Joaquín’s children El Chapo Guzmán is in negotiations to collaborate with the United States justice system. This was confirmed this Monday by the Guzmán family’s lawyer, Jeffrey Lichtman, who put an end to weeks of speculation about a possible plea deal for Los Chapitos. Lichtman made the revelations at the first hearing of Ovidio Guzmán, alias The Mousein a Chicago court, after the capture of Ishmael May Zambada and Joaquín Guzmán López, his older brother, at the end of July. Judge Sharon Johnson Coleman ordered that a joint hearing be held with both brothers scheduled for January 7.
This is the first time that Lichtman, who represents both brothers, acknowledges the negotiations with the authorities. The versions about a possible collaboration of Los Chapitos for betray and betray his former partners in exchange for a reduced sentence they gained strength in recent days, after the media in Mexico reported that Joaquín and Ovidio Guzmán have been transferred out of prison in recent weeks. After a brief hearing of about 15 minutes, the lawyer clarified before reporters that his clients remain in United States custody and attributed, in large part, the movements to security issues at the federal prison in Chicago.
El Mayo accused Joaquín Guzmán in a letter released by its lawyers The Güerohis godson, to kidnap him and hand him over to the US security forces in exchange for improving the legal situation of his brother, extradited in September of last year. It is possible that the hearing in January will be the end of months of speculation surrounding the pact between El Chapo’s heirs and the United States, in case both parties agree on the conditions for the capos’ surrender. In Mexico, the men of El Mayo and La Chapiza fight a war for control of the Sinaloa Cartel since last September 9which has wreaked chaos and left thousands dead in Culiacán and other municipalities, a historical bastion of the criminal organization. Zambada continues his judicial process in New York and appeared last Friday before the Brooklyn court, the epicenter of the United States judicial offensive against the Mexican cartels.
Following the publication of the El Mayo letter in mid-August, Lichtman was blunt and repeatedly denied the possibility of a plea deal. The last time was just last Friday, when he told the Telemundo television network that there was no such agreement. The lawyer of Los Chapitos, who He also defended El Chapo in his 2019 trialhad been careful lately with what he shared with the media. However, as the investigations into the capture of El Mayo have progressed, the governments of Mexico and the United States alluded that Los Chapitos have established secret negotiations and informal contacts with US agencies for years to finalize their surrender. That is the most plausible hypothesis behind Zambada’s arrest, which has also become the main line of investigation of the Mexican authorities.
The Attorney General’s Office (FGR) opened its own investigation to clarify what happened in Mexico during the hours before El Mayo’s arrest at a rural airport near the border city of El Paso. In its latest statement, published on Sunday, the FGR confirmed that Héctor Cuén, former mayor of Culiacán and elected federal deputy, was murdered on the same farm where Zambada claimed he was kidnapped and tied up by Los Chapitos. The 76-year-old capo stated that he was subdued after being summoned to a meeting with Cuén and his main political adversary, Governor Rubén Rocha Moya.
The ministerial authorities announced that They found traces of Cuén’s blood at the crime scenein the first revelations about material evidence after the assassination. In its previous statement, at the end of August, the FGR linked Ovidio Guzmán with the kidnapping of El Mayo and said that it was investigating whether he participated as one of the intellectual authors who planned the coup against his former partner. There was no statement in that sense in the last bulletin of the public ministry. Joaquín Guzmán López is the main suspect of the Prosecutor’s Office. Rocha has denied any ties to drug trafficking.
After weeks of silence, the open cases against El Mayo and Los Chapitos in the United States are intertwined again. The Guzmán brothers were required by the judge to appear together for the first time since El Güero surrendered on July 25. Zambada had his first meeting in New York with judge Brian Coganthe same one who sentenced El Chapo to life imprisonment in 2019 and Genaro García Luna last week to 38 years. She will meet him again on January 15, a week after her former partner’s children have their next hearing in Illinois. While the game of denunciations and betrayal continues on the other side of the border, Sinaloa burns. Nine other murders were recorded in the State last weekend, according to official data.
