The United States has requested that Mexico extradite Ovidio Guzmán, son of notorious crime boss Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzmán, so that he can face criminal charges in the U.S. for trafficking cocaine, methamphetamine and marijuana.
Guzmán — who also goes by El Raton — was arrested last month after a night of deadly violence near the city of Culiacan in the northern state of Sinaloa, where his father’s still-thriving drug enterprise is headquartered. He’s accused of helping run the infamous Sinaloa cartel ever since El Chapo was handed over to the United States in 2017.
The kingpin is currently serving a life sentence at a high-security facility in Colorado for trafficking hundreds of tons of drugs into the country over the course of nearly three decades.
The U.S. Embassy in Mexico City has presented the extradition request to the foreign ministry and attorney general’s office, according to a Mexican government spokesman, who did not want to be named because he was not authorized to speak on the issue. Two other Mexican government sources also told Reuters on Monday that the U.S. made the extradition request.
Guzmán is one of four children El Chapo welcomed during his relationship with Griselda López in the 1980s and ‘90s. The oldest of them, Edgar, was killed in a cartel shootout in 2008. Guzmán’s other brother, Joaquín Jr., also followed their father into the drug business and is currently on the run.
In December 2021, the U.S. Department of State said the brothers were overseeing approximately 11 methamphetamine labs in the state of Sinaloa, which produced an estimated 3,000 to 5,000 pounds of narcotics each month. Federal authorities at the time were offering a reward of up to $5 million for information leading to the arrest and/or conviction of Guzmán.
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