UPDATE August 22 9:05 p.m. ET:
More sources have confirmed the release of El Chapo's son Jesus Alfredo Guzman Salazar CNN reported. According to a high ranking person in the Mexican government as well as journalist Anabel Hernandez, citing a source in the Guzman family, El Chapo's son has been freed. He was freed Saturday and is said to now be in Sinaloa, Mexico.
See original story below.
The 29-year-old son of notorious Mexican drug lord El Chapo, Jesus Alfredo Guzman Salazar, was reportedly released on Friday after he was kidnapped earlier in the week, according to a report from AFP.
Salazar, along with five other men, was kidnapped Monday while attending a party at a Puerto Vallarta bar. Seven gunmen in pick-up trucks, allegedly members of the rival drug cartel called Jalisco New Generation, abducted the group, according to the New York Post. It was also reported that the gunmen allowed several women to leave the event unharmed.
"It was violent but cleanly done," the restaurant's owner, Ignacio Cadena Beraud, reportedly said of the abduction earlier last week.
Also per AFP:
Authorities had said they suspected the gunmen who seized the men were from the Jalisco New Generation cartel, an upstart rival of the Sinaloa cartel.
The AFP also reported that the governors of western Jalisco and Sinaloa states "have warned of possible reprisals or even a full scale warfare between the drug cartels" if Guzman Salazar, who is said to be a key figure in the Sinaloa cartel, was not released.
“The [Jalisco cartel] can use him, if they’re astute … to get concessions from the Sinaloa cartel and expand their moneymaking enterprise,” Mike Vigil, former chief of international operations for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, told the Post.
