LI’L CHAPO HORRORS IN MEX.
8 are killed after DC writ led to raid for cartel son
Mexico’s disastrously bungled attempt to nab a son of former drug kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzmán came at the behest of a Washington, DC, judge, officials said on Friday.
Eight people were killed when Mexican security forces moved in on a home in the capital of the country’s drug-infested Sinaloa state to find Ovidio Guzmán López on Thursday afternoon but found themselves outgunned by cartel henchmen.
Guzmán López’s lawyer, Jeffrey Litchman, who also represented his now-incarcerated father, confirmed to The Post on Friday that the warrant came out of DC, but he said details of what went down afterward were still murky.
“It’s unclear what exactly happened,” the lawyer said of Thursday’s bloody debacle. “As soon as the smoke clears, we’ll endeavor to figure out.”
Mexico’s defense secretary, Luis Cresencio Sandoval, decried the failed operation by the country’s army and national guard, which he said was meant to pave the way for Guzmán López’s extradition to the US.
He said Mexican Cabinet officials were not made aware of it beforehand.
“The group responsible for this action, in eagerness to achieve positive results, acted in a hasty manner, with poor planning,” Sandoval told reporters in Culiacán on Friday.
Guzmán López, 28, is an alleged leader of the Sinaloa cartel, which had been run by his notoriously slippery father, who escaped custody multiple times until his capture in 2016 and conviction this year.
The son is wanted in the US on drug-trafficking charges and had been holed up in the house with three others when authorities carried out the raid and were overpowered by cartel gunmen.
Authorities briefly detained Guzmán López at the compound but released him when the detainment led to an all-out cartel war on the street outside, prompting wild gun battles throughout Culiacán and a mass prison break.
Mexican officials said eight people were killed in gunfights across the city, including one civilian, one member of the national guard and five cartel attackers.
Another 21 people were wounded in the chaos, and at
least 56 inmates escaped a city prison, said state Public Security Secretary Cristóbal Castañeda. Nearly 50 of the inmates were still at large on Friday.
There was confusion even among Mexico’s top officials as to what brought about the mayhem.
Mexican Security Secretary Alfonso Durazo claimed 30 members of the Mexican army and national guard were routinely patrolling in Culiacán on Thursday afternoon when they were fired upon from a house.
The authorities then took control of the house where Guzmán López was, which was surrounded by heavily armed gunmen who had “a greater force.”
“With the goal of safeguarding the well-being and tranquility of Culiacán society, officials in the security Cabinet decided to suspend the actions,” Durazo said.
But Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador contradicted Durazo’s claims that officers were on routine patrol, saying security forces moved in on the house after a federal judge issued an arrest warrant for Guzmán López for extradition purposes.
Asked by a reporter on Friday whether President Trump had asked for the capture of Guzmán López, López Obrador avoided the question and responded only, “I respect you.”
Sandoval also told reporters in Culiacán that Mexican security forces were seeking to execute an arrest warrant of Lopez that was issued by a federal judge in the United States.
He said the troops involved in the operation failed to get approval from a command supervisor.
The US Department of Justice declined to comment on the matter to The Post on Friday but referred a reporter to a previous indictment against Guzmán López and his brother in the federal court for the District of Columbia.
Meanwhile, López Obrador, facing a storm of criticism, defended the authorities’ decision to release Guzmán López.
“It was decided to protect people’s lives, and I agreed,” López Obrador said in a press conference in Oaxaca, according to local media.
“Catching a criminal cannot be more valuable than people’s lives.”
In July, a Brooklyn federal judge sentenced El Chapo, the oncepowerful leader of the Sinaloa cartel, to life in prison after he was convicted on a slew of drugtrafficking charges.