Relatives of El Chapo enter U.S. as part of ‘negotiation,’ Mexico’s security secretary says

Cartel boss Joaquin Guzman is escorted by Mexican security forces at a Navy hangar in Mexico City, Mexico, in January 2016. (Susana Gonzalez/Bloomberg/Getty Images/File via CNN Newsource)

Several family members of Mexican drug trafficker Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán have entered the United States as part of negotiations in a case against one of his sons, Mexico’s Security Secretary Omar García Harfuch told the Mexican network Radio Fórmula on Tuesday.

El Chapo’s son Ovidio Guzmán López is facing drug trafficking charges in the US over his alleged role in the Sinaloa Cartel, which his father co-founded. Ovidio was extradited to the U.S. in September 2023, several months after Mexican authorities arrested him in a large-scale operation that resulted in at least 29 deaths.

Days after his extradition, he pleaded not guilty to the drug trafficking charges in a U.S. court. But last week, he reached an agreement to change his plea, according to a court document reviewed by CNN. The document did not specify details of the agreement.

“It’s clear that with his family going to the United States, it’s connected to this negotiation or plea deal opportunity provided by the (U.S.) Department of Justice itself,” García Harfuch told Radio Fórmula.

Several Mexican media outlets reported Tuesday that 17 of Ovidio’s relatives had crossed the border into the United States. CNN has requested more information from the Mexican Ministry of Security and Citizen Protection, as well as the US Department of Justice.

García Harfuch added that the relatives who left the country were not wanted by Mexican authorities.

‘Los Chapitos’

Ovidio is one of four sons of El Chapo who have been charged in the US with various crimes over their alleged roles in the Sinaloa Cartel.

Collectively known as “Los Chapitos,” the brothers are thought to have been brought into the cartel as teenagers to learn the ins and outs of the organization, according to the think tank InSight Crime. Their roles became more prominent around the mid-2010s, roughly when their father was captured and extradited to the United States.

Another son of El Chapo, Joaquín Guzmán López, is also in U.S. custody. He was arrested in July 2024 when he flew into the United States on a private plane from Mexico alongside Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, a co-founder of the cartel who the brothers had been at odds with.

Joaquín had allegedly organized his arrest and that of El Mayo by luring him on the flight to examine a piece of land he thought was in Mexico, an official familiar with the operation had told CNN at the time. Instead, the plane landed in El Paso, Texas, where federal agents arrested them.

Mexico Secretary of Security Rosa Icela Rodriguez said in August that Joaquín had reached an agreement with his brother Ovidio “so that they would go to the United States to surrender.”

However, an attorney for Ovidio told CNN that Rodriguez’s claim was “a complete and utter fabrication.” An attorney for El Mayo said he “neither surrendered nor negotiated any terms with the US government” and described the flight to the US as a violent kidnapping.

Two other sons of El Chapo, Ivan Archivaldo and Jesus Alfredo Guzmán Salazar, are still at large. The US has accused them of leading large-scale drug trafficking operations for the cartel and has issued US$10 million bounties for information leading to each of their arrests.

Mexican forces had previously arrested Ovidio in a 2019 operation that ended in failure. Shortly after he was detained in October of that year, the cartel quickly mobilized dozens of gunmen to battle Mexican authorities and try to free him.

Ovidio was eventually released on the orders of then-President Andrés Manuel López Obrador to stop the violence. He then went into hiding until his second arrest and eventual extradition in 2023.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

Verónica Calderón and Michael Rios, CNN