Who is Ivan Archivaldo Guzmán Salazar?
One of the high-ranking members of the Sinaloa Cartel, Ivan Archivaldo Guzman Salazar, is the son of the former leader of this criminal organization and drug lord Joaquin Guzman, known as El Chapo. After his father was arrested and imprisoned, Ivan and his brothers took over his business, and continued expanding their father’s empire.
Early life and family
The early life of this man is under the veil of secrecy, since it isn’t clear when and where he was born. Some sources claim October 1980 in Mexico, while according to the US Department of State, his birthday is 15 August 1983, in Zapopan, Jalisco (officially the Free and Sovereign State of Jalisco), Federal Entity of Mexico.
What is known is that his mother is El Chapo’s first wife, Maria Alejandrina Salazar Hernandez she married El Chapo in 1977, and besides Ivan, they have two other sons, Jesus and Cesar, and a daughter Alejandrina Giselle. It seems that Jesus and Alejandrina prefer to keep their lives away from their father’s business, as well as away from the public eye, while Jesus Alfredo Guzman Salazar is also a member of the Sinaloa cartel, and one of the 10 most wanted criminals of the United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).
Ivan has between 13 and 15 siblings and half-siblings, some of whom are also connected with the cartel. One of them is Ovidio Guzman Lopez, known as ‘El Raton’ (The Mouse), who is one of the high-ranking members of Sinaloa.
There isn’t much information about Ivan’s early days, however, according to sources, he became involved with the cartel business as a teenager. It’s believed that he didn’t matriculate from high school.
Cartel and drug trafficking
The US law enforcement investigations indicate that Ivan and his brothers provided significant assistance to their father’s drug trafficking business, including the transportation of drugs from South and Central America to Mexico, then further into the United States.
The Sinaloa cartel is known for its violent tactics, which they use to protect their organization, and besides that, the cartel is known for kidnapping, bribing public officials, and is allegedly, involved in numerous murders of rival drug traffickers as well as members of law enforcement.
In April 2004, Ivan was allegedly involved in the murder of Kristen Deyell, a Canadian exchange student, and her friend Cesar Augusto Pulido Mendoza, however, the case never came to a conclusion.
In February 2005, Ivan and his associates were arrested by Zapopan Municipal Police Officers – according to reports, the police officers saw that a man was thrown from a vehicle that Ivan was in, but in June that year, Ivan was released after his father paid his $55,000 bail bond.
Soon afterwards, Ivan was arrested by federal police and accused of money laundering. Ivan waited for trial in ‘La Palma’, the Federal Social Readaptation Center No. 1, a maximum security prison in Mexico. According to reports, he told his father that he needed warmer clothes because the prison was very cold. El Chapo bribed the guards to send Ivan some warm layers, however, although the deal was that El Chapo pays $100,000, the guards asked for five times the amount.
The mediator of this agreement was El Chapo’s fellow drug trafficker, Edgar Valdez Villareal, who after the guards asked for more money, let El Chapo know that he had nothing to do with it, and that the guards themselves decided to raise the price.
El Chapo paid $500,000 to the guards who brought Ivan warm clothes, some thermal underwear, and a few T-shirts. Not long afterwards, the two men were killed, but before they died, they were tortured and their bodies were separated and left on the outskirts of the international airport in Mexico City.
De acuerdo con el diario The New York Times, el pasado jueves 17 también fue detenido y liberado en Culiacán, Iván Archivaldo Guzmán Salazar, hijo mayor de “El Chapo”.
➡ https://t.co/P85imHH3Ot pic.twitter.com/ewVgDKdzQf
— quiero tv (@quierotv_gdl) October 22, 2019
In 2008, Ivan was found guilty of money laundering charges and was sentenced to five years in prison. However, he successfully appealed the verdict, and a few months later, was released from prison.
Four years later, Ivan was named a ‘lieutenant’ of El Chapo by the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act, a landmark federal legislation in the US. In 2013, he was charged with counts of conspiracy to import and distribute narcotics by the grand jury in the US District Court for the Southern District of California – on 25 July 2014, the court unsealed the indictment and issued a warrant for Ivan’s arrest.
The US Department of State offers a $5 million reward for information about Ivan that would lead to his arrest and/or conviction.
Is he married?
There is no information about Ivan’s personal life and his relationships. It’s believed that he is or was in a marriage with a girl known as Zulema Aracely Lindoro, who has allegedly given birth to his child. She is from Sinaloa, Mexico, and she came into the spotlight after it was revealed that she was arrested on immigration charges by the Border Patrol, south of San Clemente, California.
She was in a car with her infant son, and after the authorities checked her fingerprints, they discovered that her student visa was revoked due to suspected ties to the Sinaloa cartel and El Chapo’s family.
The authorities were unsure whether Zulema is Ivan’s legal wife, but believed that she is not involved in drug trafficking, so she was released. Zulema voluntarily crossed the border and returned to Mexico.
Where is he now?
After a warrant was issued for him, in August 2016, Ivan was kidnapped by members of the Cártel de Jalisco Nueva Generación (Jalisco New Generation Cartel), a semi-militarized Mexican criminal group. Reportedly, his brother Jesus and four other people were also kidnapped while they were sitting in a restaurant in Puerto Vallarta, a Mexican beach resort. The following week, they were all released.
This is the last known news about Ivan, and although he has social media accounts, it isn’t clear if these are false profiles.
Net worth
Ivan Archivaldo Guzman Salazar often referred to as ‘Chapito’, has a net worth estimated at over $1 billion, which includes, money and assets.
