After Deportation, Mexican Boxer Faces Trial Due to Alleged Mexican Cartel Links

Former middleweight boxing winner Julio César Chávez Jr. is set to face a court hearing in Mexico on accusations of supposed links to cartels and weapons dealing, a court decided over the weekend. Still, in an unexpected move, the boxer might get to wait for his court date out of jail.

In an online meeting on Saturday from a holding center, Chávez's lawyer, Rubén Fernando Benítez Alvarez, said that the court found there was enough proof for the case to move forward. The court also gave a three-month window for more investigations into the case. If found guilty, the 39-year-old fighter may get a jail term of four to eight years.

His lawyer dismissed the claims against his client, calling them just speculation and urban legends after the meeting in the northern Mexican city of Hermosillo.

The claims come from a long investigation by Mexican officials tying Chávez to a major Mexican cartel.

Chávez's law problems got much worse in early July when he was taken in by US authorities outside his house in Los Angeles. The arrest was not directly linked to the Mexican claims but for staying past his visa and for giving wrong details on a green card application. For quite some time, Chávez had been staying in the United States.

After being held in the US, Chávez was deported to Mexico and handed over to officers from Mexico's Federal Attorney General's Office. He was then moved to a government holding place in Hermosillo from where he took part in the latest meeting.

The Chávez family has a very long history in Los Angeles. While born in Sonora, in northern Mexico, Chávez spent time in the United States, largely in Los Angeles. In 2018 he married Muñoz, an American citizen. On Thursday in a message about Chávez’s arrest, the Department of Homeland Security noted her links to the Sinaloa Cartel.

Though Frida Muñoz has in the past claimed she was separated from her first husband’s family for years, the Mexican Financial Intelligence Unit (UIF) investigated and froze her and her daughter’s accounts.

Chávez Jr. has never kept his friendship with Los Chapitos and specifically with Ovidio Guzmán, also known as El Ratón, a secret. But he has always sought to make it clear that he is not associated with any criminal group. The Trump administration has in recent months been investigating certain people with ties to cartels.

A few weeks ago, it acted against Mexican musician Ricardo Hernández, also known as El Makabelico, based on information that the artist was handling funds for a specific group. The U.S. Treasury Department suggested Hernández, a musician they label a narco-rapper, had a relationship with the Cartel del Noreste, CDN, a splinter group of the former Zetas Cartel. According to the department, he managed financial dealings for the organization through his performances and other activities.

The CDN is one of a number of Latin American groups of concern that the Trump administration has designated as foreign terrorist organizations. The administration alleges that 50 percent of Hernández's income on streaming platforms was channeled to the cartel, resulting in him facing measures with others in the group on the grounds that he was assisting the activities of the criminal group. The measures would affect the rapper's assets in the US.

Hernández, whose stage name is a reference to the cartels, performs his songs wearing a black ski mask and often has lyrics related to criminal groups.

As the Chávez court case continues over the next three months, the boxing world and fans on both sides of the border will be watching to see if the "Son of the Legend" can prove his innocence and avoid a lengthy prison sentence.