Ovidio and Joaquín Guzmán López, two of “Los Chapitos,” are negotiating with the United States government to reduce their sentences in exchange for offering key information about the Sinaloa Cartel and other organized crime actors in Mexico.
In an interview for the program “Ciberdiálogos,” with León Krauze for Letras Libres, the journalist said that the Guzmán López, although they share a lawyer, face different judicial processes, and each would be adopting a different strategy to obtain legal benefits.
On the one hand, Ovidio Guzmán López, alias “El Ratón,” who faces more serious charges related to fentanyl trafficking, seeks to avoid a sentence that could lead to life imprisonment. His objective would be to negotiate a lesser sentence, between 10 and 15 years, with the possibility of parole for good behavior.
While Joaquín Guzmán López, with a less solid case against him, would be focusing his efforts on supporting his brother Ovidio rather than himself, since his voluntary surrender to the US authorities already gives him legal advantages, he would also be collaborating in the collection of relevant information for the US agencies.
According to Chaparro, “Los Chapitos” would have offered information that could help the authorities in the capture or weakening of key drug trafficking leaders, which is added to the delivery of Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, the historic leader of the Sinaloa Cartel and one of the main objectives of the US.
The communicator affirmed that the brothers would also have facilitated the arrest of Dámaso López Serrano, alias “El Mini Lic”, a former ally of the cartel who was on parole after collaborating with the US authorities, but who according to the accusations would have resumed his activities in fentanyl trafficking, which led to his new capture. This action could have been promoted by the Guzmán López brothers as part of their strategy to obtain benefits in their legal proceedings.
The collaboration of Los Chapitos becomes a key piece for the US agencies in their fight against drug trafficking, interested in obtaining details about the operational structure of the Sinaloa Cartel, its trafficking routes, and possible links of corruption with Mexican officials.
What would happen to Mexican politicians involved?
Chaparro also explained that “El Mayo” Zambada, who had evaded justice for decades, would be seeking to avoid ending his days in a maximum security prison as is the case with his compadre, Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán.
His possible strategy would include accepting a sentence in a less strict prison, offering in exchange his “encyclopedia” of information on drug trafficking networks, corruption structures and political links that he has accumulated over 50 years.
However, Chaparro stressed that extracting this information from “El Mayo” would represent a significant challenge: “If the United States government really wants to extract that brain and all that information before “El Mayo” dies, they will have an encyclopedia that we do not have in Mexico: an encyclopedia of what has happened with the drug trade in the last 50 years. And if they extract that entire encyclopedia, they will know what happened in Mexico in the last 50 years with the cartel, with the drug traffickers, with the governments and the political actors,” he indicated.
However, he specified that although the revelations of “Los Chapitos” and “El Mayo” could implicate officials and political actors in Mexico, it is unlikely that these accusations will translate into concrete actions against them.
“The American agencies care about what happens in their territory, not in Mexico. If the Guzmán López or “El Mayo” mention governors, mayors or even former presidents, that information will be archived in the US, but it will not necessarily be used against them,” the journalist explained.
Chaparro stressed that U.S. authorities prioritize crimes that directly affect their territory, such as drug trafficking or money laundering, while corruption cases in Mexico are often outside their scope of action.
Source: infobae
