Mexican Army Captures Son of Drug Lord 'El Chapo'

Facts

• Mexican Sec. of Defense Luis Cresencio Sandoval announced on Thursday that the Mexican army arrested Ovidio Guzmán, a top leader in the Sinaloa Cartel and the son of Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzmán, the now notorious cartel leader who is currently serving a life sentence in the US.¹
• Sandoval reported that, after six months of interagency investigation and surveillance work, Mexican authorities conducted a raid in a small town northwest of Culiacan in the state of Sinaloa, capturing Guzmán while he was traveling in a convoy of armored SUVs.²
• In response to his capture, cartel gunmen swept across Culiacan, as well as other parts of Sinaloa, erecting roadblocks and entering the airport to prevent authorities from flying Guzmán out of the city.³
• This is the second time in recent years that authorities have arrested Guzmán, who, along with his brothers, is accused of leading the largest drug distribution and money laundering network in the Americas. After a previous arrest in 2019, authorities ultimately released him when cartel fighters seized control of much of Culiacan.⁴
• State governor Ruben Rocha said that in the immediate aftermath of Guzmán's arrest, seven members of the security forces were killed and 29 people were injured, including eight civilians. Rocha also reported 12 clashes between cartel gunmen and Mexican authorities, 25 incidents of looting, and 250 vehicles set ablaze as roadblocks.⁵
• The arrest comes only a week before US Pres. Joe Biden and Canadian PM Justin Trudeau are expected to visit Mexico for a summit. The Sinaloa cartel is one of the most powerful cartels in Mexico and is accused by Washington of flooding the US with fentanyl.⁶

Sources: ¹Abc news, ²FOX News, ³NPR Online News, ⁴Daily Mail, ⁵Reuters and ⁶Al Jazeera.

Narratives

• Pro-establishment narrative, as provided by USA Today. A single raid may not stop the flow of fentanyl into the US, but this arrest is certainly a significant blow to the Sinaloa cartel and a major victory for the rule of law. Mexican authorities worked for six months to put the crime boss behind bars, which demonstrates that effectively pursuing the cartels is possible. Even in the face of cartel gunmen sweeping Sinaloa, the authorities still managed to extract Guzmán.
• Establishment-critical narrative, as provided by Jacobin. The US media has an incredibly inaccurate and racialized perspective of the so-called 'drug war' in Mexico. Drug trafficking and violence in Mexico have a lot more to do with how criminal networks work in conjunction with the Mexican state than what amounts to occasional military operations against said networks. Even as the US and Mexican governments' response has expanded and militarized over the years, drug smuggling and use in the US have only increased.
• Cynical narrative, as provided by New york post. Though it is always good to see a criminal like Guzmán get put behind bars, the only reason Mexican authorities conducted this raid was to create good optics for Biden's visit next week. The Mexican government is capable of cracking down on crime, it just only chooses to do so when it's beneficial to its geopolitical interests. As the US is flooded with illicit narcotics from Mexico, the Mexican government is ultimately only interested in optics as opposed to concrete action.