Ovidio Guzmán pleads guilty in Chicago court

Ovidio is the first member of the Guzmán clan to plead guilty in a United States court. El Ratón (The Mouse) did so this Friday before Judge Sharon Johnson of Chicago District Court, admitting to four counts of drug trafficking and organized crime. Guzmán López has reached a deal with the Prosecutor’s Office, which will request a reduction in his sentence in exchange for providing “substantial assistance” to authorities. It is not yet known what the youngest son of what was once Mexico’s most powerful crime family will offer to serve fewer years in prison.

This has been a key hearing for Ovidio Guzmán. It’s the next step in a path already outlined by his lawyer and which he also reinforced a few days ago: El Ratón has become a cooperating witness for the U.S. Attorney’s Office. In early July, he asked the New York court to transfer his case to the Illinois court—which prosecutors accepted—and in that same document, he signed for the first time pleading guilty to the six counts pending in this East Coast court. He has five more pending charges in Chicago and one more in the District of Columbia.

Having a string of 12 counts against him, a father sentenced to life in a maximum-security prison, and a brother, Joaquín Guzmán López, also detained in the United States, forced Ovidio Guzmán to change his strategy. The 35-year-old drug trafficker was arrested in January 2023 in Jesús María, a town very close to Culiacán, the capital of Sinaloa, where he had already thwarted his first arrest attempt in 2019. This became known as the Culiacanazo, due to the brutality with which the Sinaloa Cartel responded to prevent Mexican authorities from taking El Ratón. They failed to prevent it two years ago, but the toll was deadly: 10 soldiers and 19 civilians defending Guzmán were killed.

In September 2023 he was extradited to the United States, where in his initial hearings, he pleaded not guilty to all charges. The sentences for the crimes he was accused of could lead him to share the same fate as his father: life in prison. Furthermore, the accusations against him also implicated his three older brothers: Iván Archivaldo, Jesús Alfredo and Joaquín. All became priority targets for the United States, which was after them for flooding the streets of America with fentanyl, an opioid responsible for tens of thousands of deaths each year.

The game took a turn on July 25, 2024. That day, Joaquín Guzmán, aka El Güero, arranged a meeting with his godfather and his father’s former associate, Ismael El Mayo Zambada, one of the world’s most wanted drug lords. In a betrayal worthy of a movie, the Chapito kidnapped Zambada and put him on a plane to hand him over to U.S. authorities. After landing in New Mexico, both are now in custody. That operation, in which the Mexican government continues to ask the United States to clarify its involvement, unleashed the fratricidal war that is now bleeding Sinaloa dry.

This week, it emerged that Joaquín Guzmán López’s next court appearance will be on September 15, two months later than scheduled. Everything indicates that El Güero is also preparing to collaborate with the U.S. Attorney’s Office. These moves gain significance now that the future of Mexican drug trafficking is also being decided in U.S. courts. The battle between Los Chapitos and Los Mayitos has a secondary stage in the trials of the Guzmán López brothers and that of Zambada. El Mayo, 72, is also doing everything possible to avoid the death penalty.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has criticized the “lack of coherence” of the U.S. government, which declared Mexican cartels terrorist organizations in January and yet continues to negotiate with their representatives. This is especially true after 17 members of El Chapo’s family tiptoed across the border in May to be met by FBI agents, apparently as part of the negotiations with El Ratón. The president commemorated the soldiers who died in the operation to capture Ovidio Guzmán and called on the U.S. for greater coordination: “It’s important for our country.”

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