Boxing legend Julio César Chávez defends son amid alleged cartel ties, criminal charges in U.S. and Mexico

Boxing legend Julio César Chávez defended his son, Julio César Chávez Jr., amid his arrest by U.S. immigration officials and an active warrant for his arrest in Mexico, claiming his son is innocent of the criminal acts he is accused of. Chávez Jr. was arrested by U.S. law enforcement on charges of overstaying his visa and lying on a green card application, and is also being sought for arrest in Mexico for his alleged involvement in drug and arm trafficking tied to the Sinaloa Cartel.

“It’s complicated, there’s a lot of talk, but we’re calm because we know my son’s innocence,” Chávez Sr. told El Heraldo newspaper in Mexico (translation per the Associated Press). “My son will be anything you want, anything, but he is not a criminal and less everything he’s being accused of.”

In a press release, the Department of Homeland Security claimed Chávez Jr. had filed for Lawful Permanent Resident status in April 2024 following the expiration of his B2 tourist visa, but was the subject of a referral from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to Immigration and Customs Enforcement as an “egregious public safety threat” due to his ties to the Sinaloa Cartel, which has been deemed a foreign terrorist organization by both the U.S. and Canada. However, government officials stated that Chávez Jr. had been allowed to re-enter the U.S. in January after the Biden Administration did not make him an immigration enforcement priority.

Chávez Jr.’s alleged ties to the Sinaloa Cartel center around his marriage, as his spouse had been in a previous relationship with the now-deceased son of cartel leader Joaquin Guzman. The elder Chavez claimed his son knowing people involved in illicit acts “does not mean nothing,” as it would be “impossible” to not know people who are involved in illicit acts given that the family lives in Culiacan — as Chávez Sr. did during his career in the 1980s and 90s, where he claimed to have been friends with notorious drug lord Amado Carrillo Fuentes.

Chávez Sr. also expressed confusion as to why authorities apparently waited until after his son’s June 28 fight, where he lost to Jake Paul via unanimous decision, to make an arrest. “My son has been paying taxes in the United States for three years, and now in Mexico they’re accusing him of money laundering,” Chávez Sr. said. “Yes, he knows those people, but that doesn’t mean I’m a drug trafficker. Let’s trust the law.”

Chávez Jr. did not appear in at the Los Angeles Superior Court Northwest Division on Monday, where he had been scheduled to appear to seek early release from a pretrial diversion program stemming from gun charges in January 2024. Chávez Jr.’s attorney told USA Today he does not know his client’s location or if he is still in the United States.