Mexican cartel leader Ovidio Guzman set to reach plea deal on US drug charges

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MEXICO CITY (Reuters) -Mexican cartel capo Ovidio Guzman is set to reach a plea deal over drug trafficking charges he faced in the Northern District of Illinois, U.S. court records showed on Tuesday.

Ovidio, son of the convicted Mexican drug chief Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, was considered one of the leaders of the Sinaloa Cartel until he was captured and extradited to the U.S. in 2023.

According to U.S. authorities, Ovidio and his brothers, known collectively as “Los Chapitos,” ran an extensive drug trafficking operation and “allegedly reaped hundreds of millions of dollars in profits by flooding the United States with fentanyl.”

Synthetic opioids, predominantly fentanyl, killed around 50,000 people in the United States last year through overdoses.

The court records did not give any detail on the terms of the possible plea agreement.

Ovidio originally pled not guilty to charges of fentanyl trafficking. He is now scheduled to attend an in-person change of plea hearing on July 9, according to court records.

“Government shall provide the court with a courtesy copy of the plea agreement at least 3 days prior to the plea,” the document showed.

Responding to a request for comment, Ovidio’s lawyer Jeffrey Lichtman said “we have no completed agreement yet but hope to in the future.”

(Reporting by Brendan O’Boyle and Natalia Siniawski in Mexico City and Luc Cohen in New York; Editing by Stephen Coates and Christopher Cushing)