U.S. prosecutors dropped a separate narcotics case in the Southern District of New York on 1 July 2025, clearing the way for a single proceeding in Chicago against Ovidio Guzmán López, the 35-year-old son of Sinaloa cartel founder Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán. Court filings that day showed Guzmán intended to change his plea and negotiate a consolidated agreement with federal authorities. After two short postponements, Guzmán appeared before U.S. District Judge Sharon Johnson Coleman in Chicago on 11 July and pleaded guilty to four felony counts drawn from the Illinois and former New York indictments. He admitted running the cartel’s “Los Chapitos” faction, supervising shipments of cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine, marijuana and fentanyl into the United States, and authorising violence and bribes to protect the enterprise. The plea agreement includes a US$80 million forfeiture and acknowledgment that he faces a potential life sentence. In exchange for full cooperation, prosecutors said they will ask the court to impose a term “below life” if his assistance proves “substantial.” Judge Coleman scheduled sentencing for roughly six months, setting the target for January 2026, and warned that any failure to comply could void the concessions. Federal prison records show Guzmán was removed from Chicago’s Metropolitan Correctional Center on 14 July and placed in an undisclosed facility, a routine step for inmates entering a witness-security programme. The arrangement has drawn criticism from Mexican officials, who were not party to the deal despite leading the 2023 operation that extradited him. U.S. investigators say his testimony could become pivotal in cases against remaining Sinaloa cartel leaders.