Mexico City (AFP) – Former champion boxer Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. has been detained in Mexico after being deported by the United States to face shock charges of involvement with a drug cartel, Mexican authorities said Tuesday. The son of boxing icon Julio Cesar Chavez stands accused of serving as a henchman for the powerful Sinaloa drug cartel, which Washington designated a foreign terrorist organization this year, and of trafficking firearms and explosives.
According to Mexican media, which claim to have accessed the case files, Chavez, 39, was allegedly a “hitman” used to punish members of the cartel. “He hangs them (and) grabs them like a punching bag,” the Reforma newspaper reported, citing testimony in the prosecutor’s documents. The Attorney General’s Office has withheld details of the indictment. Chavez was handed over Monday and transferred to a prison in Mexico’s northwest Sonora state, according to information on the country’s National Detention Registry. “He was deported,” President Claudia Sheinbaum told reporters, adding there was an active arrest warrant for him in Mexico.
U.S. authorities arrested Chavez in July for being in the United States illegally. They also said he was wanted in Mexico for alleged ties to the Sinaloa cartel, one of six Mexican drug trafficking groups designated as terrorist organizations by the United States. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which oversees U.S. immigration enforcement, said Chavez had entered the United States legally in 2023 on a tourist visa that was valid until February 2024. He applied for permanent residency in April 2024 “based on his marriage to a U.S. citizen, who is connected to the Sinaloa Cartel through a prior relationship with the now-deceased son of the infamous cartel leader Joaquin ‘El Chapo’ Guzman,” DHS said in its July 3 arrest announcement. His extradition comes as U.S. President Donald Trump cracks down on immigrants as part of a promise to deport millions of people.
Boxing legacy – Chavez’s arrest by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in Los Angeles occurred four days after his lopsided loss to YouTuber-turned-boxer Jake Paul before a sell-out crowd in California. Once a top-rated boxer, Chavez won the WBC middleweight world title in 2011 and successfully defended it three times. But his career has also included multiple suspensions and fines for failed drug tests.
Homeland Security said that in addition to the active warrant in Mexico, Chavez had criminal convictions in the United States, including for possession of an assault weapon in January 2024 in Los Angeles. The Los Angeles Times reported at the time that police had found Chavez in possession of two AR-style hard-to-trace “ghost” rifles. DHS, in its announcement, had expressed astonishment that the administration of Trump’s predecessor Joe Biden had not prioritized Chavez’s deportation. “Under President Trump, no one is above the law — including world-famous athletes,” DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in the announcement.
After his U.S. arrest, the boxer’s defense team sought to prevent his prosecution in Mexico by filing multiple legal appeals, which were rejected by the Mexican courts. Julio Cesar Chavez Sr., now 63, was a world champion in three weight divisions and held various title belts from 1984 to 1996.
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