Mexico City (AFP) – Mexico’s attorney general office said a court has so far rejected requests from boxer Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. to not be arrested in the event of his deportation from the United States, where he was detained for alleged drug trafficking ties. Chavez, a former world champion and the son of legendary Mexican fighter Julio Cesar Chavez, was arrested Wednesday in Los Angeles after authorities determined that he was in the country illegally.
His defense attorneys “have presented us” with “five or six injunctions” from the boxer “to have him released as soon as he arrives in Mexico,” Attorney General Alejandro Gertz said at a press conference on Sunday. These injunctions were rejected because Chavez has not yet been handed over to Mexican authorities, he said. His deportation could be decided at an immigration hearing, which according to the defense team, will be held on Monday.
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Chavez, whose sports career is on the decline at the age of 39, is alleged to have ties to the Sinaloa cartel, one of six Mexican drug trafficking groups designated as terrorist organizations by the United States. Following his arrest, US authorities announced Thursday that they were processing his “expedited removal” and referred to the charges against him in Mexico.
The attorney general’s office confirmed in a statement after his arrest last week that Mexico had issued an arrest warrant for Chavez in 2023 “for organized crime and arms trafficking.” Chavez’s defense team has rejected the accusations and maintained that his arrest seeks to “terrorize the community” amid raids against undocumented migrants.
Chavez’s arrest came days after his lopsided loss to YouTuber-turned-boxer Jake Paul in a cruiserweight bout before a sell-out crowd at the Honda Center in Anaheim, California. Once a top-rated boxer, Chavez won the WBC middleweight world title in 2011 and successfully defended it three times. He owns a record of 54-7 with one draw, but his career has also included multiple suspensions and fines for failed drug tests.
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