El Chapo’s Children: How Many Sons & Daughters Does He Have?

Joaquín Guzmán Loera, better known as the drug lord “El Chapo,” is the father to more than a dozen children, including a group of sons known as “Los Chapitos” who seized power of the cartel after El Chapo’s incarceration in the United States. Some of his children flaunt their wealth on social media, showing off their luxury cars and high-end lifestyles on Twitter and Instagram.

Most sites put the number of El Chapo kids at between 12 and 15. Some of the El Chapo offspring, especially his children from his first wife, are flashier and, thus, more well-known than others. Some of El Chapo’s kids were killed in the past. One was briefly taken hostage by another cartel.

The question of El Chapo’s children burst back into the news on October 17, 2019 when major violence broke out in Culiacan, Sinaloa, the heart of the region El Chapo’s cartel controls. Ovidio Guzman Lopez, one of El Chapo’s lesser known and younger sons, was briefly detained by the military, sparking the unrest. An indictment in the United States says that Ovidio Guzman Lopez is also known as “El Raton” and “Raton Nuevo.” That translates to the The Mouse or The New Mouse. He’s not considered the most powerful of El Chapo’s sons, though; that title is normally applied to Chapo’s older son Ivan; a Facebook page often reported as being his showcases guns and even drugs. The New York Times reported that Iván was also was briefly arrested but escaped and orchestrated the violence that led to Ovidio’s freedom.

In 2018, The New York Post reported that U.S. government officials had stated “… The defendant’s (El Chapo’s) sons remain in charge of his vast drug trafficking empire.”

However, Reuters has now confirmed that El Chapo’s son was released. “Heavily armed cartel fighters surrounded security forces and made them free one of drug lord Joaquin ‘El Chapo’ Guzman’s sons, whose brief apprehension triggered intense gunbattles across the city of Culiacan,” the site reported. El Horizonte then reported, “They leave (him) free. After clashes, the decision was made to release Ovidio Guzmán, son of #Chapo and thus try to avoid more violence.”

Here’s what you need to know about El Chapo’s Children:

El Chapo Has Been Married Three Times & Sired More Than a Dozen Children, Including Sons Who Now Run the Cartel

A truck burns in a street of Culiacan, state of Sinaloa, Mexico.

El Chapo, despite running his drug enterprise, found a way to marry multiple times and have many children. According to Biography.com, “it’s believed Guzmán has married at least three times and is the father of nine, possibly 13 children.” CNN puts the number of El Chapo offspring at 12 or 13. Other sites say that El Chapo may have as many as 15 kids, or even more than that. No one knows the exact number for sure. The 13 most commonly listed kids are:

Ivan Archivaldo Guzmán Salazar (often regarded as El Chapo’s most powerful son)
Jesús Alfredo Guzmán Salazar
Alejandrina Gisselle Guzman
Ovidio Guzman Lopez
Joaquin Guzman Lopez
Emali and Maria Joaquina
Édgar Guzmán López (deceased)
Grisella Guadalupe
César Guzmán Salazar (deceased)
Rosa Isela Guzmán Ortiz (claimed)
Kim Guzman Dolci
Laisha Guzman

Los Chapitos

DEAJesus Alfredo

El Chapo’s sons Ivan Archivaldo and Jesus Alfredo are his children with his first wife María Alejandrina Salazar Hernández, according to Fox News. The New York Post claims that Ivan and Jesus were El Chapo’s favorite sons and the ones he wanted to take over the cartel. He married their mother first, in 1977. Along with Ovidio and his brother Joaquin Lopez (sons of El Chapo’s second – or some say third – wife, Griselda Lopez Perez), they make up Los Chapitos, the band of El Chapo sons in control of the drug enterprise, some sites say. Others say only Ivan and Jesus are considered Los Chapitos because they have more power. El Chapo had a third son with his first wife, Cesar, but he was killed.

InSight Crime reports that little is known about Joaquín Guzmán López. As for Ovidio and two of El Chapo’s other sons, Iván Archivaldo, and Jesús Alfredo, they were deeply involved in a successful power battle within the cartel against El Chapo’s “former right-hand man, Dámaso López Núñez, alias Licenciado,” the site reports. The latter was extradited to the United States in 2018, however, and this “solidified the sons’ place at the top of the organization” along with an El Chapo ally, Ismael Zambada Garcia.

One of the “most conspicuous” of El Chapo’s children is Ivan Guzman. Biography.com reports that he leads an “extravagant playboy lifestyle full of cars, wild animals, guns and parties.” He often posts on social media. Not saying low key comes with risks. Ivan’s brother Alfredo was briefly captured by the Jalisco Cartel but was released. Ivan even has an Instagram account which is filled with photos of luxury cars. He has more than 200,000 followers.

Ivan is also on Twitter, where he posts photos of himself out on the town with women and with his brother.

The Instagram page also showcases vacations at luxury hotels with pools. The Twitter page highlights luxury cars and planes.

“Ivan Archivaldo was, I believe, a bit crazy,” Raul Benitez, a security specialist, told AP. “He spent all his time posting things on Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter. A serious narco doesn’t do that.”

According to Fox News, Ovidio Guzmán López, the youngest of the three Los Chapitos brothers, is a son of El Chapo’s marriage to Griselda López Pérez. She is also known as Karla Perez Rojo.

Griselda Lopez Perez

Griselda had three other children in addition to Ovidio; one of them, Edgar Lopez, was later shot and killed in a supermarket parking lot. The other two children are named Grisella Guadalupe and Joaquin, El Heraldo reports. Heraldo further reports that “Griselda is wanted by the United States Government for drug trafficking and links to organized crime.”

Alejandrina Gisselle Guzman

In addition, Ivan and Jesus have a sister named Alejandrina Gisselle Guzman, who recently launched her new line of clothing and accessories named after her father, El Chapo 701.

On Alejandrina’s website, she writes that her father is “a friend of everyone,” a “willing leader” and “a humble orange vendor with many goals and great ambition.”

Emalia & Maria Joaquina

El Chapo’s most recent wife is the former beauty queen, Emma Coronel Aispuro, who married El Chapo in 2007 and was a fixture at his trial. She is the mother of his twin daughters, Emali and Maria Joaquina, who made the news when Emma threw a barbie-themed party for them.

Coronel demanded that Rosa Isela Guzmán Ortiz, who claimed in the news media to be a daughter of El Chapo, take a DNA test. Rosa had claimed that El Chapo paid for the campaigns of various Mexican politicians. She was living in the U.S. and even claimed her dad visited her there.

Kim Guzman Dolci and Laisha Guzman are reported by some sites to be other daughters of El Chapo, but little is known about them.