In 2019, Ovidio Guzmán – the son of drug trafficker “El Chapo” Guzmán – was detained and launched in Culiacán, the capital of the northwestern Mexican state of Sinaloa. It took greater than three years to have a second shot at catching him. He was lastly taken into custody by authorities on January 5 of 2023.
On Friday, the Mexican authorities revealed that Guzmán and his gang – Los Chapitos, a faction of the Sinaloa Cartel – had been underneath surveillance for the previous six months. To keep away from violent scenes like these from 2019 – when a whole lot of his henchmen opened hearth and threatened mass civilian deaths to safe their boss’s launch – authorities waited patiently for the right time to strike.
The price of human life has nonetheless been excessive: 29 folks had been killed through the operation, together with 10 troopers. Nonetheless, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and Protection Secretary Luis Crescencio Sandoval made it clear that the hassle by investigators and officers had been a convincing success.
The autumn of Guzmán – a high precedence for the US – put the 2019 fiasco to relaxation. López Obrador has defined that extradition to the US might be accomplished as quickly as potential… though he ultimately backtracked concerning how briskly this could possibly be executed. The Mexican Prosecutor’s Workplace has additionally opened an investigation towards El Chapo’s son, for the crimes dedicated on Friday: homicide and unlawful possession of weapons.
Protection Secretary Sandoval has implied that Guzmán was discovered by pure luck… however
López Obrador has contradicted him, hinting that the authorities waited for Guzmán to be in an remoted place, removed from the middle of Culiacán, throughout low site visitors hours.
The Mexican president has additionally denied that his safety forces acquired any operational assist or intelligence from the US. Nonetheless, official sources confirmed to EL PAÍS that each international locations had exchanged data to facilitate the seize of Guzmán.
Three years in the past, an elite group of troopers arrived on the prison chief’s residence within the heart of Culiacán. The plan was to rapidly detain him and transport him to Mexico Metropolis. However
Guzmán’s henchmen mobilized, organising blockades throughout the town. They then focused the neighborhood the place many army households dwell. Lastly, underneath risk of a bloodbath, President López Obrador ordered his officers to launch the narco.
At his press convention this previous Friday, Secretary Sandoval detailed how authorities approached the arrest in a different way this time round. First, they waited for Guzmán to journey away from the town, preserving all items on excessive alert.
“Primarily based on October 17, 2019, we strengthened safety at army installations,” Normal Sandoval defined. “We intensified coaching – we supplied floor and air forces, in an effort to fulfill the primary mission.”
The sighting of half-a-dozen suspicious vans in an everyday transit space of Los Chapitos marked the start of the operation.
“Six months in the past, areas had been detected the place Ovidio carried out unlawful actions, associated to methamphetamine and fentanyl trafficking,” Sandoval mentioned. On Thursday, a Nationwide Guard patrol stopped the vans within the city of Jesús María, 30 miles from Culiacán. Its occupants responded with bullets earlier than fleeing. The Guard requested for assist from the Army, which launched “the contingency plan and safety process.” Sandoval has not mentioned whether or not the patrol sensed that Guzmán was within the vans.
The automobiles subsequently entered a home in Jesús María, with troopers and criminals exchanging photographs. Los Chapitos, Sandoval mentioned, used – amongst different weaponry – machine weapons and 50-caliber rifles, able to penetrating armored automobiles. Prohibited weapons in Mexico, their use – like rocket launchers – is more and more frequent amongst prison teams.
In 2015, alleged members of the Jalisco Nueva Generación Cartel (CJNG) shot down a army helicopter with a rocket launcher. Six troopers died. The Mexican authorities has repeatedly insisted that these weapons come from the US market. President López Obrador incessantly (and publicly) asks the Biden administration for better collaboration to forestall arms trafficking.
Secretary Sandoval mentioned that the forms of weapons utilized by the cartel members pressured army items to request the intervention of helicopters. This assured the security of safety personnel and discouraged the criminals from making an attempt to rescue their boss.
Not less than 29 gang members, troopers and civilians died within the gunfight. Guzmán – lastly in custody – was airlifted through army helicopter.
“Concurrently, cells of the prison group carried out blockades in Culiacán to forestall the evacuation of Ovidio,” Sandoval narrated. “These [gang members] fired at plane of the Mexican Air Drive and at business strains in Culiacán. Two plane that participated in these actions needed to make emergency landings, however there have been no results on the personnel, regardless of the appreciable variety of hits taken,” he concluded.
Following the arrest of Guzmán, the state of affairs within the metropolis was paying homage to 2019. Dozens of members of Los Chapitos swept via Culiacán, hijacking automobiles and setting them on hearth. The chaos within the metropolis reached different elements of the state of Sinalao, reminiscent of Los Mochis, Mazatlán and Escuinapa. Within the final municipality, hitmen assassinated an Army colonel, ending a tough day for the Armed Forces and your entire nation.
