One of the four sons of notorious Mexican drug kingpin Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán has pleaded guilty to drug trafficking charges in a US court.
Joaquín Guzmán López’s guilty plea on Monday, December 1, 2025, comes after US prosecutors pledged in May 2024 not to pursue the death penalty against him.
Lopez, 39, is a member of Los Chapitos, a cell made up of El Chapo’s children, including his brother Ovidio, who pleaded guilty in July 2025 to drug trafficking, firearms and money laundering charges.
Their father, who was one of the founders of the Sinaloa drug cartel, is serving a life sentence in Colorado.
US prosecutors say the brothers rose to become the leaders of the drug cartel after the arrest of their father.
Lopez was arrested in 2024 alongside cartel boss Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada after landing a private plane in Texas.
Officials have said that Lopez helped trick Zambada into boarding the plane, having led him to believe he was travelling to northern Mexico to look at prospective properties for clandestine airstrips.
As part of the plea deal, Lopez admitted to helping oversee the production and smuggling of large quantities of cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine, marijuana and fentanyl into the US.
Fentanyl, which is over 50 times more powerful than heroin, is the leading cause of death in the US for people aged 18 to 45.
Lopez’s guilty plea comes as the Trump administration faces pressure from Congress to justify its missile strikes on claimed drug traffickers at sea.
Trump has moved to designate the cartels as terrorist organisations, and says the strikes are needed to prevent drug deaths in the US.
Critics have called them extra-judicial killings, and say they may violate international treaties governing war.
Meanwhile, on Sunday, November 30, 2025, Mexican authorities announced that they had killed a well-known drug trafficker who was wanted in the US.
Pedro “Pichon” Inzunza Coronel, who was one of the country’s top fentanyl traffickers, was involved in multiple crimes, including “murders, kidnappings, torture, and violent debt collection for drug trafficking”, according to US Ambassador to Mexico Ronald Johnson.
“These results reflect what our nations can achieve when they work together against those who pose a threat to our citizens,” Johnson wrote on X.
