When “El Chapo” son Joaquin Guzman Lopez appeared in a Chicago courtroom to face narcotics trafficking charges Tuesday, the city once again landed at the epicenter of the U.S. government’s long-running war on Mexico’s powerful drug cartels.
The intrigue surrounding Guzman Lopez’s improbable arrival on U.S. soil put the spotlight squarely on the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse, where leaders of the notoriously violent Sinaloa cartel have been named in a parade of indictments that began more than 15 years ago.
Among them was then-Public Enemy No. 1 Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman Loera, the father of Guzman Lopez, who was ultimately convicted by a jury in New York in 2019 and is now serving a life sentence in a Colorado supermax prison.
Also charged in that original 2009 indictment was El Chapo’s partner, Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada Garcia, whose extraordinary 50-year run of avoiding arrest ended in stunning fashion last month when he arrived at a small airport near El Paso on a private plane along with his rival, Guzman Lopez, prompting allegations that Mayo had been kidnapped and brought to U.S. soil against his will.
It’s unclear where El Mayo, who is charged in several different jurisdictions, will ultimately be tried.
But despite the unanswered questions and still-unfolding international drama, the indictment unveiled in Chicago against Guzman Lopez and his three brothers, collectively known as “Los Chapitos,” is a clear reminder of why Chicago has factored so heavily in major cartel prosecutions in the first place.
In many respects, the Chicago area serves as a drug trafficker’s dream. For years, its central location and vast transportation networks have made the city a pivotal hub of narcotics distribution, authorities and federal witnesses have said. Thousands of tons of drugs have moved through the city over the decades, hidden in vehicle compartments, in suburban stash houses, and semi-trailer loads of everything from avocados to live sheep.
The cartels have also made use of the city’s entrenched street gangs, which have proven more than capable of breaking down the product and delivering it to the streets.
Pedro Flores, the Little Village-born narcotics trafficker who, along with his twin brother, Margarito, helped U.S. authorities bring charges against more than a dozen cartel leaders, testified at El Chapo’s trial in 2018 about the significance of his hometown to the Sinaloa operation.
“I believe it being the third largest city in the United States is important,” Flores testified. “Also its geographic location. It’s practically situated in the center of our country, which makes it convenient, you know, you’re halfway to everywhere, and logistically the infrastructure of railroad systems, highways, airports, waterways, just makes it ideal, not just for drugs but for any type of goods.”
Flores’ testimony also brought a distinctly Chicago flavor to the New York jury when he was asked on the witness stand about a phone number he repeatedly dialed from Mexico to test out new cell phones for his crew.
“I’m sorry, 588-2300. What is that?” the prosecutors asked Flores.
“That’s the number for Empire Carpet,” Flores said, without mentioning the ubiquitous jingle that’s been on the airwaves in Chicago since the 1970s.
Why was he calling Empire Carpet?
“It’s just a habit I picked up,” Flores testified. “I call a neutral number to make sure the phone is working and I used to always dial that number.”
How twins from Little Village rose to win trust of drug kingpin El Chapo
The superseding indictment against Guzman Lopez and his brothers, which was unveiled last year, is a case study in how the Sinaloa cartel allegedly exploited the city’s attributes and transformed its distribution capabilities from a fly-by-night enterprise to a well-oiled machine that Amazon might envy.
According to the indictment, from 2008 to 2023, the Chapitos helped their father and El Mayo coordinate shipments of cocaine and “precursor chemicals” into Mexico from Central and South American countries via aircraft, submarines, speed boats, tractor trailers and other means.
The cartel then used its vast network of couriers to ship multi-ton loads of cocaine, heroin, marijuana and methamphetamines over the border to the U.S., where the drugs were stored in warehouses and stash houses before being transported throughout the country, including Chicago, “using various means, including cars, trucks, rail cars and private and commercial interstate carriers,” the indictment stated.
The drugs were then sold to wholesale customers and proceeds were laundered back to Mexico in bulk cash, wire transfers, bank deposits, and through the purchase and transfer of big-ticket items like helicopters and airplanes, the indictment stated.
The sons allegedly furthered the conspiracy by bribing public officials and using guns and other dangerous weapons to commit violence, including murder, kidnapping, and assault “against law enforcement, rival drug traffickers and members of their own trafficking organization,” the indictment alleged.
Three of the four alleged murders described in the indictment took place in Mexico, including the October 2010 killing of rival hitman Israel Rincón Martínez, also known as “El Guacho,” after a failed attempt to kill one of Guzman’s sons. A Sinaloa cartel operative testified at El Chapo’s trial in 2018 that Martinez was captured and tortured to death.
The indictment also alleged that the Chapitos had a hand in the May 2021 killing of Mario Nungaray Bobadilla, who was shot to death outside his home in Phoenix.
In outlining the charges last year, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland described the violence of the Sinaloa cartel and how its members have tortured perceived enemies, including Mexican law enforcement officials. In some cases, cartel members also have fed victims, some still alive, to tigers owned by Guzmán’s sons, Garland said.
Garland also accused Guzmán’s sons of being one of the main exporters of fentanyl, a deadly synthetic opioid, to the U.S. market — though the Chicago indictment does not specifically mention fentanyl.
