Overview

• Ovidio Guzman Lopez is set to change his not guilty plea to guilty at a rescheduled July 11 hearing in Chicago, according to court records.
• If finalized, it would mark the first guilty plea by any of Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzman’s sons in U.S. federal court.
• He faces charges of running a continuing criminal enterprise, money laundering, firearms violations and conspiring to distribute fentanyl, cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine and marijuana into the United States.
• Federal prosecutors allege that Guzman Lopez and his brother led a powerful faction of the Sinaloa Cartel responsible for a “staggering” pipeline of fentanyl into the U.S.
• The indictment stems from a decades-long collaboration among the Justice Department’s Narcotic and Dangerous Drug Section, the Northern District of Illinois, the Southern District of California and Mexican authorities.