Photo Credit: Ovidio Guzmán López/Twitter
The Mexican city of Culiacán had some excitement today during the capturing and eventual arrest of El Chapo’s offspring Ovidio Guzmán López. As an active member of the most powerful cartel in the country, the Sinaloa Cartel, he’s now facing charges in the US of conspiracy to traffic cocaine, marijuana and methamphetamine. But he apparently wasn’t going in peace. Well, it’s more of the after effects of his arrest that were tragic. Journalists on the ground showed footage of a slew of police on the ground on foot along with trucks that had mounted weapons on them behind them used to take Ovidio into custody. This was followed up several prisoners escaping in the process, a gas station set on fire with people taking cover in the supermarket while the cartel reigned down causing havoc in several neighborhoods for hours. The cartel even blocked entrances to the city with burning vehicles. State police have not confirmed any deaths although footage of people lying in the street appearing lifeless have been getting shared on social media.
Ovidio’s arrest put a stop to his hopes of taking control of the Sinaloa cartel with his brother Ivan Archivaldo Guzman Salazar after his father’s arrest in 2017. The brothers, known as “Los Chapitos” have been facing competition by one of the co-founders of the cartel, Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada who has been trying to kick them out. Then there’s the emerging Jalisco New Generation Cartel that’s believed to have ambushed and killed 14 police officers in the state of Michoacan on Monday. So even though the Sinaloa Cartel has one of their major players out of the way for now, there still is a lot of work to keep the streets of Mexico safe. Remember El Chapo himself was found to have bribed the Mexican government with a total of $200 million which one could only imagine would allow him to do pretty much whatever he wants.
