Son of drug lord El Chapo pleads guilty in US drug trafficking case

One of four sons of notorious Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman has pleaded guilty in a U.S. court to drug trafficking charges.

Joaquín Guzmán Lopez pleaded guilty on Monday after U.S. prosecutors promised last May that he would not pursue the death penalty.

Lopez, 39, was a member of the Los Chapitos group, which was made up of El Chapo’s children, including his brother Ovidio, who pleaded guilty in July to drug trafficking, gun and money laundering charges.

Their father is one of the founders of the Sinaloa drug cartel and is currently serving a life sentence in Colorado.

U.S. prosecutors say the brothers became leaders of a drug cartel after their father was arrested.

Last year, Lopez was arrested along with drug cartel leader Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada after landing on a private jet in Texas.

Officials said Lopez helped trick Zambada into boarding the plane, Leading him to believe he was traveling to northern Mexico to search for potential properties at a secret airport.

As part of his plea agreement, Lopez admitted to helping oversee the production and smuggling of large quantities of cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine, marijuana and fentanyl into the United States.

Fentanyl is more than 50 times more potent than heroin and is the leading cause of death among people aged 18 to 45 in the United States.

Lopez’s guilty plea comes as the Trump administration faces pressure from Congress to justify its missile strikes on drug trafficking suspects at sea.

Trump has designated the cartels as terrorist organizations and said the crackdown is needed to prevent drug deaths in the United States.

Critics called it an extrajudicial killing and said it could violate international treaties governing war.

Meanwhile, Mexican authorities announced on Sunday that they had killed a known drug trafficker wanted in the United States.

U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Ronald Johnson said Pedro “Pichon” Inzunza Coronel was one of the country’s largest fentanyl traffickers and was involved in multiple criminal activities, including “murder, kidnapping, torture and violent debt collection for drug trafficking.”

“These results reflect what our countries can achieve when we work together to target those who pose a threat to our citizens,” Johnson wrote on X.