The US government has Joaquin already Ovidio Guzmán López against the ropes. Options are beginning to run out for children of El Chapo Guzman who are detained in the neighboring country, leaving them the cooperation with the prosecution as the only way out.
Although since August sources close to the case revealed to the journalist Angel Hernandez for MILLENNIUM that the brothers were already negotiating his surrenderit was during the follow-up hearing of Ovidio Guzmán López in a Federal Court in the Northern District of Illinois where his attorney, Jeffrey Lichtmanconfirmed that both The Mouse as The Güero They seek to reach a plea agreement.
The confirmation of the negotiations arose in the midst of the uncertainty that they have left prison records of the children of the co-founder of the Sinaloa Cartel. In this regard, the litigant assured that both brothers have been under government protection at all times but in facilities that are outside the jurisdiction of the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOPfor its acronym in English).
Until the moment in which this note is written, Ovidio was re-entered into the Chicago Metropolitan Correctional Center while Joaquín is under the protection of the United States Marshals Service.
What is a plea agreement?
After the extradition of Ovidio Guzmán López in September 2023 and the voluntary surrender of his brother Joaquín on July 25, the alerts about a negotiation with the US government began to light up.
In the case of The Güerosince before his arrest at an airfield near El Paso, Texas, the son of El Chapo had already negotiated with personnel from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), not only his surrender but also the delivery of Ishmael May Zambadaas reported by United States security sources to Ángel Hernández to MILLENNIUM.
Joaquín Guzmán López also became informant of said US security agency, a decision that could benefit you facing the judicial process he faces in the Northern District of Illinois, Chicago.
And the conditions in which the Guzmán López brothers find themselves suggest that the negotiation will lead to a plea agreementwhich implies avoid a trial and potentially reduce sentences who, due to the charges against them, could reach a maximum of life imprisonment.
“Prosecutors will present the defendant with the opportunity to plead guilty to a lesser charge or to the original charge with a sentence less than the maximum (…) When the accused admits the crime, accept that he is guilty and that he can be ‘sentenced’ by the presiding judge, the only person authorized to impose a sentence. Sometimes the government agrees, as part of a plea agreement, not recommend a harsher sentence (such as additional prison time for certain reasons), but it is up to the judge to determine how the defendant will be punished,” a Department of Justice federal criminal procedure manual explains about the appeal.
The negotiation that the defense of the Guzmán López brothers has on the horizon with the Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) office of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Department of Justice could save them from spending a long period of time in prison just as one of the sons of Ismael Zambada García, former partner and friend of El Chapo.
Vicente Zambada Niebla: the ‘prodigal’ son of ‘El Mayo’
Being the son of the co-founder of the Sinaloa Cartel profiled him from an early age. Vicente Zambada Niebla to become the heir to the criminal empire that his father built.
Better known as The Prince of Narco either The Vicentillothe drug trafficking operations that his son May carried out for the Sinaloa Cartel, they consolidated it during the first decade of the 2000’s as one of the main leaders of the criminal organizationHowever, his destiny took a 180-degree turn in 2009.
“Military Personnel in coordination with elements belonging to the AFI assigned to the SIEDO, when carrying out patrols in said area in the early morning of March 18, 2009located in front of house number 269 on Raina Street in the aforementioned neighborhood, several individuals in recent model vehicles, carrying weapons for exclusive use and in a suspicious attitude, surprising in flagrante delicto VICENTE ZAMBADA NIEBLA (a) ‘EL VICENTILLO’ with 5 more individuals who served as his personal escort,” the Mexican government reported on the arrest of the son of the co-founder of the Sinaloa Cartel.
One year after his arrest, The Vicentillo was extradited to the United States where he negotiated a plea deal for the charges against him in the Northern District of Illinoisthe same one where Ovidio and Joaquín Guzmán López now fight their own battle.
The structuring of the agreement lasted several months until, finally, On April 3, 2013, Vicente Zambada Niebla pleaded guilty of charges related to the trafficking of at least five kilograms of cocaine and one more of heroin. The conditions? Provide the US government relevant information of any investigation or trial preparationthe confiscation of assets that he obtained through his criminal activities, as well as providing his testimony in any process that was requested of him. And so he did.
The cooperation that The Vicentillo little by little he brought leaders of the Sinaloa Cartel before the authorities, however, his stellar participation arose in the midst of the so-called Trial of the Centurywhere aired the operations of the criminal organization that they coordinated El Chapo and Mayincluding bribes to politicians, police and military.
His testimony was one of the most relevant for Judge Brian Cogan will sentence Joaquín El Chapo Guzman to spend the rest of his days in a supermaximum security prison in the United States.
Before the Sinaloa Cartel Vicente Zambada Niebla had become a high profile traitor but before the US authorities his role as star witness He was recognized with a sentence of 15 years in prison that was handed down in May 2019.
TO The Vicentillo They not only took into account his cooperation with the US prosecutor’s office but also the time he spent imprisoned in Mexico, so in 2021through the United States Bureau of Prisons, his release was reported.
The whereabouts of the son of May remains unknown, however, his last public appearance was reported during the first days of February when the weekly ZETA Tijuana spread a photograph in which you can see The Vicentillo without any type of custody in a restaurant at an airport in Washington D.C.
That image of Vicente Zambada Niebla confirmed how his testimony at the trial of El Chapo It was his ticket to freedom. without imagining that years later it would now be Joaquín Guzmán Loera’s children who could testify against their father.
‘El Ratón’ and ‘El Güero’: potential witnesses
The families Guzman and Zambada They became the most powerful in Sinaloa not only because head one of the drug trafficking organizations largest in the world but also by the networks of complicity woven with officials from the three levels of government and the social base that they accumulated in the state.
As the years passed, members of both families They went from being partners and friends to fierce rivals who not only wage armed confrontations for control of Culiacán but also legal battles in US courts.
The quarrels increased after Joaquín Guzmán López orchestrated the kidnapping and delivery of Ishmael May Zambada to FBI agents and, while violence continues in Mexico between Los Chapitos -headed by Iván Archivaldo and Jesús Alfredo Guzmán Salazar- and La Mayiza -faction that Ismael Zambada Sicairos inherited- in the United States the testimonies of The Mouse and The Güero They could be key in the process faced by the co-founder of the Sinaloa Cartel.
Although the Guzmán López brothers are already negotiating their respective plea agreement, Ishmael May Zambada has not shown any intention to cooperate with the US prosecutor’s office. because during his first appearances before the Western District of Texas and before the Brooklyn Court He pleaded not guilty.
The position adopted by the also called Lord of the Hat opens the possibility of starting a trial for the 17 charges against him in New York, a process that could gather testimonies from former partners and collaborators that they seek a judicial benefit in exchange for cooperating with the US prosecutor’s office in the prosecution of Ismael Zambada García.
With this precedent and taking into account your negotiations, The first on the list could be the brothers Ovidio and Joaquín Guzmán Lópezwho could once again betray their father’s former partner for a reduced sentence as The Vicentillo did it with El Chapo in 2019.
The long history of crimes for which the US justice system required Ishmael May Zambada Not only could they leave the co-founder of the Sinaloa Cartel for the rest of his life in prison, but they could even make him a candidate to receive the death penaltyas confirmed by the prosecution itself during the second hearing held in the Brooklyn Court last October 18.
It will be a matter of time to know if, like El ChapoIsmael Zambada García will choose to go to trial in the United States or, on the contrary, will see in a plea agreement the possibility of not only avoiding prison time but also saving his own life.
ATJ
