Consuelo Loera López, the mother of Joaquín El Chapo Guzmán, one of the biggest drug traffickers in Mexican history, has died. He was 94 years old. The news appeared in local media on Sunday, citing information gathered by authorities in Sinaloa, the family's state of origin. Loera López made headlines in those years because she greeted President Andrés Manuel López Obrador on one of his trips to the region in those years.
Loera López always lived in La Tuna, a community in the municipality of Badiraguato, in the mountains of the region. From there came El Chapo Guzmán, the historic leader of the Sinaloa Cartel, along with Ismael El Mayo Zambada and the Beltrán Leyva brothers. Despite the theoretical power of the Sinaloa criminal group, life hasn't always been easy for El Chapo's mother. In 2016, criminals raided his home in La Tuna, leaving eight to 12 people dead.
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador welcomes Ms. Consuelo Loera.
Women have always appeared in the media as a folkloric element, a well-known symbol of a criminal industry. The now older Loera López met López Obrador on one of his trips to the region. In 2020, the president admitted that the woman gave him a letter. “I visited her because she is an older woman and I greeted her and she gave me the letter and told me, 'They don't allow my daughters to visit their brother in prison.' I would like to ask you to help us so that they can leave. I can no longer visit him,” the president said.
Facing criticism over his closeness to the boss's mother, López Obrador tried to explain himself. “This is the big connection, the big scandal. The letter was so private and secret that I gave it to the State Department so they could send it to the US ambassador,” he said. “Then they replied from the embassy that they would give one of Guzmán Loera's sisters the opportunity to visit them, that is, it was a procedure,” he added.
El Chapo Guzmán has been imprisoned in the USA since January 2017. His arrest and subsequent extradition are part of the country's underworld history. After his first arrest in the early 1990s, he escaped from prison in 2001 under somewhat controversial circumstances. The official explanation is that he was hiding in a laundry cart. But there was always a rumor that federal police officers got him out of prison disguised as one of them.
This last possibility has gained strength over the years due to the indictment and subsequent conviction of the head of the Federal Police during the term of President Felipe Calderón (2006-1012), Genaro García Luna. The United States Justice accused García Luna of plotting, in collusion with the Sinaloa criminal, to import drugs into the country.
The second capture of El Chapo Guzmán occurred during the years of President Enrique Peña Nieto (2012–2018), in early 2014. Authorities imprisoned him in the El Altiplano federal prison, from which he managed to escape a year and a half later. His henchmen managed to dig a tunnel from a cubicle to the floor of his cell, hundreds of meters from the prison. El Chapo lived on the run for months until he was arrested for the last time in January 2016 at a hotel in Los Mochis, Sinaloa.
His subsequent extradition to the United States ended a stage in Mexico. At this point, the country suffered a fire of colossal proportions that resulted in violence, a situation that continues to this day. The wars between the criminal groups of Sinaloa and organizations from other states, as well as the beheading of the group led by the Beltrán Leyva brothers, plunged the country into a bloodshed in which it is still immersed.
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