Who Will Testify Against El Chapo at Trial? - The New York Times

For nearly two years, federal prosecutors in Brooklyn have been promising to prove their case against Joaquín Guzmán Loera, the Mexican drug lord known as El Chapo, by bringing a small army of witnesses into court to testify against him.

Given Mr. Guzmán's history of violence — not to mention, the global reach of the Sinaloa drug cartel, which he ran for 20 years — the prosecutors have gone to extraordinary lengths to protect the witnesses, shrouding their identities in a thick veil of secrecy.

But public court documents and media reports have provided clues about which of Mr. Guzmán's former allies, rivals and underlings might ultimately take the stand after his trial begins in Federal District Court in Brooklyn on Nov. 5.

Here is a look at a few of them.

Two of Chicago's biggest drug dealers

For nearly a decade, beginning in 1998, the brothers Pedro and Margarito Flores were two of Chicago's most prolific drug dealers, overseeing the distribution of hundreds of millions of dollars in Mexican cocaine in their hometown and in dozens of other cities across the United States, the government says.

By their own account, the Floreses were canny smugglers, initially moving most of their product in cargo trucks and trailers with secret compartments in the roofs.

But in 2005, while they were in Mexico, they met a man who claimed to be a lifelong friend of Mr. Guzmán. The man, the brothers have testified, recruited them to work for Mr. Guzmán, and they began receiving cocaine shipments from the kingpin, smuggled in luxury yachts, submarines and airplanes, even a custom-fitted Boeing 747.

In 2008, fearing arrest in Chicago, the brothers turned on Mr. Guzmán. During a clandestine meeting in a Mexican hotel room, they agreed to help American law-enforcement officials by undertaking a perilous mission: secretly recording their billionaire boss talking on the phone about the details of his business. The prosecutors said that in doing so, the Floreses assumed "great personal risk" and gave the government "unparalleled assistance" in fighting Mr. Guzmán's operation.

The brothers were each sentenced to 14 years in prison in 2015 and have not been seen in public since. But because of their undercover work, their father, Margarito Flores Sr., was murdered in 2009 by a cartel hit team in what law enforcement officials thought was an act of vengeance.

Last year, the brothers' wives, Olivia and Mia Flores, published a jointly written memoir, "Cartel Wives," describing their own journey from being wealthy narco-spouses who dressed in Chanel and Cartier to living in hiding under government protection.

The son of Chapo's right-hand man

Vicente Zambada-Niebla's central claim to fame is that he is the scion of Ismael Zambada Garciá, Mr. Guzmán's longtime deputy who took over a faction of the Sinaloa cartel after Mr. Guzman was arrested. In 2009, Mr. Zambada-Niebla was himself arrested during an Army operation in Mexico City and extradited to Chicago, where he was initially expected to stand trial on charges of being a key cartel logistics manager for his father.

Before the trial began, however, the case erupted into chaos: Mr. Zambada-Niebla's lawyers claimed that for years, he had been working as an informant for the Drug Enforcement Administration, trading tips about his drug world rivals in exchange for the freedom to run his own business.

Mr. Zambada-Niebla eventually pleaded guilty to trafficking charges in a secret proceeding in Chicago in 2013 and agreed to cooperate with American officials. In his plea deal, which was unsealed in 2014, he confessed to having smuggled tons of cocaine into the United States in everything from rail cars to container ships.

The official who helped Mr. Guzman escape from prison

A former Mexican security official, Damaso Lopez Nuñez is perhaps best known for having helped Mr. Guzmán escape from his cell in the notorious Puente Grande prison in Jalisco State in 2001. After rendering that favor, prosecutors say, Mr. Lopez went to work for Mr. Guzmán and spent the next 16 years climbing the ranks of the Sinaloa cartel.

According to court papers released last month, Mr. Lopez, known as El Licenciado (a reference to his college degree), "oversaw the financing" of huge shipments of cocaine into Mexico from Central and South America. Based in the city of Culiacán, the papers say, he also had an army of "sicarios," or assassins, at his command to carry out murders, kidnappings, acts of torture and to serve as debt collectors.

Mr. Lopez was arrested last year in Mexico City and extradited to the United States in July — an event that prompted Mexico's acting attorney general, Alberto Elias Beltran, to described him as "potentially a key witness" against Mr. Guzmán.

On Sept. 28, Mr. Lopez pleaded guilty to drug trafficking charges at a court appearance in Alexandria, Va.

… and the official's son

Damaso Lopez-Serrano, a son of El Licenciado, came to be in American custody in a highly unusual way: In July 2017, he turned himself in to United States border officials at the Calexico West Port of Entry in Mexicali, Mexico.

At the time, the Mexican media were reporting that he was embroiled in a violent power struggle with Mr. Guzmán's sons over control of the Sinaloa drug cartel. He was also wanted by the Mexican authorities.

According to court papers filed in California, Mr. Lopez-Serrano was formally arrested in August 2017 in San Diego. He pleaded guilty there in January to charges of importing cocaine, heroin and methamphetamines into the country.