Following the capture of El Chapo’s son Ovidio Guzmán López this week, Mexican authorities announced that at least 29 people died during his arrest.
Per Reuters, Mexican security forces captured the alleged drug trafficker on Thursday, and the city of Culicán was engulfed in violence between authorities and suspected gang members. During the dramatic arrest of Guzmán—who is said to be a “high-ranking member of the Sinaloa cartel” that his father co-founded—Sinaloa members exchanged gunfire with security forces, as well as blocked roads and set vehicles on fire. 19 alleged members of the cartel and 10 military personnel were killed during Guzmán’s capture.
Mexico's Secretary of Defense Luis Cresencio Sandoval said that an additional 21 people were arrested during the operation carried out on Thursday, and there haven’t been any reports of civilian deaths in the Sinaloa capital Culicán. Sandoval added that gang members got into a shootout with security forces when the 32-year-old suspected drug trafficker was arrested. He was taken out of Culicán via helicopter, and is currently being held in a maximum security federal prison in Mexico City.
In an effort to ensure public safety, a security presence will remain in the state of Sinaloa and 1,000 military personnel will be sent to the region on Friday.
Prior to his arrest, Guzmán was apprehended in October 2019 but was released by President Andrés Manuel López after Sinaloa cartel members took control of the city. The cartel was under El Chapo’s control before he got a life sentence in 2020, which followed his arrest in 2016 after he escaped incarceration twice.
Authorities said Ovidio and his brother Joaquín Guzmán López “inherited a great deal of the narcotics proceeds” after their brother Edgar Guzmán López died. The two “began investing large amounts of the cash into the purchasing of marijuana in Mexico and cocaine in Colombia” and bought “large amounts of ephedrine from Argentina and arranged for the smuggling of the product into Mexico as they began to experiment with methamphetamine production.”
