Very high tension in Mexico, especially in the city of Culiacan, after the arrest of Ovidio Guzman, son of Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzman, the leader of the notorious Sinaloa Cartel captured in 2016 and currently in prison in the United States.

Reprisal actions by the narcos began immediately after the arrest. Fires, shootings, roadblocks, everything happens, so much so that Sinaloa Security Minister Cristobal Castaneda raised the alarm on Twitter: "We ask the citizens not to go out."

The closure of Culiacan international airport was also ordered where, after a civilian plane was attacked by gunfire , two Army planes also landed.

The arrest of Ovidio Guzman, alias "El Raton", took place in the early hours of the morning. The elite forces of the Mexican National Guard surrounded the Jesus Maria neighborhood of the state capital of Sinaloa, where the son of the "Chapo" had been identified.

The details and the final balance of the operation have not yet been officially communicated but, according to images disseminated on social networks and relaunched by the media, the arrest took place at the end of a violent firefight during which armed helicopters also intervened of the police firing numerous bursts from the sky .

With his father serving a life sentence in a maximum security prison in the US, Ovidio Guzman had long controlled the Sinaloa Cartel along with brothers Alfredo Guzman Salazar, Ivan Guzman Salazar, nicknamed "Los Chapitos", and Ismael "El Mayo". Zambada Garcia.

"El Raton" had already been arrested in October 2019, but on that occasion the national government authorities decided to release him after very violent reprisals by the cartel men who set the city on fire. The episode, known as "Culiacanazo" , ended with the deaths of seven agents and a civilian, and with the escape of 47 inmates from the city jail at the end of a revolt led by drug traffickers.

Guzman's subsequent release earned enormous criticism from the government of President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and is remembered as a black page in the fight against drug cartels .

(Unioneonline/L)

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