A son of the infamous drug lord
Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán has been extradited to the US on drug
trafficking charges, the US Attorney General has said.
Ovidio Guzmán is suspected
of leading, along with his brother, the powerful Sinaloa drug cartel his father
founded.
Ovidio is also accused of
having ordered the murder of a singer who had refused to perform at his
wedding.
He was arrested in January
in the northern Mexico state of Sinaloa and has been in custody ever since.
"This action is the
most recent step in the Justice Department's effort to attack every aspect of
the cartel's operations," US Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a
statement regarding the extradition.
"The fight against the
cartels has involved incredible courage by United States law enforcement and
Mexican law enforcement and military service members, many of whom have given
their lives in the pursuit of justice."
Mr. Garland also thanked the
Mexican government for its assistance in getting Ovidio to the US.
There was no immediate
reaction to the extradition by the Mexican authorities.
It comes days after the
33-year-old's father's wife, Emma Coronel, was released from jail in the US
after being sentenced in November 2021 on drug trafficking charges.
Her husband is serving a
life sentence at a supermax jail in Colorado for leading the Sinaloa cartel.
Ovidio Guzmán is one of
four children El Chapo had during his relationship with Griselda López in the
1980s and 90s. The oldest of them, Edgar, was killed in a cartel shootout in
2008.
El Chapo also has other
children from his previous marriage and from his subsequent relationship with
Coronel.
Guzmán, also known as
"El Ratón" (The Mouse), was arrested outside the city of Culiacán
following a six-month surveillance operation.
Twenty-nine people died in
the firefight which ensued and members of his cartel burned buses and cars to
block access roads to prevent police reinforcements from reaching the city.
Ovidio was flown to Mexico
City in a helicopter for fear that if he was transported by road his hitmen would
try to attack the convoy.
In June 2020, the security
forces briefly detained him but were ordered by Mexican President Andrés Manuel
López Obrador to release him "so as not to put the population at
risk" as Sinaloa gunmen torched buses and engaged in gun battles with
police and soldiers.
He had been in hiding for
the following 18 months before his re-arrest in January 2023.
The Sinaloa cartel is a
transnational criminal organization that is estimated by US law enforcement
officials to have smuggled more than 1,000 tonnes of cocaine, marijuana,
methamphetamines, and heroin into the US.
The cartel's hitmen
kidnapped, tortured, and killed members of rival gangs to consolidate its power.
Members have also bribed
police officers and high-ranking politicians in Mexico and across Central
America to turn a blind eye to drug shipments or even tip the cartel off about
impending raids.
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