By Brendan O’Brien and Luc Cohen
CHICAGO (Reuters) – A son of convicted Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman is set to make his initial U.S. court appearance on Tuesday after his arrest last week in a dramatic operation in which he delivered his father’s former partner to U.S. authorities.
Joaquin Guzman Lopez was indicted in 2023 along with three of his brothers – known as the “Chapitos,” or little Chapos – on U.S. drug trafficking and money laundering charges involving their assumption of leadership of their father’s Sinaloa Cartel after his 2017 extradition to the United States.
El Chapo, convicted on murder and drug charges in 2019, is serving a life sentence in a maximum security prison in Colorado.
Guzman Lopez, who is in his late 30s, is due to appear in Chicago federal court. He was taken into U.S. custody on Thursday night near El Paso, Texas alongside Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, the septuagenarian accused drug kingpin who founded the Sinaloa Cartel together with El Chapo.
Guzman Lopez duped Zambada into boarding a propeller plane in Mexico by saying they were going to scope out real estate in the country’s north, according to U.S. officials familiar with the situation. Instead, the plane brought both men to the United States – where Guzman Lopez had planned to surrender, but Zambada had not.
Zambada pleaded not guilty to drug charges last week in El Paso federal court. His lawyer, Frank Perez, disputed the version of events offered by U.S. officials. Perez said that Guzman Lopez “forcibly kidnapped” Zambada and brought him to the United States against his will.
Jeffrey Lichtman, Guzman Lopez’s lawyer, declined to comment on the kidnapping allegation other than to say: “Mr. Zambada is free to employ any defense he’d like against the charges he faces.”
Mexico has opened an investigation into the events leading to the arrest.
One of Guzman Lopez’s brothers, 34-year-old Ovidio Guzman, was extradited from Mexico last year and pleaded not guilty to U.S. drug trafficking charges. The two other indicted brothers, Ivan Guzman Salazar and Alfredo Guzman Salazar, remain at large.
U.S. authorities have said that the four “Chapitos” revived their father’s drug empire after he was arrested by embracing fentanyl, a synthetic opioid that helped supercharge an epidemic north of the border.
(Reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Chicago and Luc Cohen in New York; Editing by Will Dunham)
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