According to the US Attorney General, a son of notorious drug lord Joaqun “El Chapo” Guzmán has been returned to the country on drug trafficking charges.
It is believed that Ovidio Guzmán and his brother are in charge of the potent Sinaloa drug cartel that their father established.
Additionally, Ovidio is charged with ordering the murder of a vocalist who had declined to sing at his wedding.
He was taken into detention after being apprehended in the state of Sinaloa in northern Mexico in January.
US Attorney General Merrick Garland commented on the extradition, calling it “the most recent step in the Justice Department’s effort to attack every aspect of the cartel’s operations.”
Members of the Mexican and American militaries and law enforcement have exhibited exceptional bravery in the fight against the cartels, many of whom have given their lives for the cause of justice.
Mr. Garland also expressed his gratitude to the Mexican authorities for helping to transport Ovidio to the US.
The extradition request by the Mexican authorities received no immediate response.
The 33-year-old’s father’s wife, Emma Coronel, who was convicted of narcotics trafficking in November 2021, was just days before freed from a US jail.
For being the head of the Sinaloa cartel, her husband is incarcerated for life in a supermax facility in Colorado.
One of El Chapo’s four children from his relationships with Griselda López in the 1980s and 1990s is Ovidio Guzmán. Edgar, the oldest, was slain in a gunfight between cartels in 2008.
In addition, El Chapo has more kids from his first marriage and his second union with Coronel.
Following a six-month surveillance operation, Guzmán, also known as “El Ratón” (The Mouse), was apprehended outside the city of Culiacán.
In the ensuing gunfight, 29 people lost their lives, while members of his cartel destroyed buses and cars to block access highways and keep additional police from entering the city.
Ovidio was helicoptered to Mexico City because it was feared that his hitmen would try to attack the convoy if he were to travel by land.
In June 2020, the security forces briefly captured him, but Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador ordered their release “so as not to put the population at risk” because Sinaloa gunmen were fighting with soldiers and police and setting buses on fire.
Before his subsequent capture in January 2023, he had spent the previous 18 months in hiding.
US law enforcement agencies estimate that the Sinaloa cartel has brought more than 1,000 tonnes of cocaine, marijuana, methamphetamines, and heroin into the US illegally.
To increase their control, the cartel’s hitmen abducted, assassinated, and tortured members of competing gangs.
In Mexico and throughout Central America, members have also bought off police personnel and powerful politicians to ignore drug shipments or even inform them of imminent searches.
READ MORE https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ovidio_Guzm%C3%A1n_L%C3%B3pez
