Former champion boxer Julio Cesar Chavez Jr has been detained in Mexico after deportation by the US to face charges of involvement with a drug cartel, Mexican authorities said on Tuesday.
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 had access to the case files, Chavez, 39, was allegedly a “hitman” used to punish members of the cartel.
Photo: AFP
“He hangs them [and] grabs them like a punching bag,” the Reforma newspaper reported, citing testimony in the prosecutor’s documents.
The US Attorney General’s Office has withheld details of the indictment.
Chavez was handed over on Monday and transferred to a prison in Mexico’s northwest Sonora state, information on the country’s National Detention Registry showed.
“He was deported,” Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum told reporters, adding that there was an active arrest warrant for him in Mexico.
US authorities arrested Chavez last month for being in the country 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 US.
The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which oversees US immigration enforcement, said Chavez had entered the US legally in 2023 on a tourist visa that was valid until February last year.
He applied for permanent residency in April last year “based on his marriage to a US 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,” the DHS said in its July 3 arrest announcement.
His extradition comes as US President Donald Trump cracks down on immigrants as part of a promise to deport millions of people.
Chavez’s arrest by US 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. However, his career has also included multiple suspensions and fines for failed drug tests.
In addition to the active warrant in Mexico, Chavez had criminal convictions in the US, including for possession of an assault weapon in January last year in Los Angeles, the DHS said.
The Los Angeles Times reported at the time that police said they had found Chavez in possession of two AR-style hard-to-trace “ghost” rifles.
The DHS in its announcement had expressed astonishment that the administration of former US president 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 US 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.
Chavez’s father, 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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