Seventeen members of El Chapo's family have defected from Mexico to the United States.
The relatives of Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman came across the border with jam-packed roller bags, some filled with thousands in U.S. currency, according to authorities.
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WATCH HEREThe family members converged last Friday at the border, crossing from Tijuana to San Ysidro in Southern California.
Among the group was Guadalupe Lopez Perez, one of Chapo's ex-wives and the mother of Chapo's sons Ovidio Guzman and Joaquin Guzman Lopez.
Both of Chapo's sons are being held in Chicago on major drug trafficking charges.
As NBC 5 Investigates reported last week, Ovidio Guzman has cut a deal with prosecutors at the Dirksen Federal Building and is scheduled to plead guilty in July.
Several current and former federal sources who asked not to be named told NBC Chicago on Tuesday that the immigration of 17 Chapo relatives, including a sister, were part of the deal that resulted in Ovidio's guilty plea.
Investigations
The government's immigration red carpet for kin of a drug dealer may come at a high price for Ovidio Guzman: his cooperation against other Sinaloa drug cartel officials who are in custody here.
The exodus of El Chapo's blood relatives is a clear sign that they feared retaliation in Mexico. Their defection may signal an unexpected end to the family's decades-long reign atop a cartel that has long controlled 80% of Chicago's illicit street drugs.
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SIGN UP Federal authorities in California declined to discuss Chapo's family at the border or his son's Chicago plea deal. But authorities did show off tons of cocaine, heroin and fentanyl seized from the Sinaloa cartel, some stashed in cartel work cars, and they announced the indictment of seven alleged Sinaloa cartel operatives, some they say are connected to Chapo's sons now jailed in Chicago.
The men being held in California are charged with "narco-terrorism," a new component of President Donald Trump's "Take Back America" initiative that elevates drug traffickers to the level of terrorists.
NBC Chicago asked the U.S. attorney and the FBI here to discuss the defection of Chapo's kin, and officials at both agencies declined.
