One of the four sons of notorious Mexican drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán has pleaded guilty to drug trafficking in a US court.
Joaquín Guzmán López’s guilty plea comes after US prosecutors pledged last May not to pursue the death penalty against him.
Lopez, 39, is a member of Los Chapitos, a cell made up of El Chapo’s children, including his brother Ovidio, who pleaded guilty in July to drug trafficking, firearms and money laundering charges.
Their father, one of the founders of the Sinaloa drug cartel, is serving a life sentence in Colorado.
U.S. prosecutors say the brothers became leaders of the drug cartel after their father’s arrest.
Lopez was arrested last year alongside cartel leader Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada after a private plane landed in Texas.
Officials said Lopez helped Zambada board the plane, leading him to believe he was going to northern Mexico to scout potential properties for clandestine airstrips.
As part of the plea agreement, Lopez admitted to helping supervise the production and smuggling of large quantities of cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine, marijuana and fentanyl into the United States.
Fentanyl, which is more than 50 times more potent than heroin, is the leading cause of death in the United States among people ages 18 to 45.
Lopez’s guilty plea comes as the Trump administration faces pressure from Congress to justify its missile strikes against suspected drug traffickers at sea.
Trump has moved to designate the cartels as terrorist organizations and says the strikes are necessary to prevent drug deaths in the United States.
Critics have called them extrajudicial killings and say they could violate international treaties governing warfare.
On Sunday, Mexican authorities announced they had killed a well-known drug trafficker wanted in the United States.
Pedro “Pichon” Inzunza Coronel, who was one of the country’s top fentanyl traffickers, was involved in multiple crimes, including “murders, kidnappings, torture, and violent debt collection for drug trafficking,” according to U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Ronald Johnson.
“These results reflect what our nations can achieve when they work together against those who pose a threat to our citizens,” Johnson wrote on X.
