Ovidio Guzmán López, alias “El Ratón”, son of drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán and leader of the “Los Chapitos” faction of the Sinaloa Cartel, was extradited this Friday to the United States.
This was confirmed by the Attorney General of the United States, Merrick B. Garland, who stated that the arrival of one of the leaders of the Sinaloa cartel to the United States is the result of police cooperation with Mexico.
“Today, as a result of police cooperation between the United States and Mexico, Ovidio Guzmán López, leader of the Sinaloa Cartel, was extradited to the United States. “This action is the latest step in the Department of Justice’s effort to target all aspects of the cartel’s operations,” the US Department of Justice statement read.
In the brief note, Prosecutor Garland thanked law enforcement for the work in the fight against cartels in the United States and promised that Justice will continue to punish “those responsible for fueling the opioid epidemic that has devastated too many communities across the country.”
According to United States media, including ABC News and Chicago Tribune, Guzman Lopez he left this Friday from the maximum security prison of the Altiplano, in Mexico, towards the northern border. During his transfer, they indicate, he was escorted by Interpol.
NBC News, citing federal sources, assures that Guzmán remains in federal custody in Chicago and will be prosecuted by the Federal Court in the District of Columbia on charges of conspiracy to distribute cocaine, methamphetamine and marijuana.
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🚨CONFIRMED: Ovidio Guzman, son of El Chapo, has just been extradited to the United States, under INTERPOL custody. He is already in Chicago. Bad day for López Obrador. pic.twitter.com/Y1xB1bLaNW
— Agustín Antonetti (@agusantonetti) September 16, 2023
This was the capture of Ovidio Guzmán
Ovidio Guzmán was captured in Culiacán, in the state of Sinaloa, on January 5. This was his second capture, as he had already been detained in 2019 and later released by order of the Mexican government.
His release was decreed due to the chaos unleashed in some cities, since the wave of violence by the Sinaloa Cartel in reaction to the arrest of El Chapo’s son left at least 9 people dead and dozens injured.
Guzmán’s arrest in January was surprising as it occurred days before the visit to Mexico of the US president, Joe Biden, on the occasion of the North American Leaders Summit, although the Mexican president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, denied any relationship between the two facts.
Guzmán was sent to preventive detention for extradition purposes, but a Mexican judge had indefinitely stopped its shipment to the United States, accepting an appeal for protection. However, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador had expressed his support for his extradition.
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In April of this year, The US Justice filed charges in three different federal districts against Guzmán and three of his brothers for allegedly assuming leadership of the Sinaloa Cartel following the arrest and subsequent extradition of their father to the US.
The charges, in the federal districts of Southern New York, Northern Illinois and the District of Columbia, were issued as part of an investigation into “the largest and most prolific fentanyl trafficking operation in the world,” led by the aforementioned cartel and “fueled by Chinese pharmaceutical companies.”
The Sinaloa cartel, according to Washington, is the “most powerful drug trafficking cartel in the world” and largely responsible for the production and manufacturing of fentanyl for distribution in the United States, where this drug, considered 50 times more powerful than heroin, is “the leading cause of death among Americans ages 18 to 49.”
Guzmán and his brothers, known as the “Chapitos,” were also accused of “systematically” transporting tons of cocaine from and through South and Central America to the United States, according to the Department of Justice.
US authorities point out that this organization has been involved in drug trafficking activities to the US and violence for more than a decade and a half.
The news of Ovidio Guzmán’s extradition comes just two days after the release of Emma Coronel Aispuro, El Chapo’s wife.
Coronel was released in the United States after serving almost two of three years of her sentence for drug trafficking. and money laundering. The 34-year-old woman left a social reintegration center in Long Beach (California), south of Los Angeles, the Federal Bureau of Prisons reported.
The former beauty queen, who married the once-powerful drug lord as a teenager, was sentenced to three years in prison by a US judge in November 2021.
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During the woman’s trial, prosecutors and her defense attorneys said Coronel was not involved in the Sinaloa Cartel’s core business of
Guzmán, who shipped hundreds of tons of cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine and other drugs to the United States. “The defendant’s actual role was minimal,” said prosecutor Anthony Nardozzi.
“The defendant was not a leader, organizer, boss or other type of manager,” Nardozzi added. “Rather he was a cog in a very large wheel of a criminal organization.”
Coronel, who helped facilitate Guzmán’s spectacular 2015 escape from a Mexican prison, regularly attended her husband’s trial in New York.
INTERNATIONAL AND UNIVERSAL EDITORIAL (GDA)
AMERICAN DAILY GROUP
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