El Chapo Isn't Just the Father of Drug Trafficking — He's Also a Father to At Least 15 Children

Considered one of the most infamous people in the world, Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán Loera has been behind bars since his arrest in 2016. As one of the most prolific drug traffickers and the leader of the Mexican cartel, El Chapo has secured his legacy far beyond his profession, inspiring books, films, and more. He also has many kids to continue the family name.

One of El Chapo’s kids, 38-year-old Joaquín Guzmán Lopez, threw his father’s partner-in-crime, Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada under the bus (or onto the plane if we’re being specific) in a deal with federal investigators to lessen his and his brother’s sentence. As El Chapo’s kids rise in the ranks of the Sinaloa cartel, who are they all and what are their roles in the family?

The most infamous leader and drug trafficker did a decent job of securing his genetic legacy. It began with his first wife, Alejandrina María Salazar Hernández, whom he married in 1977 in Jesús Maria, Sinaloa. Together, they had four children: César, Ivan Archivaldo, Jesús Alfredo, and Alejandrina Giselle. El Chapo put them up in a safe ranch home in the town but quickly moved on to a new love interest.

According to Excélsior, in the mid-1980s, El Chapo married Griselda López Pérez, with whom he had four more children: Édgar, Joaquín Jr., Ovidio, and Griselda Guadalupe. While the timeline is murky on El Chapo’s love life, he is also said to have “fallen in love” with a woman named Estela Peña when he was 30 years old in 1987, whom he also kidnapped and subsequently married.

Knowing El Chapo kidnapped Peña, however, suggests that his “love” may have been one-sided. However, you don’t go against the Cartel if you want to survive. It’s unknown whether El Chapo and Peña had children of their own. Even still, El Chapo and López Pérez shared his longest-lasting relationship as she and her sons stuck by him in the drug business.

In 2007, at 50 years old, El Chapo married 18-year-old “American beauty queen,” Emma Coronel Aispuro, according to Daily Entertainment News. She was one of his top deputy's daughters and a perfect pick for him to continue his family legacy. In 2011, they welcomed twins Maria Joaquina and Emali Guadalupe in California.

While that accounts for just 10 of El Chapo’s children, CBS has reported that he has at least 12. But beyond that, Wikipedia has named a few others, whose mothers we have little to no information about. Rosa Isela Guzmàn Ortiz, Kim Guzmán Dolci, Laisha Guzmán, Victor Arael Hernandez Lopez, and Rubencito are also said to be El Chapo’s kids, showing that El Chapo was as much a philanderer as he was a drug trafficker.

In Spanish, the “-ito” suffix denotes that something is a littler version of the original. So when it comes to El Chapo’s cartel-involved sons, “the Chapitos” is a perfect (if not a little too cute) nickname. Several of his children have gotten involved in the family business, even if others have kept their distance.

In 2023, the U.S. Justice Department found that at least three of El Chapo’s sons — Ovidio, Jesús, and Iván, all from El Chapo’s first marriage — were involved with running “the largest, most violent and most prolific fentanyl trafficking operation in the world,” according to CBS. Allegedly, they used extreme measures of torture, such as feeding their victims “dead or alive” to tigers.

Of the Chapitos, only Ovidio was captured, so Joaquín’s compliance with U.S. officials was allegedly to help out his imprisoned brother. In addition, at least one of El Chapo’s sons, Édgar, was killed in a 2008 parking lot ambush in Sinaloa. However, it’s unknown where most of El Chapo’s kids are in 2024. One thing they take after their father in is their uncanny ability to evade law enforcement and detection while running one of the most prolific crime rings in the world.