Mexico extradited Ovidio Guzmán, the son of Mexican drug lord Joaquín ‘El Chapo’ Guzmán, to the United States on Friday. The US Department of Justice has that announced, write international media. Until his arrest early this year, Guzmán was one of the leaders of the Sinaloa cartel, co-founded by his father, one of the largest criminal organizations in the world. Guzmán is being prosecuted in the American capital Washington for drug trafficking.
Also read: Hug more, Mexico tells Americans, and you will prevent all those overdoses
The extradition of Guzmán, who was arrested at the beginning of this year, follows several months of wrangling between Mexico and the US over where the cartel leader would be prosecuted. The Mexican Foreign Ministry only decided to extradite Guzmán to the US when a federal court in Mexico urged that a decision be made quickly. US authorities filed a series of charges against Guzmán in April. Under his leadership, the Sinaloa cartel is said to have smuggled synthetic drugs such as methamphetamine and fentanyl across the border to the US.
Guzmán was arrested on January 5 this year in Culiacán, a city in northwestern Mexico and the capital of the state of Sinaloa. This happened after a fierce firefight between the Mexican army, the National Guard and members of the cartel. Mexican authorities also arrested Guzmán in 2019, but because the arrest triggered a huge wave of violence, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador ordered the army to release Guzmán. López Obrador, who wanted to put an end to the drug problem in Mexico in recent years, was heavily criticized for his decision at the time.
El Chapo himself was arrested in 2016. In 2019, he was given a life sentence for murder, drug trafficking and money laundering. El Chapo is incarcerated in the US Penitentiary, Administrative Maximum Facility in the state of Colorado, one of the most secure prisons in the United States.