Reports that the sons of jailed drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán Loera threw a Christmas party in Culiacán, Sinaloa, last Friday are fake news, according to the state security minister.
Cristóbal Castañeda said on Twitter that images of the purported posada recently disseminated online are in fact from the 2020 Christmas party organized by the Guzmán brothers, colloquially known as Los Chapitos.
“Information that is circulating that points to a recent event in Sinaloa … is false; the images being disseminated correspond to December 17, 2020. … There is no information of a recent event,” he wrote.
The security minister noted that last year’s party was shut down thanks to a security operation carried out by all three levels of government.
He shared photographs of the 2020 posada and compared them with those disseminated this week to support his assertion that no event was held last Friday.
The four Guzmán brothers have been in the spotlight in recent days after the United States government last week announced rewards of up to US $5 million each for information leading to their arrest and/or conviction.
All four are high-ranking members of the Sinaloa Cartel and subject to indictments in the U.S. for their involvement in the illicit drug trade, the Department of State said.
Their father, the former leader of the cartel, was convicted on trafficking charges in a United States federal court in February 2019 and sentenced to life in prison in July the same year.
With reports from El Universal
