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Mexican safety forces have captured drug cartel chief Ovidio Guzman, a son of jailed kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, forward of a go to by US President Joe Biden.
Coming three years after a failed operation to detain Ovidio led to humiliation for the federal government of President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the arrest triggered a wave of violence that compelled authorities to shutter airports and faculties within the metropolis of Culiacan.
Protection Minister Luis Cresencio Sandoval stated safety forces had captured the 32-year-old senior member of the Sinaloa Cartel.
Ovidio, a fugitive because the earlier arrest try, was being held within the capital Mexico Metropolis, Mr Sandoval stated.
Movies shared on social media, which Reuters was unable to right away confirm, appeared to indicate heavy preventing in a single day in Culiacan, the primary metropolis within the northern state of Sinaloa, with the sky lit up by helicopter gunfire.
The Sinaloa state authorities stated two members of the safety forces had been killed within the clashes.
Town’s airport was caught up within the violence, with Mexican airline Aeromexico saying one in every of its planes had been hit by gunfire forward of a scheduled flight to Mexico Metropolis.
Nobody was harm, it stated.
A Mexican air pressure airplane was additionally shot at, Mexico’s federal aviation company stated, including that the airport in Culiacan, in addition to within the Sinaloa cities of Mazatlan and Los Mochis, would stay closed till safety may very well be ensured.
Ovidio, who has turn into a key determine within the cartel because the arrest of his father, was briefly detained in 2019 however was rapidly launched to finish violent retribution in Culiacan from his cartel.
The incident was an embarrassing setback for the federal government of Lopez Obrador.
His newest seize comes earlier than a North American leaders’ summit in Mexico Metropolis subsequent week, which Mr Biden will attend and at which safety points are on the agenda.
The US had supplied a $US5 million ($7.four million) reward for data resulting in the arrest or conviction of Ovidio.
It’s not but clear whether or not Ovidio shall be extradited to the US like his father, who’s serving a life sentence at Colorado’s Supermax, probably the most safe US federal jail.
International Minister Marcelo Ebrard stated any extradition must observe formal processes and wouldn’t be instant.
A surge in overdose deaths within the US, fueled by the artificial opioid fentanyl, has led to elevated strain on Mexico to fight the organizations – such because the Sinaloa Cartel – answerable for producing and delivery the drug.
The cartel is without doubt one of the world’s strongest narcotics trafficking organizations.
Guzman’s arrest helps save face for Mexican regulation enforcement following the escape of El Chapo’s son in 2019, stated Tomas Guevara, a safety skilled on the Autonomous College of Sinaloa.
“The detention of Ovidio is lastly the fruits of one thing that was deliberate three years in the past,” he stated.
Safety forces had been trying to include a violent response to the arrest within the Culiacan space by Guzman’s associates on Thursday.
Burned automobiles had been scattered on the streets and closely armed regulation enforcement patrolled in pickup vans.
Native authorities urged folks to remain indoors and stated faculties and administrative workplaces had been closed as a result of violence.
-AAP
