As the highest boss of Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel, Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán ran a multinational drug-smuggling enterprise regardless of being functionally illiterate, having dropped out of college across the third grade.
Proof introduced at El Chapo’s trial, which ended in 2019 along with his conviction and a sentence of life in U.S. jail with no parole, confirmed that he tended to scribble messages to underlings in damaged Spanish.
So when a collection of letters, handwritten in English and allegedly signed by El Chapo, just lately started arriving on the federal court in Brooklyn, N.Y., they posed a thriller. Did El Chapo actually write them? And if not, who was writing on his behalf?
The U.S. District Court for the Japanese District of New York acquired a letter, left, on June 23, 2026, purportedly signed by imprisoned Sinaloa cartel chief Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman. He sent the federal court in Brooklyn a handwritten message in Spanish, proper, on July 15, 2025.
(Japanese District Court of New York )
Greater than 20 letters attributed to El Chapo have been acquired by the court, with the primary dated April 10 and the newest posted Tuesday on his case docket in the Japanese District of New York.
They’ve voiced a litany of complaints in regards to the unfairness of El Chapo’s prosecution and requested that he be sent again to Mexico.
“I did no hurt to nobody,” stated one, dated April 25. “I used to be recognized in my nation not for unhealthy issues, the great issues I’ve accomplished.”
The letters have drawn mockery and outrage on-line, with Mexican residents fuming over the infamous drug lord, who twice escaped from jail in his dwelling nation, apparently having the gall to assume he might be let loose.
Others puzzled whether or not El Chapo by some means managed to be taught English behind bars, or whether or not he was maybe utilizing the general public court filings to ship coded messages that enabled him to proceed calling the pictures for his cartel.
The messages carry the return deal with of ADX Florence, the maximum-security federal jail in Colorado the place the onetime kingpin is housed in strict isolation. His attorneys, nevertheless, observe that the envelopes had been postmarked in Jackson, Miss., not Colorado.
“They’re not him,” Mariel Colón Miró, a member of El Chapo’s protection crew, advised The Instances. “We’ve an investigation into who’s sending them.”
Colón Miró emphasised that she and different attorneys who symbolize El Chapo performed no half in sending the messages.
“It’s anyone loopy,” she stated.
A U.S. legislation enforcement supply aware of El Chapo’s case however not approved to communicate publicly referred to as the letters “full bull—.”
“Not from him,” the supply stated. “In all probability somebody mentally in poor health.”
Although usually rambling and incoherent, the letters have taken up the court’s time. Choose Brian Cogan, who presided over El Chapo’s trial, responded to the primary 5 letters acquired by the court with a Could 4 order denying their requests.
“A few of these paperwork make no sense and none of them have any authorized advantage,” the decide wrote.
Nonetheless, the letters preserve coming. One this month appeared to supply a clue and, just like the others, included phrases underlined seemingly at random.
Postmarked June 10, it stated that “the letters which might be being acquired to the courts is my authorized petition of Aubrey Gideon in Greenwood, MS 38930 is his rights and the connection with my lawyer on preventing for my freedom in the usA.”
Public information present an Aubrey Gideon has lived in the city of Greenwood and was convicted of cocaine possession in 2009. Messages sent to e-mail addresses related to Gideon went unreturned, and several other telephone numbers listed for him had been out of service.
In December 2022, Gideon sent a letter to the Mississippi Supreme Court that stated he had been “suspended” from visiting the put up workplace in Greenwood over some sort of incident. Gideon requested the state’s excessive court to intervene on his behalf.
The Mississippi letter references an area decide, Carlos Palmer, who advised The Instances that he couldn’t recall what precipitated Gideon’s missive. Palmer stated Gideon is a fixture on the streets of their city.
“Mr. Gideon walks round downtown Greenwood each single day,” Palmer stated. “I don’t know what his circumstances is. He’s been in court a number of occasions for a number of conditions.”
It’s extremely unlikely that El Chapo has been ready to talk with Gideon — or anybody else outdoors of his attorneys and his two teenage daughters, who’re the one ones authorized to go to and communicate with him below restrictions often known as Particular Administrative Measures.
In July 2024, El Chapo filed a civil rights lawsuit in the District of Colorado federal court searching for to raise the measures and enhance the situations of his confinement.
“On a typical day,” one court submitting stated, El Chapo “has no contact with a single different human being who shares a language in which they will talk.”
El Chapo stated he has been unable to get ample sleep and experiences “near-constant extreme sinus, ear, nostril, and throat ache,” which he attributed to sizzling air being ceaselessly pumped into his cell.
“I’m affected by extreme sleep deprivation because of being woken up repeatedly all through the night time, each night time by this sizzling air,” he wrote.
He additionally advised the court he doesn’t obtain any counseling contained in the jail. “I’ve nobody to assist me deal with the results and trauma of solitary confinement,” he wrote.
A decide dismissed the lawsuit on June 9.
A professional bono legal professional appointed by the court to symbolize El Chapo in the case, David Lane, stated they plan to file a brand new grievance on his behalf. Lane stated the acute isolation is unconstitutional, violating the eighth Modification’s prohibition on merciless and strange punishment.
“He has not seen precise sunshine or felt the solar on his pores and skin in years,” Lane stated. “He does get outdoors train in a cage, however it’s in the shade.”
In accordance to Lane and court filings in the Japanese District of New York, for a time El Chapo was ready to talk with a prisoner in a neighboring cell by shouting via the partitions.
That inmate, recognized in court filings as James “Jimmy” Sabatino — a reputed Gambino crime household affiliate sentenced to jail in 2017 for stealing thousands and thousands price of knickknack via an elaborate con — wrote to the Brooklyn federal court as properly, in November final yr.
Sabatino described how he and El Chapo had been housed subsequent to one another in an ultra-secure a part of ADX, an space he dubbed “The Suites.”
Sabatino wrote that, though he spoke little Spanish and El Chapo barely any English, they had been ready to strike up a friendship. Sabatino stated he noticed “the delicate aspect” of the convicted drug lord emerge throughout tough moments, such because the loss of life of El Chapo’s mom in 2023.
“I’ve seen his psychological well being quickly deteriorate, [and it] has gotten to the purpose that I worry for him,” Sabatino wrote. “He has bother speaking and placing his ideas in a coherent method.”
In January, Sabatino sent a letter to the court asking to withdraw his request to be granted “subsequent buddy” standing.
Lane stated the 2 males had been separated by jail officers and might not talk with one another.
In the meantime, El Chapo’s different letter-writing supporter has not given up on pushing the court to ship him dwelling. The newest message referenced Mexico’s president, and famous that the imprisoned cartel chief has not tried “any sort of escaping from the usA.”
“Claudia Sheinbaum has a secure place for my incarceration,” it stated.
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