El Chapo's 91-year-old mother granted permission to see him in prison, says she will get him enchiladas
As convicted Mexican drug kingpin Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán Loera awaits at Brooklyn's Metropolitan Correctional Center for what is likely to be a sentence of life behind bars, he is likely to find some solace in seeing his mother for the first time since he was incarcerated in the US 27 months ago.
According to ABC 13, 91-year-old Consuelo Loera confirmed to reporters that she and her two daughters had their request to visit the former Sinaloa Cartel supremo behind bars approved by the US embassy in Mexico City.
Speaking to a throng of reporters, she said, "Thank God, the U.S. Embassy gave me the permission," but revealed that neither she nor her daughters had received the actual visa yet or set a date for the trip.
And what is on the itinerary for the nonagenarian, who is thought to have last seen her son as far back as 2015?
She is said to have told reporters that one of her first moves would be to get her son some enchiladas, which she said was his favorite meal.
Jose Luis González, a lawyer for Chapo, said the elderly mother was given a paper after the interview with the journalists stating U.S. officials would get in touch with her if they needed further information. "Did you see how excited she was?" he said, adding that Loera was desperate to hug her son.
He also said she had brought financial statements and proof of property ownership to show that she had the means to travel to the US and a reason to return to Mexico as she owned a ranch with cows and pigs.
The request was likely approved thanks to the backing of Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who had previously lobbied for such a visit to be permitted out of what he said was empathy for the mother.
Obrador had been vocal about the visa approvals after he reportedly received a letter from Loera this past February asking for assistance while he was in Chapo's home state of Sinaloa to announce a highway project. In the letter, the 91-year-old is said to have described herself as "suffering and desperate."
However, US officials declined to confirm whether the visa has been granted.
We previously reported that Chapo was convicted of running an industrial-scale criminal enterprise and other drug-related charges in February following a three-month trial that laid bare the grisly details of the workings of the Sinaloa Cartel.
Chapo is scheduled to be sentenced on June 25, and while it is unclear where he will be incarcerated afterward, reports speculate prison officials will send him to the country's most forbidding federal lockup, the United States Penitentiary Administrative Maximum Facility in Florence, Colorado.
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