Ovidio Guzmán, arrested this Thursday in Mexico, is the son of the jailed Joaquín “Chapo” Guzmán and responsible for a vast methamphetamine traffic to the United States, which offered five million dollars for his capture.
At least 29 people died from the violence unleashed on Thursday in the Mexican state of Sinaloa (north) after the arrest of Ovid Guzman, one of the sons of Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman most wanted by the US, as revealed by the Government on Friday.
The Secretary of Defense, Luis Cresencio Sandoval, pointed out that of the 29 deceased, a dozen belonged to the Mexican Armed Forces and 19 to the criminal groups that generated the violent disturbances.
“Ten soldiers lost their lives in the line of duty in order to guarantee security. The Mexican State will give them funeral honors, ”he said at the daily press conference of Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
Sandoval celebrated that, according to current information, no innocent civilians lost their lives.
Regarding the balance of injuries, the head of the Army counted 35 soldiers injured by firearms, as well as damage to various land and air vehicles of the Armed Forces.
21 members of organized crime were also arrested, Sandoval detailed.
uncontrolled shootings
In the operation during and after the arrest of Ovidio Guzmán in the early hours of Thursday, 3,586 members of the Armed Forces participated, who also faced the violence unleashed in the streets of cities such as Culiacán (capital of Sinaloa), Los Mochis and Mazatlán.
López Obrador stressed that the Government acted in a “responsible” manner to “take care of the civilian population, so that there were no innocent victims.”
In addition, he added that the governor of Sinaloa, Rubén Rocha, informed him that the situation in the region is normalizing, after suffering a day of blockades, attacks with bullets and cars set on fire.
“There are no armed groups in Sinaloa, in blockades, which are already removing since yesterday all the cars that were set on fire and that they used to block the streets, practically in the entire city (of Culiacán),” he explained.
The events in Sinaloa have aroused fear among citizens because they are reminiscent of the controversial “culiacanazo”, an operation in which federal forces arrested Ovidio Guzmán on October 17, 2019, but released him hours later for violent acts by the Sinaloa Cartel.
Ovidio Guzmán was transferred on Thursday night to the Federal Center for Social Readaptation (Cefereso) number 1 Altiplano -also known as the Almoloya prison-, located in the State of Mexico, where his father was detained and from which he escaped in 2015.
All this happens days before the visit of the president of the United States, Joe Biden, on the occasion of the North American Leaders Summit.