Seventeen family members of Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán voluntarily surrendered on Friday to the U.S. government at the San Ysidro border crossing, which separates Tijuana (Mexico) from San Diego, California. The news was reported on X by Mexican journalist Luis Chaparro, an expert in organized crime, and was picked up by the website of the Mexican newspaper Milenio. Among the relatives were Griselda López, El Chapo’s second ex-wife and mother of Ovidio Guzmán López, a.k.a. “El Ratón” (“The Mouse”), who was extradited to the U.S. in 2023, along with a daughter and several grandchildren of the former Sinaloa Cartel leader, who is serving a life sentence in the United States.
Chaparro shared images on social media showing El Chapo’s 17 relatives with suitcases, waiting to surrender to the FBI. On May 6, Ovidio Guzmán López reached a plea deal with U.S. authorities, pleading guilty to various drug trafficking charges before a federal judge in Chicago.