The Mexican security forces have recaptured this Thursday Ovidio Guzmán, the son of Joaquín El Chapo Guzmán and one of the leaders of the Sinaloa Cartel. In an operation carried out during the early hours of the morning in Jesús María, in the city of Culiacán, the Defense Secretariat (Sedena) again arrested the drug trafficker after the failure of October 2019, when the authorities detained him and released him to the police. few hours to stop the escalation of violence that they received in response. As on that black Thursday, the arrest once again unleashed chaos in the State of Sinaloa. The drug trafficker displayed all his forcefulness to try to subdue the armed forces and besieged different parts of the State with blockades and shootings. The authorities asked the population not to go out, classes and activities were suspended, the airport was closed and some hospitals stopped attending consultations.
Luis Cresencio Sandoval, the Mexican Secretary of Defense, has assured that it is a “forceful blow to the leadership of power” of the Sinaloa Cartel, which he has referred to as the Pacific Cartel, and has reported that it was only achieved after “Six months of reconnaissance and surveillance work in the area of influence of this criminal group.” As confirmed by official sources to EL PAÍS, US and Mexican authorities exchanged intelligence information prior to the operation to arrest Guzmán. Ovidio Guzmán was taken on a security forces plane to Mexico City, where he will be presented before the Specialized Prosecutor for Organized Crime.
The Mexican government has taken three years to recapture the son of El Chapo, one of the heirs to the drug trafficking empire left behind by his father, currently in prison in the United States. The release after his arrest, ordered by President López Obrador to, as he has repeated, avoid a massacre, has been one of the most criticized moments of the six-year term of a president who has championed a policy of “hugs, not bullets.” against criminals. However, three years later, the bullets have marked another black Thursday in Sinaloa.
The arrest of Guzmán, known as The Mouse, 32, is given a few days before the arrival in Mexico of the President of the United States, Joe Biden, and the Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, who will hold a summit in the Mexican capital starting Monday. The operation focuses on the crisis of violence that is going through Mexico just during the week in which Biden’s team was seen preparing every detail of the president’s security during his visit.
The Government of Mexico has insisted that the National Guard, the police force created during this six-year term, was the one who carried out the operation to capture Guzmán. The arrest unleashed an unimaginable spiral of violence in Sinaloa, with some twenty drug blockades, as confirmed by the authorities. However, in the early afternoon there was no official information on victims or other arrests besides that of Guzmán.
The images are devastating and once again highlight the power of the drug trafficker in Mexico. Crossed cars and trucks blocking the streets of Culiacán could be seen in photographs and videos that circulated through social networks, in addition to armed confrontations before dawn. Uncertainty drenched the early hours of this Thursday as images circulated of streets deserted of people, except for organized crime commandos. Some photos portrayed charred vehicles, others completely on fire, roads blocked by armed men and bullets falling from the sky. A plane belonging to the Mexican security forces that was landing and an Aeroméxico flight that was trying to take off were shot at at the city’s airport, which reported its closure until 10:00 p.m. Some images reminiscent of culiacanazothe black day in the history of the city, when it experienced 24 hours of violence after the first arrest that Guzmán experienced.
The confusion that began at dawn lasted several hours. The state capital woke up taken over by organized crime, but there were no official explanations as to why. The rumors pointed from the beginning to Ovidio Guzmán, whom the Sinaloa Cartel saved from his first arrest with a reaction very similar to that of this Thursday. In 2019, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador ordered the release of the drug trafficker to avoid further bleeding. On this occasion, the operation was carried out exclusively by the Sedena and the National Guard, which on the one hand was in charge of carrying out the arrest and subsequent transfer of Guzmán to Mexico City, and on the other, the attempted to control some twenty drug blockades throughout the state, as reported by Sandoval. Ovidio is one of the sons of El Chapo who, together with his brothers Iván Archivaldo and Jesús Alfredo, make up the faction of the Sinaloa Cartel called the little boys.
The governor of Sinaloa, the morenista Rubén Rocha Moya, has asked the people for calm and has reported that he was notified by the federal Secretary of the Interior, Adán Augusto López, that the Federal Armed Forces carried out an operation in the union since dawn of Jesus Maria. “This has given rise to some violent events in the capital and other places in the State. It will be the federal authority itself that will report the results of said operation once it is completed, ”he added on his Twitter account. Rocha was joined by López Obrador, who in the daily morning conference assured that he did not know the details and that it would be the federal Security Secretary, Rosa Icela Rodríguez, who would report on the situation. “We do not know how the events are in Sinaloa, there is an operation that began at dawn and later we will inform you about it.”
The Secretary of State Security, Cristóbal Castañeda, was one of the first official voices to report on the blockades, and to ask people to stay in their homes. “Vehicle debris and blockades are being presented in different parts of the city, we ask the public not to go out, we are acting accordingly, we will inform when we are able,” he posted on his Twitter account around eight in the morning. Around noon, Castañeda reported that there were still blockades in the State, nine in Culiacán, three in Los Mochis —north of the capital— and six in the southern zone of Sinaloa. “The government authorities continue to work to control the situation, the public continues to be invited not to be on the street,” he requested in a video. In the Culiacán prison, he said, there was an escape attempt that was prevented, so security has been reinforced.
Following the incidents, the US embassy in Mexico issued a message to its citizens warning of the situation. “There are reports of shootings in various parts of the state including Culiacán, Los Mochis and Guasave. Monitor news. The Consulate reminds you that the Department of State classifies Sinaloa as level 4 “Do Not Travel”.
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