Mexico takes stock of violence after Guzmán’s arrest

The operation for recapture one of Joaquín ‘El Chapo’ Guzmán’s sons, Ovidio Guzmán López, a member of the Sinaloa Cartel, in which criminals with machine guns and dozens of armed vehicles confronted the military with war helicopters, left 30 dead, more than 50 injured and a city in panic.

The Secretary of Defense, Luis Cresencio Sandoval, described the operation Friday north of Culiacán, the state capital, in which no innocent civilians lost their lives. In the federal forces, there were 10 deaths and 35 wounded. In the state, one policeman died and 17 injured, according to the Sinaloan government.

The gunmen opened fire on the security forces with Barrett rifles, 50-caliber weapons and a convoy of 25 vehicles. Troops responded with the help of a Black Hawk helicopter, Sandoval explained.

The cartel members tried to rescue Guzmán López, as they did in October 2019when in addition to besieging Culiacán they took military installations and soldiers as hostages.

This time the criminals did not achieve their objective despite the blockades with burned vehicles, the attacks on military aircraft, or the intense confrontation that took place at the airport where the bullets also hit a passenger plane.

Sandoval acknowledged that they had learned from what happened more than three years ago and there was greater coordination, 3,600 troops from the army, the National Guard, special forces, and paratroopers were deployed.

Finally, Ovidio Guzman was evacuated in a helicopter, transferred to Mexico City and then to a nearby maximum security prison, but Sinaloa was left in flames.

The Mexican administration captured the drug trafficker just a few days before receive the President of the United States, Joe Biden and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Samuel González, founder of Mexico’s special prosecutor’s office against organized crime in the 1990s, said Guzmán’s capture was a “gift” before Biden’s trip. The Mexican government “is working to have a very quiet visit,” he added.

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador denied it. The government insisted that it was an operation that took six months of work. “We act autonomously,” he said.

Juan Carlos Ayala, a professor at the University of Sinaloa who lives in Culiacán and studies the sociology of drug trafficking, explained that Guzmán had been an obvious target since at least 2019.

“They had it sentenced,” he said. “He was also ranked as the largest fentanyl trafficker and was the most visible operator of ‘Los Chapitos,’” he said, mentioning the name of the faction of the cartel that he led along with his brothers, Iván Archivaldo and Alfredo.

The social networks were filled on Thursday with videos, photos with the blockades, the fires, the war helicopters. In at least one convoy it included a flatbed truck and a rear-mounted gun.

Governor Rubén Rocha and his team summarized the violent day on Friday. In addition to the 250 stolen vehicles, of which fifty were set on fire and the paralysis of activities, flights, and a large part of daily life, panic spread in Culiacán hospitals when armed men tried to take doctors and nurses away. to attend to their wounded, something that finally managed to be avoided, according to Rocha.

The town where the operation took place was left incommunicado and without electricity and with the population terrified for not being able to even go to the doctor. In another nearby community, a 14-year-old boy was wounded in the abdomen in an event that, according to the governor, the prosecutor’s office should investigate if he was linked to the operation. On Friday he was in intensive care.

Ayala maintained that among the population there are still people who support the cartel because of the money it contributes and because the residents know that the federal forces end up leaving but the cartel does not.

Ovid Guzman was accused of drug trafficking by the United States in 2018. According to both governments, together with his brothers he managed a large part of his father’s criminal businesses together with the other founder of the cartel decades ago, Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada.

The Mexican government confirmed that Mexico received a request for his detention for extradition purposes in September 2019 and that the arrest was made pursuant to an Interpol arrest warrant. But the authorities recalled that Guzmán also has charges in Mexico.

“There is no fast-track, we will send it to you there,” President López Obrador said on Friday, ruling out an expedited extradition and stressing that all legal procedures should be followed.

The Mexican government reaffirmed its position that they did not arrive to win a war —in reference to the frontal war against the cartels launched in previous administrations—, but to build peace with the support of the military because the police alone cannot face situations like Thursday.

But peace does not come.

Ismael Bojórquez, director of the local newspaper Ríodoce, which specializes in drug trafficking, pointed out that the violent reaction of the cartels has to do with the president’s less aggressive position towards organized crime.

“They have taken advantage of these four years to organize themselves, arm themselves, strengthen their structures, their finances,” he said. “I think there are more guns now than three years ago. The armies of organized crime have all been strengthened, not just ‘Los Chapitos’, and this is the price that society is paying”.

Culiacán tried to recover on Friday.

Many burned vehicles were still on the roads in part because the authorities, the governor confessed, had no way to move the heavy trailers that were completely torn to pieces and burned. Local authorities had arrested more than twenty people for looting the day before.

Public transport was trying to regularize and with this people could return to their jobs, explained Víctor Medrano, director of the Culiacán Chamber of Commerce. But all under the surveillance of hundreds of police and military who kept permanent tours.

“There is still some fear… but as the day progresses, the streets are seen with a greater presence of citizens,” Medrano said.

Meanwhile, the passengers of the shot civilian plane renewed their hope that flights would resume soon after spending the night in an airport lounge.

However, David Téllez, who saw his return from vacation with his family cut short by the violence the day before —he was one of the passengers who had to throw himself to the ground when his plane was shot at— commented to AP that despite the day of tension and uncertainty in Culiacán, if the son of El Chapo was arrested “it was worth it.”

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