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Joaquin’s mother “El Chapo” Guzman obtained humanitarian visas to visit her son in the United States.
The baron’s drug mother said Saturday that the US Embassy in Mexico City has granted visas to her family so she can visit her son.
Sitting in a wheelchair in front of the embassy, Consuelo Loera said she and her two daughters had been given permission to travel to the United States on Saturday.
“Thank God, the US Embassy has given me permission. At my age, without being able to see it, only Jesus Christ keeps me alive, “ she said weakly, surrounded by a crowd of journalists.
Loera, 91, says she has not seen her son for more than four years and is also asking that he be repatriated.
A US official refused to confirm the granting of visas to the El Chapo family. However, Jose Luis González, a lawyer from Guzmán, said that after the interview Loera received a document stating that US officials would contact them if they needed further information. Mr. González also said that the family was allowed to travel.
If she could bring him anything, said Loera, that would be his favorite Mexican dish: enchiladas.
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador lobbied for visas to be issued after receiving a letter from Loera in February asking for help. In this letter, sent to López Obrador while he was in the state of Guzman, Sinaloa, to announce a highway project, Loera describes himself as “suffering and desperate” to see his son.
The president said that he intervened empathically for the mother. When Mr. Guzmán was sentenced in the United States in February, Mr. López Obrador said, “Let it serve as a lesson that money does not buy true happiness.”
El Chapo, who ran the Sinaloa Drug Cartel, was found guilty of running an industrial smuggling operation.
Guzman’s lawyers did not deny his crimes but claimed he was a scapegoat for government witnesses who were more mean than their client.
He is to be sentenced this month and faces life imprisonment in a maximum security prison in the United States.
Loera reiterated that she would like her son to be repatriated to Mexico and released. Both of these possibilities seem highly impossible.
Guzmán escaped from a Mexican prison in 2001 after serving eight years in prison. He spent years hidden before being imprisoned again in 2014. A year later, he escaped through a tunnel dug in the shower of his cell.
