Wall Street Journal | Culiacan city, Mexico
Violence erupted in the Mexican city of Culiacán after security forces briefly arrested the son of the former cartel kingpin Joaquín El Chapo Guzmán, sparking a wave of attacks in the city that terrorized residents.
Mexican armed forces had managed to capture Ovidio Guzmán, one of the jailed drug lord’s sons, on Thursday afternoon, government officials told local media. But after hours of gunbattles, it appeared Mr. Guzmán, who is believed to have taken a key role in the Sinaloa cartel after his father’s 2017 extradition, had been freed for unexplained reasons.
A lawyer for the elder Mr. Guzmán, who is serving a life sentence in the U.S., said he had been told by Mr. Guzman’s family that the younger Mr. Guzmán was free. “Thank God, Ovidio has appeared,” said José Luis Gonzalez Meza, the lawyer, in a television interview. “He is free.”
In a brief video statement, Security Minister Alfonso Durazo, flanked by Mexico’s military high command, said a patrol of some 30 National Guardsmen and soldiers had come under fire from a house. The patrol took control of the house and found Mr. Guzmán as well as three others.
But then the patrol was surrounded by larger forces of cartel gunmen, while other groups of gunmen attacked civilians throughout the city, “generating panic,” Mr. Durazo said.
As a result, he said, the military high command suspended the operation, and Mexico’s top military officers traveled to Culiacán to take “the corresponding actions.” He didn’t give any further details.
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