Nine Mexican Drug Lords Negotiate Agreements With the US; Six Await Trial

Nine of the 15 top leaders of criminal groups who have been deported or extradited from Mexico to the United States in the last year have already accepted plea deals or are in the process of doing so, in exchange for reduced sentences or less severe prison conditions.

For the Trump administration, this is a double victory, as it not only wins the cases without the time and money of a trial, but also gains potential cooperating witnesses from these high-level criminals to initiate or strengthen ongoing criminal investigations, and to pursue other actions such as sanctions through the OFAC lists or the cancellation of visas.

This is how the negotiations between the drug lords and the US are progressing: Advanced Agreements

Court records reviewing these processes, obtained by MILENIO, confirm the ongoing negotiations between prosecutors and defendants to resolve the cases through alternative means to jury trials. Hearings are already scheduled for the next six months in federal courts in New York, Washington, and Chicago that could be key to finalizing the plea agreements.

The two most advanced cases, where the defendants have already changed their initial pleas from not guilty to guilty, are those of Ovidio Guzmán López and Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, both leaders of different factions of the Sinaloa Cartel.

On July 11, Ovidio, son of Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, pleaded guilty in a hearing before Federal Judge Sharon Coleman in Chicago. During that session, Guzmán López committed to cooperating with various investigations in exchange for a potential reduction in his sentence.

The hearing in which the judge will impose Ovidio Guzmán’s sentence will be held on January 9, 2026. One of the factors in determining the sentence will be the prosecutors’ recommendation regarding the possible penalty.

El Mayo Zambada, for his part, pleaded guilty on August 25 before Judge Brian Cogan in federal court in Brooklyn, New York, in a hearing where, in addition to accepting drug trafficking charges, he admitted to bribing and corrupting multiple officials for decades.

Zambada’s lawyer said that in exchange for this confession, they hope that, even though the potential sentence will be life imprisonment, the Mexican drug lord will be subjected to less harsh prison conditions than those faced by others who chose to go to trial and were convicted, such as El Chapo or Genaro García Luna.

The final sentencing hearing for El Mayo is scheduled for January 13.

It is reported that the co-founder of the Sinaloa Cartel is showing symptoms of mental decline.

Those who negotiate: Who are they?

Among the seven drug kingpins or leaders currently negotiating with U.S. prosecutors, the case of Joaquín Guzmán López stands out. The younger brother of Ovidio Guzmán voluntarily surrendered to U.S. authorities after landing on a private flight in Texas, on which Zambada García was also being held.

For most of the 14 months that Guzmán López has been in the United States, he has been held in an undisclosed facility designated for potential cooperating witnesses. It is expected that the agreement reached by the younger of the Chapitos will have similar characteristics to that of his brother Ovidio.

A hearing before Judge Coleman in a Chicago court is scheduled for November 13 to review the negotiations. This date was set after a postponement from the original date of September 15.

Six days later, but in New York, the review hearing for the case against Vicente Carrillo Fuentes, “El Viceroy,” former leader of the Juárez Cartel, will take place. Prosecutors have been negotiating with the defense for at least three months regarding a possible alternative to trial.

The negotiation was revealed during a brief hearing in a New York federal court, where Vicente Carrillo initially pleaded not guilty.

In December, two more Mexican nationals who are also in the process of negotiating will appear in courts in New York and Washington, D.C.: Carlos Algredo Vázquez, alleged wholesale supplier of chemical precursors to the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), and Jesús Guzmán Castro, alleged lieutenant of the Sinaloa Cartel.

Three other high-level criminals also linked to the CJNG are close to reaching plea agreements in January of next year.

One is Abigael González Valencia, leader of Los Cuinis and a key figure in the cartel’s financial operations, with a hearing scheduled for January 21; another is Antonio Osequera Cervantes, brother of CJNG leader Nemesio Oseguera, who will appear on January 16; and the third is Erick Valencia Salazar, alias El 85, one of the founders of that criminal group, with a hearing scheduled for January 28.

The Zetas, Caro Quintero, and La Tuta: Suspenseful

Several leaders of the Los Zetas criminal group, expelled this year, have shown no signs of interest in negotiations. On the contrary, they have invested in hiring several private law firms to strengthen their defense.

The case of brothers Miguel Ángel and Omar Treviño Morales, known as Z-40 and Z-42, leaders of this criminal group, stands out. As reported by MILENIO, they have engaged up to six different law firms to carry out their defense strategy. Their team includes litigators who have handled the cases of El Chapo, El Mayo Zambada, former presidents of Honduras accused of organized crime, among others.

The two Treviño brothers are scheduled to appear again before Judge Trevo McFadden in Washington on May 1st, so that the defense can finalize its review of the extensive evidence, which includes thousands of wiretapped phone conversations.

If no agreement is in sight by that date, the case will go to trial in the second half of 2026.

Two alleged leaders and lieutenants of the same criminal group, Alfredo Rangel Buendía and Daniel Pérez Rojas, who, like the Treviño brothers, were deported from Mexico this year, are also scheduled to appear at the hearing. In this case, too, there are no public reports of any negotiations underway.

Another case that, for now, seems more likely to go to trial than to an alternative resolution is that of Rafael Caro Quintero, accused not only of drug trafficking but also of being the mastermind behind the murder of former DEA agent Enrique Camarena.

In this case, the Department of Justice has shown no interest in preventing the case from going to trial. A new review hearing will be held on March 19, 2026.

The “Narco of Narcos” appeared before Judge Frederick Block at a follow-up hearing.

Servando Gómez Martínez, “La Tuta,” former leader of La Familia Michoacana and Los Caballeros Templarios, has a hearing scheduled for December 9 in a federal court in Manhattan, New York. In his case, it will be the first hearing before the judge presiding over his trial, so there is no information yet on possible alternative resolutions.

Servando Gómez Martínez, “La Tuta,” former leader of La Familia Michoacana and Los Caballeros Templarios.

Witnesses and Sources

A lawyer and former official of the U.S. Treasury Department, who requested anonymity because he currently represents several defendants, said that plea agreements with high-level criminals represent an important asset for the government.

This is because, beyond the obvious role of these criminals as potential witnesses in other or future proceedings, they are also a rich source of information for actions outside of court, such as the designations made by the Treasury Department through the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) of individuals or companies that facilitate money laundering for cartels.

The former official even emphasized that these criminals can provide information that may not necessarily be presented in court, but which is useful to the Executive Branch for administrative matters such as visa cancellations, or even diplomatic ones.

Reuters reported on October 14 that in September alone, the visas of approximately 

Source: Miilenio