At least 29 Mexicans killed in operation to arrest son of El Chapo

Mexico City, January 6 (RHC)-- At least 29 people, including 10 soldiers, have been killed in an operation to arrest the son of jailed Mexican drug kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, Mexico’s government says after a shootout with cartel members.

Ovidio Guzman, nicknamed “El Raton” -- “The Mouse” -- was rounded up early on Thursday in the northern state of Sinaloa and flown to Mexico City on a military plane.  

Defense Secretary Luis Cresencio Sandoval said a passenger plane that was just about to take off from Culiacan airport and two air force aircraft were hit as members of the Sinaloa Cartel launched the offensive to rescue Ovidio Guzman.   The air force planes “had to make an emergency landing” after receiving “a significant number of impacts,” Sandoval said. 

“Ten members of the military … unfortunately lost their lives in the line of duty,” Defense Secretary Luis Cresencio Sandoval told reporters on Friday, adding 19 “lawbreakers” were also killed in the operation.  Another 35 soldiers sustained gunshot wounds.

Members of the Sinaloa Cartel and their associates went on a rampage after Ovidio Guzman’s arrest, fighting security forces, setting vehicles on fire and blocking roads across the Pacific coastal state.  The violence was concentrated in and around Culiacan, the capital of Sinaloa, home of the powerful drug cartel, which “El Chapo” headed before his capture in 2016 and extradition to the United States in 2017.

Twenty-one other people were arrested during Thursday’s operations, Sandoval said during a news conference, adding there were no reports of any civilian deaths.

The arrest of 32-year-old Ovidio Guzman followed six months of intelligence work to track him down, the government said, and he is now being held at a maximum security federal prison.