Ovidio Guzmán-López, the fugitive son of notorious Mexican drug kingpin Joaquín Guzmán Loera, better known as El Chapo, has been arrested, leading to an eruption of violence in Mexico.
Ovidio Guzmán-López, a prominent cartel leader like his father, was captured in Sinaloa after a six-month surveillance operation.
Ovidio also known as “El Raton”, or The Mouse, was detained on Thursday, Jan. 5, by the Army and National Guard, the Mexican defence secretary Luis Cresencio Sandoval told a news conference.
The officials, who were not authorized to speak publicly about the raid, said that security forces had transferred him to a military base in Mexico City.
The arrest came during a night of violence that paralysed the Sinaloan city of Culiacan on Thursday, city officials said.
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Residents were warned to remain inside after cartel members carjacked residents and set vehicles ablaze, blocking exits to several cities in the western Mexico state.
“We ask the citizens of Culiacán not to leave home, due to the blockades that have occurred in different parts of the city,” the city’s mayor Juan de Dios Gamez wrote on Twitter.
The explosion of violence was believed to be linked to Ovidio’s arrest.
Sinaloa governor Ruben Rocha Moya tweeted that Federal Armed Forces had been carrying out an operation in the Sinaloa village of Jesús María since dawn on Thursday.
“This has given rise to some violent events in the capital and other parts of the State,” Mr Rocha Moya posted.
