Nearly 20 family members of notorious drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán crossed the U.S. border thanks to a deal made with the Trump administration.
The special access came after negotiations between the White House and El Chapo’s son, Ovidio Guzmán Lopez, who is a top-ranking member of the Sinaloa Cartel, AP News reported late Tuesday. The criminal group is designated a foreign terrorist organization and a powerful drug trafficking and organized crime syndicate based in Mexico.
Mexican security secretary Omar García Harfuch confirmed the group’s entrance, explaining that the 17 individuals were family members of both former Sinaloa Cartel leader El Chapo and his son, who was extradited to the United States in 2023. Guzmán Lopez, 35, is currently locked up in the U.S. awaiting federal charges after he and his brothers flooded the country with fentanyl for hundreds of millions of dollars. He and his brothers’ group was called “Los Chapitos” or the little shorties, a reference to his father’s nickname “shorty.”
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Last week, the cartel’s family members walked across the border from Tijuana with their suitcases to U.S. agents who were waiting for them there.
“It is evident that his family is going to the U.S. because of a negotiation or an offer that the Department of Justice is giving him,” García Harfuch said. The family members who entered the United States were not wanted by Mexican authorities, he said.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo told reporters that she was caught off guard by the news. The Mexican government has demanded President Donald Trump share information about the deal with Mexican prosecutors, which it has not yet done.
The Daily Beast has reached out to the Trump administration for comment about the family members and their entrance.
Guzmán Lopez and his brothers rebuilt their father’s international drug empire after his extradition in 2017 and incarceration in 2019. El Chapo was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole and is incarcerated in Colorado.
Guzmán Lopez was first caught in 2019 but released after cartel members attacked civilians. He was arrested again in 2023 in an operation that led to another 30 deaths.
He has previously pleaded not guilty but is expected to appear in federal court this July to change his plea. Court records do not include details about a possible plea agreement.
García Harfuch’s confirmation comes as the U.S. attorney general’s office announced it was charging cartel leaders with “narcoterrorism” for the first time since Trump labelled several cartels foreign terrorist organizations.
Prosecutors declined to comment to AP News about footage showing the cartel family members crossing the border. But U.S. Attorney Adam Gordon and other officials sent a warning to the cartel from California.
“Let me be direct, to the leaders of the Sinaloa Cartel, you are no longer the hunters, you are the hunted,” he said. “You will be betrayed by your friends, you will be hounded by your enemies, and you will ultimately find yourself and your face here in a courtroom in the Southern District of California.”
