Mother of ‘El Chapo’ says she’s received U.S. visa

MEXICO CITY — The mother of convicted drug kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzmán said Saturday that the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City granted her a visa so she can visit her son in prison.

Sitting in a wheelchair in front of the embassy, Consuelo Loera said she and two daughters were both approved Saturday for visas to travel to the United States.

“Thank God, the U.S. Embassy gave me the permission,” she said in a feeble voice while surrounded by a throng of journalists.

Loera, 91, said she hasn’t seen her son in more than four years. She added that she has yet to receive the actual visa or set a date for her trip.

A U.S. official declined to confirm that the visa was granted.

Jose Luis González, a lawyer for Guzmán, said Loera was given a paper after an interview that stated U.S. officials would get in touch if they needed more information. González also said the three women were approved for travel.

Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador lobbied for the visa to be issued after receiving a letter in February from Loera asking for assistance. In the letter, passed to López Obrador while he was in Guzman’s home state of Sinaloa to announce a highway project, Loera described herself as “suffering and desperate” to see her son.

The president said he intervened out of empathy for the mother. When Guzmán was convicted in the U.S. in February, López Obrador said: “Let this serve as a lesson to show that money doesn’t buy true happiness.”

“El Chapo,” who led the Sinaloa drug cartel and twice escaped from Mexican prisons before he was extradited to New York, was convicted of running an industrial-scale smuggling operation. He is due to be sentenced this month and faces the possibility of a life term.

Consuelo Loera