CHICAGO (CN) - The son of notorious drug kingpin "El Chapo" entered a guilty plea on Friday in connection to federal drug trafficking and money laundering charges.
Ovidio Guzman Lopez, also known as "El Raton" or "The Mouse," was hit with criminal charges after he took the reins of the Sinaloa Cartel following his father's extradition from Mexico in 2017. The 35-year-old entered a plea agreement on Friday, which stipulated that he would plead guilty to drug conspiracy and continuing a criminal enterprise. The latter charge carries a mandatory sentence of life in prison.
Prosecutors set the sentencing guidelines for life in prison and $80 million in fines.
They write in the charging documents that El Raton and his three brothers - collectively known as "The Chapitos" - moved large amounts of cocaine, cannabis and heroin into the U.S. from Central and South America through the Sinaloa Cartel. Federal prosecutors targeted the brothers specifically for their purported role in the cartel's fentanyl trafficking.
Guzman Lopez is only one of the four Chapitos in U.S. or Mexican custody, though all of them are listed as defendants in the sweeping criminal case against their father, Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, and about a dozen other Sinaloa-linked individuals. Mexican authorities arrested in 2023 El Raton at his home in Culiacan, the capital of Mexican state Sinaloa, which is the drug cartel's namesake.
"The indictment alleges that the Chapitos moved drugs and money on a grand scale, and secured and maintained power with intimidation and violence," Jim Lee, chief of the criminal investigations department of the Internal Revenue Service, said in a news release announcing the charges. "Today, we say, no more. For the special agents of IRS Criminal Investigation, the work of investigating dangerous criminals never stops. This indictment shows our commitment to aggressively go after those committing financial crimes who are profiting from their illegal activities no matter who they are or where they commit the crime."
In a separate criminal indictment filed in New York against El Raton's brothers, Ivan Archivaldo Guzman Salazar and Jess Alfredo Guzman Salazar, prosecutors said El Raton bore the primary responsibility of overseeing the cartel's fentanyl manufacturing and trafficking activities.
The indictment described how the Chapitos asserted their dominance over rival drug traffickers, uncooperative government officials and former employees through fear, intimidation and violence.
Prosecutors said the brothers used their powerful security apparatus to demolish unsupportive businesses, capture contested territory, intimidate civilians and attack law enforcement. Of the more gruesome accusations, prosecutors said the Chapitos tortured the people they captured by electrocuting them and, in some cases, even by feeding their victims (dead or alive) to their pet tigers.
The brothers soundly denied prosecutors' allegations in a 2022 letter shared with The Associated Press. They say that the federal government is making them the fall guys for comprehensive drug trafficking issues.
"We have never produced, manufactured or commercialized fentanyl nor any of its derivatives," the letter said. "We are victims of persecution and have been made into scapegoats."
El Chapo himself was convicted by a federal jury in Brooklyn on drug trafficking and criminal enterprise charges in 2019. He was sentenced to life plus 30 years in prison and is currently serving out his sentence in a supermax federal prison in central Colorado.
Source: Courthouse News Service
