Get ready for El Chapo-brand luggage, jewelry, toys and more
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A seller displays El Chapo T-shirts for sale in the Tepito neighborhood of Mexico City on Jan. 25, 2016.
Mexican authorities will be looking into how the daughter of captured drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman was able to trademark his nickname.
Local media reported last week that one of the Sinaloa cartel leader’s daughters, Alejandra Gisselle Guzman, had successfully registered the term “El Chapo” with the Mexican Institute of Industrial Property.
It approved the trademark through to 2020, authorizing the kingpin’s family to use it for four different lines of products, including jewelry, watches, real and fake leather products, luggage, toys, sportswear and even Christmas tree lights.
Curiously, the agency turned down 20 other requests from family members of El Chapo to register a long list of trademarks, all variations on the nickname of their notorious relative, including El Chapo Guzman, Joaquin El Chapo Guzman, El Chapito Guzman and — one intended for a tequila brand — Don Chapo Guzman.
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It did so, according to Mexican newspaper Milenio, because the trademarks would have been “contrary to morals and good customs” and would have violated article four of Mexico’s Law of Industrial Property, which prohibits intellectual property rights of the “alias or nickname of anyone who is wanted by the office of the attorney general for the commissioning of various crimes.”
“Chapo” is slang in Mexican Spanish for “shorty.” Guzman, who was arrested for the third time this month and now faces extradition to the United States, is 5-foot-6. He had been on the run since breaking out of jail spectacularly last July.
El Chapo’s daughter keeps a low profile and little is known about her, other than that she is 32 and once spent three months in a US jail for attempting to enter the country with false documents.
How lucrative the trademark of her father’s name actually turns out to be is a moot point. Mexico is home to a booming market in counterfeit goods, usually at rock bottom prices. There has already been a wave of El Chapo memorabilia in his home country following the druglord’s arrest.
This story was cross-posted from our colleagues at GlobalPost.
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