By Elliot Spagat
Associated Press
SAN DIEGO — A woman suspected of having links to the family of Mexico’s most wanted drug lord has been arrested in California on immigration charges, a Border Patrol spokesman said Friday.
Zulema Aracely Lindoro was stopped Monday at a Border Patrol checkpoint in San Clemente, south of Los Angeles, spokesman Paul Carr said,
A fingerprint check verified that her student visa was revoked in March for suspected ties to the family of Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, authorities said.
Lindoro is identified in Border Patrol documents as a spouse of Guzman’s son, Ivan Archivaldo Guzman Salazar, though it was unclear if the couple is or ever was legally married.
Carr said there was no evidence to suggest Lindoro was involved in the drug trade.
Lindoro, who was born in 1990, did not acknowledge any family connection after the arrest.
Lindoro was released Tuesday on humanitarian grounds to care for her infant son and ordered to appear before an immigration judge, Carr said. She returned to Tijuana, Mexico, voluntarily on Thursday, he said.
In May, the U.S. Treasury Department imposed financial sanctions on Ivan Archivaldo Guzman Salazar, saying he was involved in his father’s cartel.
Joanne Moore, a State Department spokeswoman, said Friday that she had no information on the arrest or possible ties to the Guzman family.
Lindoro was a passenger in a car with the infant, Carr said. The spokesman didn’t know the name of the driver, who was a U.S. citizen.
The Sinaloa cartel, named after the Pacific coast state of the same name, controls trafficking along much of the U.S. border with Mexico.
Last month, a woman described by U.S. officials as a daughter of Joaquin Guzman was arrested on immigration charges at San Diego’s San Ysidro port of entry on suspicion of attempting to enter the U.S. on someone else’s visa.
At the time, U.S. officials said 31-year-old Alejandra Gisselle Guzman Salazar told them Guzman was her father and that she was six months pregnant. She has pleaded not guilty.
Copyright 2012 Associated Press