Ovid Guzmán López, who declared this Friday guilty of charges related to drug trafficking and organized crime in a Chicago court, is one of the most famous children of the Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán capo, who became famous for causing chaos in Mexico and being the first of them who enters an American prison.
Guzmán López, 35 and known as “El Mouse”, declared himself innocent at first but changed his mind after reaching an agreement with the Prosecutor’s Office, which will predictably translate into a reduction in sentence in exchange for privileged information about the Sinaloa poster and about corruption in Mexico.
According to Brookings researcher Vanda Felbab-Brown, this agreement with the Prosecutor’s Office “was expected.”
For Ovid, “the alternative was the fate of his father: to spend the rest of his life in very difficult conditions in a maximum security prison in Colorado, while drug traffickers who have declared themselves guilty of the charges have faced much lower sentences,” the director of the Fentanyl Epidemic in North America and the global reach of synthetic opiooids in Brookings explains to Efe.
Lee also: Ovid Guzmán López, son of ‘El Chapo’, declares himself guilty of drug charges in the US
The ‘culiacanazo’ and the millionaire reward of Washington
“The mouse”, a nickname that “El Chapito” made its own to the point of using the Mickey Mouse symbol in its social profiles, achieved international fame after the ‘Culiacanazo’ or Battle of Culiacán on October 17, 2019 when he was first arrested as part of the Headquarters of the Sinaloa cartel.
After his arrest of Elite military, the city of Culiacán, in Sinaloa, became a battlefield in which several military was taken as hostages by “Los Chapitos” -a group formed by four of the children of the Chapo.
The arrest followed a wave of shooting with automatic weapons through the streets and fires of vehicles, so the then president of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, chose to free Guzmán López.
In December 2021 and given the apparent rise of Ovid, Washington offered five million dollars in December 2021 for information that facilitated the arrest or conviction of Guzmán López and his brothers.
EU until he pointed out that “El Mouse” ordered the murder of a “popular Mexican singer” who did not want to go to his wedding and since 2012 the US government included it in the list of international drug traffickers “Kingpin Act” because they considered that he played “a significant role in his father’s activities.”
According to Felbab-Brown, Guzmán López was a crucial figure for “the development of the fentanyl market in the United States.”
According to the Department of Justice, Guzmán López and his brother Joaquín – who is also in an US prison and is expected Canada.
The arrest of ‘El Mouse’ and the transfer of his family
At the beginning of 2023, Guzmán López was captured for the second time in Culiacán, a few days before the visit of the US president, Joe Biden, for the North American Leaders Summit.
Like his father, “the mouse” had an escape tunnel that drove from the interior parking lot of his backyard to the outside of the complex, but did not have time to use it to escape the Mexican army.
On this occasion, a wave of violence was also unleashed in the city of Culiacán, but the release of the drug trafficker was not achieved.
“The mouse” was transferred to a Mexican federal prison, where he remained until his extradition to the US, on September 15 of that year.
He faced an audience three days later for the reading of the five charges against him, of which he declared himself not guilty.
He was accused of conspiring to distribute drugs, be part of a criminal company, export narcotics to the United States, make financial transactions with the product of illegal activities and use and carry firearms without permission.
In May, Mexico confirmed that 17 members of the family of “El Mouse” who were not sought by Mexican authorities voluntarily delivered to US authorities as part of a “negotiation” between Capo and Washington.
“That his family is going to the United States is obviously because of this negotiation or opportunity criteria that the Department of Justice himself gives,” said the Secretary of Citizen Security and Protection (SSPC) of Mexico, Omar García Harfuch, during an interview with Grupo Formula.
According to Mexican local media, the 17 relatives- including Griselda López, the second wife of “El Chapo” and mother of Ovidio Guzmán López,- they crossed on foot with at least two bags each and together they carried approximately 70,000 dollars.
With EFE information
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