A scion of one of the world’s most powerful crime families is expected to plead guilty to criminal charges in Chicago on Friday, as Donald Trump’s administration escalates pressure on Mexico over the drugs trade.
Ovidio Guzmán, the son of notorious Sinaloa cartel founder Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, is scheduled to appear in court and has signed a document saying he wishes to plead guilty in a criminal case. The US blames the cartel for producing and trafficking the deadly opioid fentanyl, which kills tens of thousands of Americans a year.
If Guzmán agrees a plea deal with US authorities, such an agreement could hand Washington a trove of new information. High-profile criminals who take plea deals sometimes become co-operating witnesses for the government, providing information or testimony against former associates.
Guzmán is one of four of El Chapo’s sons, known as “Los Chapitos”, who US prosecutors say were controlling figures in the Sinaloa cartel. They oversaw a generational shift in the group towards synthetic opioids, away from plant-based drugs such as cocaine and marijuana.
Chicago prosecutors have charged Guzmán with drugs offences, money laundering and firearms offences. Separately, New York prosecutors have charged Guzmán with six counts, including money laundering, fentanyl offences and machine gun possession.
A public court filing in the New York case says Guzmán wishes to plead guilty to criminal charges and the charges there would be transferred to Chicago for pleading and sentencing. The document does not specify which of the charges he would plead guilty to.
The US district court for the Northern District of Illinois, in Chicago, lists a “change of plea” hearing in his case on Friday. He had previously pleaded not guilty in the Chicago case.
Guzmán’s lawyer, as well as New York and Chicago prosecutors, declined to comment on the case ahead of the hearing. He is being held in custody in the US, according to Chicago prosecutors.
Guzmán, known as “El Ratón” or “The Mouse”, would be one of the most senior members of the Sinaloa Cartel to plead guilty. Mexico extradited him in 2023.
In May, 17 members of Guzmán’s family were escorted across the border in sunglasses carrying large suitcases in what a Mexican official said was “clearly” part of a negotiation with US authorities.
Any co-operation by Guzmán would be an asset to Trump’s administration, which has significantly increased the pressure on Mexico over the violent criminal groups that control trade routes and territory.
Trump declared six groups terrorist organisations and accused the Mexican government of an “intolerable alliance” with them. He has also imposed a 25 per cent tariff on some exports from Mexico, the US’s largest trading partner, over fentanyl and migration, and floated the idea of military intervention.
Mexican media is filled with speculation over whether sitting officials may be under investigation or have already lost their visas. Last week the US Treasury sanctioned three Mexican banks accused of facilitating the fentanyl trade via China, alarming the financial sector.
Any agreement with Guzmán could “open up investigative avenues” for US prosecutors, said Mike Vigil, former chief of international operations for the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). That could enable them “to go after politicians, for example, that are protecting the Sinaloa cartel, businesspeople, bankers, what have you, that launder money”, he said.
US prosecutors have poured resources into taking down the leaders of Sinaloa, and Mexico’s drug trafficking landscape has shifted since Ovidio’s father, “El Chapo” who co-founded the group, was sentenced to life in prison in 2019.
Last year, Guzmán’s brother Joaquín helped kidnap their former partner Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada and brought him to the US, with both now in custody, according to an account Zambada provided to his lawyer and confirmed by Mexican authorities. Since then, their home state of Sinaloa has exploded into a war between factions of the cartel, which operates across the Americas, Asia and Europe.
Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum has broadly increased security co-operation with the US compared with her predecessor Andrés Manuel López Obrador, but has pushed back against its handling of several high-profile cartel cases.
She reminded voters in her morning news conferences that 10 Mexican soldiers died capturing Ovidio Guzmán and said the US has not shared enough information on the other Sinaloa-related cases.
“They have a policy of not negotiating with terrorists. If there is a deal, where does that leave the position of ‘not negotiating with terrorists’?” she said this month.
The DEA is offering $10mn for two other brothers still at large in Mexico and waging a battle against Zambada’s faction. But after a year of heavy fighting, security experts have been alarmed by reports that they have formed an alliance with its main national rivals, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel.
“[It] has the potential to expand these groups’ territories, resources, firepower, and access to corrupt officials . . . and could serve to increase northbound drug flow and southbound weapons trafficking,” the DEA wrote in a May report.
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