Capture of El Chapo’s son in Mexico leaves 29 dead and tension in the streets

At least 29 people died during the police operation to arrest Ovidio Guzmán, son of Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, one of the biggest drug traffickers of all time, the Mexican government said this Friday (6).

Of the victims, ten were military and the other 19 were identified as alleged criminals. At least 35 soldiers were also wounded, and 21 people were arrested. According to the government, no civilian was injured during the operation on Thursday (5).

During clashes with the police, the Sinaloa cartel, to which Guzmán is linked, also fired on a plane with passengers and on two Mexican Air Force aircraft. The aircraft had to make emergency landings, but none of the episodes left any injuries.

Guzmán was captured in Culiacán, in the state of Sinaloa, in an episode that sparked clashes between criminals and police forces. The arrest comes just days before a visit by US President Joe Biden and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to the country of Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

AMLO, the acronym by which the Mexican leader is known, said during his traditional daily press conference — the so-called “mañanera”— that Ovidio’s arrest is not related to Biden’s arrival and that there was no collaboration from Washington. “We act autonomously,” said the leftist.

Violence centered around Culiacan, the capital of Sinaloa, home to the drug cartel that El Chapo headed before his capture in 2016 and subsequent extradition to the US in 2017. In the country, he was sentenced to life imprisonment and the payment of US$ 12.6 billion, value corresponds to how much he would have obtained by selling drugs in American territory.

Mexican Defense Secretary Luis Cresencio Sandoval said there will be a massive presence of security agents in Sinaloa to protect civilians, with more than 1,000 military personnel arriving in the region this Friday. Culiacan International Airport remains closed.

According to Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard, the US has already requested Ovidio’s extradition. The subject will be analyzed by the Justice and, said the Secretary of Foreign Relations, the American government will have four to six weeks to present proofs that justify the measure.

Ovidio, leader of the Los Menores faction, had already been arrested in Mexico in October 2019. AMLO, however, released him hours later, pressured by the scenes of violence that unfolded in the streets. At the time, the Mexican justified that “capturing a criminal cannot be worth more than people’s lives.”

Now, López Obrador says security forces conducted a “completely different” operation, since it was carried out on the periphery rather than in the densely populated center of Culiacán.

The Sinaloa cartel is considered by the DEA, the US federal agency responsible for controlling narcotics, as the main person responsible for the trafficking of fentanyl, a drug 50 times more potent than heroin and which has been responsible for numerous cases of overdose in the country.