The White House has praised the extradition.
Washington:
Mexico on Friday extradited the son of Sinaloa cartel leader Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman to the United States on narcotics charges, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said. Ovidio Guzman Lopez, also known as “El Raton” or “The Mouse,” was indicted earlier this year on drug trafficking charges in connection with the fentanyl crisis plaguing the United States.
His father was convicted in 2019 of running what was believed to be the world’s largest narcotics syndicate and is serving a life sentence in a supermax prison in the state of Colorado.
Garland called the extradition “the latest step in the Justice Department’s effort to attack every aspect of the cartel’s operations.”
“The Department of Justice will continue to hold accountable those responsible for fueling the opioid epidemic that has devastated too many communities across the country.”
The White House praises the extradition of El Chapo’s son
The White House also praised the extradition as part of its “continued cooperation” with Mexico, a sign that President Joe Biden’s administration is eager to move past friction with Mexico over anti-narcotics efforts.
“We thank our Mexican counterparts for their partnership in protecting our people from violent criminals,” said the statement from Homeland Security Advisor Liz Sherwood-Randall, released by the White House.
Cooperation between Mexican and U.S. security forces collapsed last year after Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador disbanded a unit that had worked closely with agents from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration for more than a quarter century.
The Mexican leader had accused US agents of “abuse” in his country’s affairs.
After Guzman’s conviction, several of his sons, known collectively as “the Little Chapos,” inherited control of the Sinaloa cartel, U.S. authorities said.
Ovidio Guzman Lopez was captured in January
Security officers arrested the younger Guzman on January 5 in Sinaloa’s Culiacan town.
The operation to capture the younger Guzman resulted in 29 deaths, including 10 soldiers and 19 suspected criminals, during clashes and chaos as cartel members tried to free him.
Cartel members set fire to vehicles, an echo of massive gun battles in 2019 when the younger Guzman was briefly detained but then released to avoid bloodshed.
At the time, American authorities had offered a $5 million bounty for his arrest. They accused him and his brother, Joaquin Guzman Lopez, of overseeing methamphetamine labs in Sinaloa state that produced an estimated 3,000 to 5,000 pounds of meth per month.
“Other information indicates that Ovidio Guzman Lopez ordered the murders of informants, a drug trafficker and a popular Mexican singer who had refused to sing at his wedding,” according to a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement website.
Ovidio Guzman, 33, will spend his first nights in a US prison just as his father’s wife, Emma Coronel, walks free.
Coronel, who is not Guzman’s mother, was released from a halfway house in California this week after serving a sentence for collaborating with Chapo Guzman in his narcotics activities.
Coronel has dual American-Mexican nationality.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by DailyExpertNews staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
