JUAN CARLOS CRUZ / AFP
On Thursday, January 6, 2023, a large force was deployed in Culiacan, Mexico to capture Ovidio Guzmán, one of the sons of drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman.
MEXICO – New twist after the bloody operation to capture the son of famous drug dealer ‘El Chapo’. After his arrest on Thursday 5 January during an impressive dragnet manhunt by Mexican police, Ovidio Guzman should have been extradited to the United States on Friday. However, a federal judge in Mexico decided to stay that trial.
Simple legal formalities would currently prevent Mexico from extraditing the so-called “El Raton” (the mouse) on the basis of an American arrest warrant since September 19, 2019, as CNN reports. The 32-year-old, who is considered “a prominent member of the Sinaloa cartel” by the United States, will have to wait several dozen days in Mexico before knowing his future.
On Thursday, Mexico’s foreign minister confirmed the existence of an arrest warrant on American soil for Ovidio Guzmán, while warning that his extradition would not be immediate. In addition to the “formalities” already mentioned, Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman’s son is also the subject of an ongoing court case in Mexico delaying his transfer to the neighboring country.
CNN also cites Mexican network Televisa and several other Mexican media outlets that following a hearing at the ‘Altiplano Federal Penitentiary, where Guzman’s son is being held, a federal judge ordered preventive detention for a period of 60 days for the purpose of extradition to Ovidio Guzmán, which is currently on Prisoner.
Already arrested and released in 2019
In the United States, “El Raton” is wanted by US authorities for trafficking in cocaine, methamphetamine and marijuana. According to US authorities, Ovidio Guzman even got his hands on several secret laboratories that produce between 1,360 and 2,200 kilograms of methamphetamine per month.
The Sinaloa cartel to which he belongs is also believed by the American Anti-Drug Agency (DEA) to be primarily responsible for the trafficking of fentanyl, a drug that is 50 times more potent than heroin and has caused numerous overdose deaths in the United States states.
He was briefly arrested in October 2019 and then released following his arrest by order of Mexican President Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador following a violent uprising in Culiacan. The president was then justified in this criticized decision with the argument that a bloodbath had been avoided. That was not the case with this new arrest, which killed 29 people, 10 soldiers and 19 suspected criminals, according to Luis Cresencio Sandova, Mexico’s defense minister.
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