AMLO's Government Recaptures Ovidio - and Slays the Demon of El Culiacanazo
The release of El Chapo's son in 2019 was a terrible stain on his presidency
In January 2020, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador visited the farming community of La Mora, in Sonora, Mexico, and met with Mormon families of the nine women and children gunned down by cartel sicarios the previous November. During that meeting, one of those present told me, AMLO said that his most regretful moment as president was the release of Ovidio Guzmán, the son of jailed drug lord El Chapo, during the bloody episode known as El Culiacanazo.
Also dubbed Black Thursday, the arrest and then release of Ovidio in the face of blockades and shoot outs on Oct. 17, 2019, was a terrible stain on AMLO’s presidency. It would be cited countless times as proof that his administration was weak or corrupt in the face of narcos. But today, another Thursday, January 5, AMLO’s government appears to have slain this demon with a sleek military operation that recaptured Ovidio in Sinaloa during the early hours of the morning and flew him to the top military base in Mexico City, before the sicarios again took over the city of Culiacán.
The arrest is only hours old and details are still coming in. But it appears that members of Mexico’s marines and soldiers swept into the village of Jesús María, in the rural area of Culiacán municipality, around 4 am this morning. Shoot outs erupted between local gunmen and a marine helicopter as is recorded on this cellphone video, before the troops got hold of Ovidio. They reportedly flew him out of Culiacán on a military plane within hours.
A source in Sinaloa tells me that Ovidio’s mother has a house in Jesús María so he may have been captured on a visit there. The village is also mentioned in the lyrics of the famous corrido “El Raton,” (his nickname) about Ovidio, as the place where he grew up.
As ever, the timing of the arrest speaks volumes. President Joe Biden and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau are due to touch down in Mexico on Monday for a three amigos summit. The Sinaloa Cartel is a major trafficker of fentanyl, which is causing record overdose deaths in the United States, so having this capture will bolster AMLO’s position enormously in negotiations.
As always, however, there is a lot of smoke and mirrors in the Mexican drug war. It is unclear whether AMLO actually knew about the operation beforehand. In his morning press conference as news of blockades in Sinaloa broke, he was guarded in his response. “We don’t know yet how things are,” he said. “There is an operation that began in the early morning, and later we will give information on this.” The marines especially are known to keep their raids very secret in case of leaks.
Yet, even if AMLO was not in the know, it is a huge political gift that he can use to his advantage. As soon as Biden brings up the fact that U.S. customs agents are seizing record fentanyl at the border, AMLO can respond that Mexico is fighting the traffickers. When people cite the Culiacanazo as an example of AMLO’s weakness, they will need to cite the recapture as well.
It is also unclear where the intelligence came from that Ovidio would be in Jesús María today. A DEA source had previously told me they had an informant high up in the Chapitos organization, so they may have provided this. But then Mexican military sources may have known where Ovidio was for some time and been waiting to act.
The 32-year old Ovidio was indicted in New York in 2018 for trafficking cocaine, crystal meth and marijuana and the United States offered $5 million for information leading to his arrest. He is accused of running a major faction of the Sinaloa Cartel, along with his brothers Ivan Archivaldo, “El Chapito,” Jesús Alfredo, “Alfredillo,” and Joaquín “El Guero.”
The current emergency is far from over. Throughout the morning, sicarios had been blockading streets in Culiacán, burning cars and trucks and shoot outs echoed round the city. By 10.30 am, very heavily armed gunmen had set up road blocks and reportedly gone to the airport, which was swiftly shut down. Gunmen, soldiers, police or civilians could be killed in the coming hours in another chapter of Mexico’s ongoing bloody tragedy.
However, the situation contrasts with 2019. In the Culiacanazo, soldiers had detained Ovidio in a luxury house in Culiacán but were pinned down as the gunfights and blockades were unleashed around them. They couldn’t get him out to the airport so the sicarios (there were 700 of them according to one military source) had an objective and could force the government to release Ovidio. This is an example of the cartel using “violent lobbying,” a term coined by academic Benjamin Lessing.
Today, however, it would seem politically impossible to release Ovidio, even if the violence escalates in Sinaloa. AMLO will have the arrest of Ovidio and some redemption for the Culiacanazo. Whether, he had planned it or not.
UPDATE - January 6
The unrest and fighting in Sinaloa during January 5 following the arrest of Ovidio was indeed ferocious. This morning, Mexico’s Defense Minister Luis Cresencio Sandoval announced that 29 people had been killed, including 10 soldiers and 19 sicarios, making it another Jueves Negro.
The video that gained most international attention was of passengers in a commercial Aeromexico plane in the Culiacán airport ducking under their seats as it came under fire. That might be a first in Mexico. Sicarios also burned trucks and blockaded roads throughout Sinaloa and into the state of Sonora. Looters ransacked stores trying to shove fridges into cars, and cartel thugs stole ambulances to help their wounded. It was another day of terror, but sadly in Mexico, terror has become normalized.
Sandoval claimed that soldiers had been on patrol and run into armed men in cars, including Ovidio. However, it seems impossible to believe this was an accident. They must have known Ovidio was there that day, and had prepared to get him out of Sinaloa so fast. And Sandoval said the military mobilized 3,500 troops in response which surely needed planning.
The tone of the government was very different than 2019. The officials spoke of not being on the side of any cartel and not bowing to criminals. January 5, and the recapture of Ovidio, marks the day that Hugs and Bullets was truly over.
Copyright Ioan Grillo and CrashOutMedia 2023
Great analysis, as always
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