Last year, one of the Chapitos, Ovidio Guzman Lopez, was extradited to the U.S. after his arrest in a violent firefight in Mexico. He’s currently being held without bond.
Both brothers are represented by the same New York-based attorney who served as their father’s chief trial counsel, Jeffrey Lichtman.
At his arraignment on Tuesday, Joaquin Guzman Lopez told U.S. District Judge Sharon Johnson Coleman that he’d been advised of the potential conflicts of having the same attorney as his brother and agreed to waive them.
Both brothers are scheduled to appear for a status hearing before Coleman on Sept. 30.
After court, Lichtman insisted that despite his newest client’s apparently voluntary trip to the U.S., he is not cooperating with federal prosecutors. “We’ve got no agreement with the government,” he said. “There has never been an agreement with the government with Joaquin Guzman Lopez. Period.”
Asked whether Ovidio may be cooperating, Lichtman did not answer. But he said the fact that he represents both brothers is “not uncommon.”
“It means that, because I represent both of them, there are certain defenses that I might theoretically not be able to go forward with because I can’t represent one and hurt the other one,” Lichtman said. “I have a duty of loyalty to both.. but as you could see, the judge and the government don’t have much of a problem with it.”
The two other Chapitos charged in Chicago, Jesús Alfredo Guzmán Salazar and Iván Archivaldo Guzmán Salazar, remain at large.
Meanwhile, El Mayo remains in custody in El Paso where he was arrested on July 25. At a brief court hearing Thursday, the judge agreed to set extended discovery deadlines and ordered the parties to return to court for a status hearing Sept. 9.
While Mayo’s case might not move forward in Chicago, his alleged dealings with the Flores twins — two of the biggest drug traffickers the city has ever produced — formed the backbone of the indictment brought against him in the Northern District of Illinois in 2009.
According to prosecution filings in that case, the twins first met face-to-face with Zambada Garcia in May 2005 in the Sinaloa capital of Culiacan, where they reached an agreement to repay a debt they owed involving the purchase of a load of narcotics from a lieutenant working for El Mayo’s organization.
Over several days of discussions, the twins hammered out an agreement with El Mayo, his son, Vicente Zambada Niebla, and other top people in El Mayo’s faction to traffic hundreds of kilograms a week of Sinaloa cartel cocaine and heroin through Chicago and Los Angeles, according to prosecutors.
It wasn’t until later that the twins were advised that El Chapo wanted to meet with them as well, according to court records. They were flown from an airstrip near Culiacan to El Chapo’s mountaintop compound, where he allegedly told the twins “that he would honor the same agreement” they’d reached with Zambada Garcia, according to prosecution filings.
By 2008, the twins had begun their dangerous cooperation with U.S. law enforcement, using Radio Shack recorders to tape conversations and also trying to get Sinaloa leaders talking on the phone while still living in Mexico and trafficking drugs. While they were successful in recording El Chapo and several others, Pedro Flores testified in Chapo’s trial that they never saw the same opportunity with Zambada Garcia.
“Now, sir, were you asked to try to make a call, a recorded call with Mayo Zambada?” one of Chapo Guzman’s defense lawyers asked during cross-examination.
“Yes, initially I was,” Flores testified, adding that he didn’t think he’d be able to get it done, despite the urging of U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents. “From my experience with him, he never got on the phone with me. And I only seen him on the phone on two occasions.”
“So you didn’t think it was going to be a reasonable effort to get him on the phone and get him recorded, correct?” the attorney asked Flores.
“Correct.”
The twins’ cooperation also included a harrowing meeting in October 2008, when Margarito Flores was flown to the Sinaloa mountaintop compound to speak with Chapo, Mayo, Zambada Niebla and others. Margarito Flores told law enforcement that Mayo was allegedly looking for revenge after the arrest of his brother by Mexican authorities.
This undated photo from a wanted poster released by the U.S. Marshals Service shows Pedro Flores, left, and his twin brother, Margarito Flores.
“This government is letting the gringos do whatever they want,” El Mayo said, according to Margarito Flores’ account of the meeting to law enforcement. “It will be good to send the gringos a message.”
Flores told authorities that El Chapo proposed discussed a plot to attack a U.S. or Mexican government or media building in retaliation. According to Flores’ account, Zambada Niebla turned to him and asked if he could find somebody who could give him “big, powerful weapons” to help carry out the proposed attack.
“We don’t want Middle Eastern or Asian guns, we want big U.S. guns or RPGs (rocket-propelled grenades),” said Zambada Niebla, according to Flores’ account of the talk. “We don’t need one, we need a lot of them.”
Court records show Flores later secretly recorded a telephone conversation with Zambada Niebla, telling him he had an ex-military source for the weapons, but they were going to cost twice as much as originally thought.
“That’s fine, just let me know,” Zambada Niebla replied on the Nov. 29, 2008, call, according to court records.
“OK, it’s all set then,” Margarito replied. “Tell everyone I said ‘Hi.’”
Immediately after hanging up, Flores recorded a post-script for the call, according to court records:
“That was a call with Vicente Zambada. It’s Mayo Zambada’s son.”
jmeisner@chicagotribune.com
