Leftist President Andrés Manuel López Obrador then defended his decision, stating that a bloodbath was avoided, when military contingents were surrounded by civilians with long weapons.
Since 2018, the 32-year-old man has been wanted by the United States authorities for flooding that country with fentanyl, a synthetic drug 50 times more powerful than heroin that has triggered an epidemic and a huge number of deaths in that country.
Other objectives
According to several Mexican media, citing federal sources, during the operation against “El Ratón” a head of hit men from the Sinaloa cartel, considered by the DEA anti-drug agency as the main person responsible for fentanyl trafficking, was also arrested.
As of mid-morning yesterday, the security forces were still overwhelmed to contain the reaction of Guzmán’s hitmen in the area, official sources admitted.
A passenger plane was shot yesterday moments before taking off from the international airport of Culiacán, state of Sinaloa. The station was immediately closed, while incidents were reported in a prison where several drug traffickers were being held.
The shootings between criminals and security forces occurred in various points of Culiacán
The local government urged people to stay at home and said that schools and administrative offices would be closed due to the violence.
Videos uploaded to social networks showed intense shooting, including from helicopters, during the night. There were also some 30 blockades, including three vehicle tolls, by gunmen, and cars, buses, and trucks were set on fire.
Several cargo vehicles and cars burned yesterday in the streets of Culiacán, a city of 800,000 inhabitants, where scenes of panic were observed among people looking for a place to protect themselves.
As a result of these incidents, the authorities suspended classes and a match in the professional soccer league. The governor of Sinaloa, Rubén Rocha, said earlier that the operation of the Armed Forces was concentrated in the area of Jesús María, municipality of Culiacán.
“This has given rise to some violent events in the capital and other places in the state,” he said on the Twitter network.
Context
The capture of Ovidio, which was confirmed several hours later by the Government, occurs a few days after the President of the United States, Joe Biden, visits his Mexican counterpart López Obrador (see page 17) in the context of the Summit of North American leaders in Mexico City.
In the middle of last year, after a meeting between the two leaders, Mexican authorities arrested Rafael Caro Quintero, a drug trafficker wanted by Washington.
López Obrador has recognized that one of the main challenges of his administration, which ends in October 2024, is to contain insecurity, especially that linked to the actions of the drug trafficking mafia. However, his term aims to end as the most violent six-year term in the contemporary history of Mexico.
The violence in Culiacán occurred in parallel to operations in Ciudad Juárez (north, bordering the United States), in which Ernesto Piñón, alias “El Neto”, was killed, who escaped along with 24 other prisoners from a prison in that city last Sunday.
During the assault on the prison to rescue Piñón and the operations to recapture the escapees, at least 26 people died: 10 prison guards, seven prisoners, two police officers and seven suspected gunmen.
“El Neto” led a gang associated with a drug cartel.
Source: Ambito
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