2023-09-18 21:25:06
Ovidio Guzmán López, son of former Sinaloa cartel boss Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, declared himself innocent of drug trafficking, money laundering and other charges in his first court hearing since he was extradited from Mexico to the United States.
Guzmán López was extradited on Friday, five months after US prosecutors published a lengthy case against him and his brothers. known collectively as “Los Chapitos”. The file details how they, after their father’s extradition and life sentence in 2019, guided the cartel to venture into synthetic drugs such as methamphetamine and fentanyl.
According to the Federal Bureau of Prisons, Ovidio Guzmán is 33 years old, he is prisoner number 72884-748 and is located in the Metropolitan Correctional Center (MCC, in English) of Chicago, Illinois.
Also known as “El Ratón”, the extradition of this drug trafficker is the most important that has occurred between the Government of Mexican Andrés Manuel López Obrador and the Administration of Joe Biden.
Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, when he was arrested in Mexico. AP Photo
Derek Maltz, former agent of the US anti-drug agency (DEA), posted on social media a photograph of Guzmán, dressed as a prisoner and handcuffed, that was allegedly taken on the plane that took him to the United States.
The MCC where he was held is located in the heart of Chicago, a few blocks from the famous Art Institute of this city, known for its iconic architecture.
The prison, designed by architect Harry Weese and inaugurated in 1975is distinguished from other federal penitentiary centers because it is a triangular-based skyscraper with 28 floors and a rooftop patio.
The prison cells have windows only five inches (13 centimeters) wide, designed narrow enough that bars were not necessary.
However, two bank robbers managed to open a hole in one of the windows in 2012 and escape. with a hanging rope made of sheets from the seventeenth floor. They were captured days later.
Years before, in 2009, Matthew Nolan, brother of filmmaker Christopher Nolan, He also tried unsuccessfully to escape from the prison through a window when he was detained pending an extradition request to Costa Rica for an alleged murder.
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The Mexican drug trafficker Vicente Zambada Niebla, son of the leader of the Sinaloa Cartel, also passed through this prison. Ismael “El Mayo” Zambadaafter his extradition to the United States in 2010.
During his stay at the MCC in Chicago, “Vicentillo” was prohibited from using the rooftop patio where prisoners exercise for fear that he would escape by helicopter.
Now the prisoner is Ovidio Guzmán, one of the sons of “El Chapo”, former leader of the Sinaloa Cartel who since 2019 serving life sentence in a maximum security prison in Colorado (USA).
“The mouse” He was arrested for the first time in October 2019 in Culiacán (Sinaloa, Mexico), but López Obrador ordered his release that same day to stop the wave of violence that the cartel unleashed throughout the city in response to the arrest.
Last January he was recaptured a few days before Biden visited Mexico City to meet with López Obrador.
About 30 people, ten of them military, died in the operation to capture him in Sinaloa.
The United States accuses Ovidio Guzmán of lead a criminal organization and traffic all types of drugs into their country, including fentanyl, which has caused the worst opioid crisis in the country.
More than 70,000 people They died last year in the United States from a fentanyl overdose, which is why Washington has redoubled pressure on Mexico to stop trafficking of this substance.
Last April, the Department of Justice filed charges against Ovidio Guzmán and his brothers Alfredo and Iván, both missing, whom it calls “Los Chapitos”, in courts in Chicago, New York and Washington DC.
After the capture and extradition of “El Chapo”, the Sinaloa Cartel came under the leadership of Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, but the DEA believes that the latter’s delicate state of health has made “los Chapitos” assume a greater responsibility. role in the organization.
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