17 family members of notorious cartel leader enter U.S. in deal with Trump administration, Mexico says
Mexico's security chief confirmed Tuesday that 17 family members of cartel leaders crossed into the U.S. last week as part of a deal between a son of the former head of the Sinaloa Cartel and the Trump administration.
Mexican Security Secretary Omar García Harfuch confirmed a report by independent journalist Luis Chaparro that family members of Ovidio Guzman Lopez, who was extradited to the United States in 2023, had entered the U.S.
Guzmán Lopez is one of the brothers left running a faction of the Sinaloa Cartel after notorious capo Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán was imprisoned in the U.S. Video showed the family members walking across the border from Tijuana with their suitcases to waiting U.S. agents.
Rumors had circulated last week that the younger Guzmán would plead guilty to avoid trial for several drug trafficking charges in the U.S. after being extradited in 2023. Mexican security forces captured Guzmán López, alias "the Mouse," in January 2023 in Culiacán, capital of Sinaloa state.
This frame grab from video, provided by the Mexican government, shows Ovidio Guzman Lopez being detained in Culiacan, Mexico, Oct. 17, 2019.
CEPROPIE via AP File
García Harfuch confirmed the family members' crossing in a radio interview and said it was clear to Mexican authorities that they were doing so after negotiations between Guzmán López and the U.S. government.
He believed that was the case because the former cartel boss, whose lawyer said in January he had entered negotiations with U.S. authorities, had been pointing fingers at members of other criminal organizations likely as part of a cooperation agreement.
"It is evident that his family is going to the U.S. because of a negotiation or an offer that the Department of Justice is giving him," Garcia Harfuch said.
He said that none of the family members were being pursued by Mexican authorities and that the government of U.S. President Donald Trump "has to share information" with Mexican prosecutors, something it has not yet done.
The confirmation by García Harfuch comes the same day that the U.S. Attorney General's Office announced it was charging a number of top cartel leaders with "narcoterrorism" for the first time since the Trump administration declared a number of cartels as foreign terrorist organizations.
While prosecutors declined to comment on the video of the family, U.S. Attorney Adam Gordon for the Southern District of California and other officials sent a warning to cartel members, repeatedly citing the Sinaloa Cartel by name.
"Let me be direct, to the leaders of the Sinaloa Cartel, you are no longer the hunters, you are the hunted. You will be betrayed by your friends, you will be hounded by your enemies, and you will ultimately find yourself and your face here in a courtroom in the Southern District of California," Gordon said.
Also on Tuesday, U.S. officials unveiled an indictment against two alleged Sinaloa Cartel leaders on narco-terrorism charges -- including a father and son who prosecutors say ran one of the largest and most sophisticated fentanyl production networks.
EL Chapo's sons
The U.S. accuses El Chapo's sons — known as the Chapitos — of taking over the Sinaloa cartel after the capture of their father. The cartel is one of six Mexican drug trafficking groups designated terrorist organizations by U.S. President Donald Trump.
According to a 2023 indictment by the U.S. Justice Department, the Chapitos and their cartel associates used corkscrews, electrocution and hot chiles to torture their rivals while some of their victims were "fed dead or alive to tigers."
Ovidio Guzman is accused of conspiring to ship cocaine, fentanyl, heroin, methamphetamine and marijuana into the United States.
Another son, Joaquin Guzman Lopez, was arrested after arriving in the United States last July in a private plane with cartel co-founder Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada, who claimed he had been kidnapped.
The arrests sparked cartel infighting that has left more than 1,200 people dead and 1,400 missing in Sinaloa state, located in northwestern Mexico.
El Chapo, the Sinaloa cartel's founder, is serving a life sentence in a maximum security prison in Colorado after being convicted in 2019 on charges including drug trafficking, money laundering and weapons-related offenses.
In 2023, El Chapo sent an "SOS" message to Mexico's president, alleging that he has been subjected to "psychological torment" in prison.
Agence France-Presse contributed to this report.
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