The US offers a reward of US $ 5 million for the children of Joaquín ‘El Chapo’ Guzmán

(CNN Spanish) – The United States Department of State offers a reward of up to US $ 5 million for information that could lead to the arrest and / or conviction of four of the children of the former leader of the Sinaloa Cartel Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán: Ovidio Guzmán López, Iván Archivaldo Guzmán Salazar, Jesús Alfredo Guzmán Salazar and Joaquín Guzmán López.

“All four are high-ranking members of the Sinaloa cartel and each is subject to a federal indictment for their involvement in illicit drug trafficking,” read a statement. Press release that the State Department published this Wednesday.

US authorities say that after the arrest of the Mexican drug lord “There is a legacy of ‘chapitos’, who have risen positions in the Sinaloa cartel but other cartels have also gained power. This is the case of the Jalisco Nueva Generación cartel”, assured Ray Donovan, DEA special agent.

Ovidio Guzmán, who is believed to have an important role in the Sinaloa Cartel, He is known as “El Ratón” or “New Mouse” and together with his brother Joaquín They were accused by the Department of Justice of conspiracy to distribute drugs in order to send them to the United States.

Both are reported to have imported large shipments of marijuana, methamphetamine and cocaine into the United States. This makes Ovidio an important and active piece, along with his other brother, Iván Archivaldo, known as “El Chapito”, within the Sinaloa Cartel, as shown in the following diagram of the US Department of Treasury elaborated in 2012.

“El Chapito” was arrested in 2005 in Mexico and accused of money laundering, but years later he was released after the evidence against him was dismissed.

His brother Jesús Alfredo is on the list of DEA’s most wanted for crimes related to drug trafficking.

Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán was sentenced to life in prison plus 30 years in 2019 for participating in an ongoing criminal enterprise, as well as drug and firearms trafficking charges as the leader of the Sinaloa cartel. He is currently being held in a prison in Florence, Colorado.

His wife Emma Coronel was sentenced on November 30 to three years in prison and four years of supervised release, along with a US $ 1.5 million forfeiture, in connection with drug trafficking and money laundering charges related to the El Chapo’s narcotics empire.

With information from Guillermo Blanco.