Seventeen members of the family of convicted drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán Loera crossed the Mexico-U.S. border and turned themselves into Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) officials last Friday, according to journalist Luis Chaparro.
During his online program Pie de Nota, Chaparro said on Monday that Guzmán Loera’s ex-wife Griselda López Pérez and a daughter of the imprisoned former Sinaloa Cartel leader were among those who turned themselves in to the FBI at the border between Tijuana and San Diego.
He presented photographs and video footage that purported to show the family members of Guzmán Loera at the border with their suitcases.
The journalist, whose reporting has been disseminated by many Mexican news outlets, asserted that the family members’ decision to surrender to the FBI was likely linked to the plea agreement Ovidio Guzmán López, one of the sons of El Chapo, is negotiating with U.S. authorities.
“According to the reports from our sources, the family turned themselves in to the FBI at midday last Friday at the San Ysidro port of entry in Tijuana. According to the information from the same sources, among these people are Griselda López, mother of Ovidio, several nephews and nieces, a grandson by the name of Archivaldo and a daughter of Chapo together with a son-in-law,” Chaparro said.
He said it was not known why the family members of the imprisoned former drug capo turned themselves in to the FBI.
“But the fact that they turned themselves in to people who were waiting for them [means that] it’s probably linked to the deal that Ovidio Guzmán made with the United States government last week,” Chaparro added.
He also said that the 17 family members were carrying more than US $70,000 in cash between them.
🚨After breaking a deal with US Feds, Ovidio Guzmán, “El Ratón” requested ALL of his family to be relocated to the US. https://t.co/oWqHyzb16l
— Luis Chaparro (@LuisKuryaki) May 12, 2025
Chaparro said that the family flew to Tijuana from Culiacán, Sinaloa, before crossing the border. He said that “at least one sniper” was positioned at the San Ysidro port of entry due to the risk of one (or more) of the family members being targeted in an attack.
“This act of getting his family to safety could be a sign that Los Chapitos might be losing the war in Sinaloa or that the war is going to get a lot worse,” Chaparro said, referring to the bloody battle between the Los Chapitos faction of the Sinaloa Cartel and the Los Mayos faction of the same criminal organization.
He said that his sources revealed that Ovidio Guzmán asked U.S. authorities for a “guarantee” that his mother and other family members would be given permanent residency in the United States.
“In exchange for what? We’re going to find this out on June 6 when Ovidio Guzmán changes his declaration of guilt,” Chaparro said.
Guzmán López — one of “Los Chapitos,” as four of El Chapo’s sons are known — was extradited to the United States in September 2023, eight months after he was captured in Culiacán, Sinaloa. He faces drug trafficking, money laundering and other charges in the U.S.
According to a document of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois that was filed last Tuesday, the 35-year-old defendant is scheduled to attend a plea hearing on July 9. His lawyer, Jeffrey Lichtman, said last week that his client and the U.S. government had not yet reached a final plea deal, but hoped to reach one “in the future.”
Son of ‘El Chapo’ to plead guilty in US drug trafficking case
El Chapo Guzmán, who, together with Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada and others, founded the Sinaloa Cartel, was sentenced to life imprisonment in the United States in July 2019 after he was found guilty of drug trafficking in February of that year.
Griselda López, mother of four children with El Chapo, is on the “Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons list” of the United States Office of Foreign Assets Control.
She is also the mother of Joaquín Guzmán López, who is currently in U.S. custody. He was arrested last July after flying into a New Mexico airport on a private plane with Zambada, who claims that Joaquín Guzmán López kidnapped him and forced him onto the plane. The alleged kidnapping and arrest of El Mayo triggered an intensification of the long-running conflict between Los Chapitos and Los Mayos.
Both Joaquín Guzmán and Zambada pleaded not guilty to the drug trafficking charges they face in the U.S., as did Ovidio Guzmán in September 2023.
Sheinbaum: US hasn’t provided any information about entry of Chapo’s family
Asked about Luis Chaparro’s reporting at her Monday morning press conference, President Claudia Sheinbaum said there was “no more information” than that which had come out in the media.
She noted that Ovidio Guzmán was extradited to the United States during the presidency of Andrés Manuel López Obrador, and declared that the U.S. government should be “sending information” to Mexico about his case on a “permanent” basis.
Expressly asked whether the U.S. government had provided the information it “should” provide, Sheinbaum said it had not.
“It should deliver it to the Federal Attorney General’s Office, because [it’s a matter of] the United States Justice Department and it has to have coordinated information with the Federal Attorney General’s Office,” she said.
Sheinbaum told reporters that the Attorney General’s Office has its own “investigation files” on Ovidio Guzmán “in Mexico.”
On Tuesday, Security Minister Omar García Harfuch confirmed that 17 members of the extended Guzmán family had handed themselves into the FBI. None of those that crossed into the U.S. were wanted in Mexico, he said in a radio interview.
Guzmán López shot to international infamy in October 2019 when his arrest in Culiacán triggered a wave of cartel attacks that terrorized residents of the northern city.
Not long after his arrest, federal security force released him “to try to avoid more violence … and preserve the lives of our personnel and recover calm in the city,” then security minister Alfonso Durazo said at the time.
Violent chaos also followed Guzmán López’s second and final capture in January 2023, with both soldiers and alleged criminals losing their lives in armed combat in the Sinaloa state capital.
There was speculation last year that Ovidio, also known as “El Ratón” (The Mouse), had entered the United States Federal Witness Protection Program, but that was not confirmed.
Citing his sources, Luis Chaparro predicted on Monday that Ovidio and Joaquín will both enter the U.S. witness protection program at some time in the future.
Mexico News Daily
