Son of drug lord ‘El Chapo’ pleads not guilty to Chicago drug trafficking charges

SOPHIA TAREEN, Associated Press

7 minutes ago

This image from the U.S. State Department shows Joaquín Guzmán López. Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, a historic leader of Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel, and Joaquín Guzmán López, a son of another notorious cartel leader, were arrested by U.S. authorities in Texas, the U.S. Department of Justice said Thursday, July 25, 2024. (U.S. Department of State via AP)

CHICAGO (AP) — Joaquín Guzmán López, a son of notorious drug lord “El Chapo,” pleaded not guilty Tuesday to drug trafficking and other charges, days after a stunning arrest in the U.S.

Guzmán López, dressed in an orange jumpsuit, stood with his feet shackled as federal prosecutors in Chicago outlined a five-count indictment that included weapons charges. He refused a Spanish interpreter and answered most of U.S. District Judge Sharon Coleman’s questions, designed to determine whether he understood the proceedings, with a simple, “Yes, Your Honor.”

Guzmán López and Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, longtime members of Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel, were arrested by U.S. authorities last week near El Paso, Texas, the Justice Department said. Both men, who face multiple charges in the U.S., oversaw the smuggling of “tens of thousands of pounds of narcotics into the United States, along with associated violence,” the FBI said.

Zambada has eluded U.S. authorities for years, saying he is more involved in the cartel’s day-to-day operations than his more famous and flashy boss, Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzmán, who was sentenced to life in prison in the U.S. in 2019 and is the father of Guzmán López, 38.

Guzmán’s sons have in recent years led a faction of the cartel known as Little Chapos, or “Chapitos,” which has been identified as a major exporter of fentanyl to the U.S. market. Last year, U.S. prosecutors unsealed sweeping indictments against more than two dozen members of the Sinaloa cartel, Guzmán López and his brothers, in an investigation into fentanyl trafficking.

Security was tight during Tuesday’s hearing, with cell phones, laptops and other electronics banned from the courtroom.

Guzmán López remained jailed in Chicago and was due back in court on September 30.

Zambada pleaded not guilty last week to multiple drug trafficking charges and was being held without bail. He is due back in court later this week.

The men’s mysterious arrest fueled theories about how federal authorities accomplished this, prompting Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador to take the unusual step of publicly calling on drug cartels not to fight each other.

Zambada’s lawyer, Frank Perez, alleged that his client was kidnapped by Guzmán López and taken to the U.S. aboard a private plane that landed near El Paso. Perez has disputed claims that his client was tricked into flying into the country.

But Guzmán López’s lawyer, Jeffrey Lichtman, who has also represented other family members, rejected those ideas without going into details.

“There’s been a tremendous amount of rumors and stuff in the press. I don’t know what’s real. I don’t know what’s not real,” he said. “But it shouldn’t surprise anyone that there’s a story that seems to change every few minutes, which means a lot of what’s being leaked to the press is false.”

He added that “there is no cooperation with the government and there never has been.”

The US government had offered a reward of up to $15 million for help in Zambada’s capture.

His arrest follows the arrests of other Sinaloa cartel figures, including one of his sons and another “El Chapo” son, Ovidio Guzmán López, who pleaded not guilty in Chicago last year to drug trafficking charges. Zambada’s son pleaded guilty in 2021 in a U.S. federal court in San Diego to being a leader in the Sinaloa cartel.