BROOKLYN, N.Y. — More than 20 handwritten letters attributed to Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán have been received by the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York between April and June 2026. The communications led to an investigation into their authenticity.

The first letter was dated April 10, 2026, and the most recent was posted to the case docket on June 24, 2026. The letters request that Guzmán be sent back to Mexico. The envelopes containing the letters were postmarked in Jackson, Miss., and carry the return address of ADX Florence, a maximum-security federal prison in Colorado.

Mariel Colón Miró, a member of Guzmán's defense team, stated that neither she nor other attorneys representing Guzmán played a part in sending the messages. "They're not him," Colón Miró said. "We have an investigation into who is sending them."

Judge Brian Cogan, who presided over Guzmán's trial, issued an order on May 4, 2026, denying the requests in the first five letters received by the court. "Some of these documents make no sense and none of them have any legal merit," Judge Cogan wrote.

One letter, dated April 25, 2026, stated, "I did no harm to no one." It continued, "I was known in my country not for bad things, the good things I've done." Another letter, postmarked on June 10, stated, "the letters that are being received to the courts is my legal petition of Aubrey Gideon in Greenwood, MS 38930 is his rights and the connection with my lawyer on fighting for my freedom in the U.S.A." Public records confirm an Aubrey Gideon has lived in Greenwood, Miss., and was convicted of cocaine possession in 2009. In December 2022, Gideon sent a letter to the Mississippi Supreme Court regarding a suspension from visiting the post office in Greenwood.

Guzmán was convicted in 2019 and sentenced to life in U.S. prison without parole. He is held in strict isolation at ADX Florence in Colorado and is subject to Special Administrative Measures that restrict his communication to his attorneys and his two teenage daughters. Guzmán was extradited from Mexico in 2017 after escaping from prison there twice.

In July 2024, Guzmán filed a civil rights lawsuit in the District of Colorado federal court, seeking to lift these Special Administrative Measures and improve his confinement conditions. A judge dismissed Guzmán's civil rights lawsuit on June 9, 2026.