffic cartel to the United States, where this synthetic drug caused tens of thousands of deaths by overdose.
AFP
According to local media, Ovidio Guzman and his lawyers signed the agreement on Friday which was ratified in the process by a Federal Court of Chicago.
This agreement could allow Guzman to serve a less severe sentence than that of his father, sentenced in 2019 to life in prison, and to the American authorities to obtain “precious information” on the cartel of SINALOA, told AFP Mike Vigil, a former operations chief of the Federal Antidrogue Agency (DEA).
Ovidio Guzman could, for example, deliver information on the origin of the chemical precursors used by the cartel for the production of methamphetamine and fentanyl, or on political and business worlds who ensure its protection.
Ovidio Guzman’s brother, Joaquin Guzman Lopez, another important member of the Sinaloa cartel, could also reach an agreement with American justice and serve, if it is not already the case, of a constituent.
Joaquin Guzman Lopez was arrested in July 2024 with Ismael Zambada, alias “El Mayo”, the co -founder of the cartel, Texas, very close to the Mexican border, after landing on site on a private plane.
Zambada said he was trapped by Joaquin Guzman Lopez, caught up, kidnapped and forcefully taken to the plane to be handed over to the American authorities.
In the wake of this arrest, clashes have multiplied between the two cartel factions (that of the Guzman brothers and that of Zambada) to give around 1,200 dead in Mexico and some 1400 missing, according to official figures.
