NEW ORLEANS - SEPTEMBER 10: DEA agents look into a window of a house in the while searching for victims in the Ninth Ward district September 10, 2005 in New Orleans, Louisiana. Rescue crews continue to search homes searching for hold outs and deceased people. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images) (2005 Getty Images)
Three sons of the Mexican drug lord, Joaquín ‘El Chapo’ Guzmán, who managed to escape from a maximum security prison near Mexico City Saturday night, are on the U.S. government’s radar.
Nicknamed "Los Chapitos," Iván Archivaldo, Jesús Alfredo and Ovidio have been listed in various documents filed by the U.S. Justice and Treasury departments over the last decade for alleged drug trafficking and money laundering activities.
According to a report by the Mexican newspaper El Universal, the U.S. authorities are mostly interested on the first two: Ivan Archivaldo and Jesus Alfredo, Guzman’s children with his first wife María Alejandrina Salazar Hernández — also on the most wanted list since June 2012. The men were born in 1983 and 1986, respectively.
"The defendant Iván Archivaldo Guzmán Salazar, better known as Luis or Chapito, is accused of transporting multiple kilograms of cocaine and several tons of marijuana from Mexico to the U.S. border to introduce them throughout the United States for distribution," reads a District Court of California document obtained by El Universal that's dated September 2013.
"[He] subsequently collected from customers in the United States the gains of those drugs and laundered and transferred the funds from the United States to Mexico and elsewhere for the benefit of the members and associates of the Sinaloa Cartel," reads the same document.
Just a few months ago, on Jan. 16, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of California announced charges against 60 members of the Sinaloa Cartel, including Iván Archivaldo, “for introducing large quantities of cocaine, heroin, methamphetamines and marijuana to the United States in vehicles, trucks, boats and tunnels.”
Iván Archivaldo spent three years in a Mexican prison after his arrest in 2005 but was released by a judge for lack of evidence. Jesús Alfredo, who has never been arrested, was indicted in 2009 by the District Court of the United States for the Northern District of Illinois.
Meanwhile, Ovidio Guzmán López, the youngest of the three brothers, is the product of Chapo’s marriage to Griselda López Pérez, who is also listed by the Office of Foreign Assets Control as part of the financing system for the Sinaloa Cartel.
El Universal reported that Ovidio appeared for the first time on U.S, authorities' radar in August of 2012 but has managed to keep a lower profile than his brothers.
After their father's escape was made public, Jesús Alfredo took to Twitter to celebrate his father's ability to escape from Almoloya maximum-security prison.
“My father just has to want it, and he escapes from prison,” he, or a Twitter account claiming to be his, posted in Spanish on Sunday.
Months earlier, Iván Archivaldo seemed to hint at the bold escape when an account purporting to be his tweeted: "I won't lie, I have cried but I bring armed men and I promise that soon the General will be back."
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