Ovidio Guzmán López (32) was arrested yesterday in Sinaloa, a stronghold of the cartel of the same name, in Mexico, which triggered strong acts of violence in various parts of the state, the blockade of the capital and injured at least 18, including police officers and military, authorities said.
He is the son of the imprisoned Joaquín “Chapo” Guzmán and responsible for a vast trafficking of methamphetamine to the US, a country that offered five million dollars for his capture.
Guzmán is considered the head of “Los Menores”, a fraction of the Sinaloa Cartel, founded four decades ago by “El Chapo”, who is serving a life sentence in a US prison. He is the best known of the “Los Chapitos” clan, completed by his brothers Joaquín, Iván Archivaldo and Jesús Alfredo Guzmán, also dedicated to drug trafficking.
Thin and with bushy eyebrows, Ovidio is called “El Ratón”, a nickname that his elusive father would have given him, according to a corrido that the musical band Código FN dedicated to him about the heir. With some first-person verses, the song “I’m the Mouse” describes him as a “boss with a big brain”, “hot-blooded and action-oriented”, with a passion for luxury cars.
Born in Culiacán, capital of the state of Sinaloa, the US accuses him of distributing cocaine, methamphetamine and marijuana in that country. The US Department of State indicates that Guzmán began in drug trafficking by inheriting the businesses of his brother Édgar, executed in 2008 in Culiacán. Ovidio and his brother Joaquín then began buying marijuana in Mexico and cocaine in Colombia. They also acquired ephedrine in Argentina to introduce it to Mexico and produce methamphetamine. According to US authorities, Ovidio is responsible for laboratories that produce between 1,360 and 2,200 kilos of methamphetamine per month that are sold to the US and Canada.
The Sinaloa cartel – involved in internal wars – is also considered by the DEA anti-drug agency as one of the main parties responsible for trafficking fentanyl, a drug 50 times more powerful than heroin and which caused numerous overdose deaths in the US. He has also ordered several assassinations.
Guzmán became known throughout Mexico on October 17, 2019, when the Mexican authorities detained him to later release him by order of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, in the midst of a criminal riot known as the “Culiacanazo”. The president defended that criticized decision, saying that a bloodbath was avoided, when military contingents were surrounded by hitmen equipped with long weapons.
