The department thanked Mexico for saying the handover “testifies to the importance of cooperation between the U.S. and Mexican governments to control drug trafficking.”
Ovidio Guzmán, nicknamed “El Radon” (“The Mouse”), was captured by Mexican authorities on January 5 in a bloody operation days before Joe Biden’s visit. Ten soldiers and 19 suspected criminals were killed during a fierce shootout between law enforcement and gunmen in Culiacan, a city of 800,000 people in northwestern Mexico.
US authorities offered a $5 million reward for his arrest, accusing him and his brother Joaquín Guzmán López of overseeing methamphetamine-producing labs in Sinaloa state.
“Other reports suggest that Ovidio Guzmán López ordered the killing of informants, a drug trafficker and a famous Mexican singer who refused to sing at his wedding,” the Customs website further notes.
His father, Sinaloa cartel founder “El Chapo” Guzmán, is currently serving a life sentence in the United States.
Considered the world’s most powerful drug trafficker until his arrest in 2016, he was extradited to the United States in 2017, where he was sentenced to life in prison in July 2019 after a trial under high security in New York. He is serving his sentence at a maximum security prison in Colorado.
“Brains and Warm Blood”
Ovidio Guzmán, 33, is considered the leader of the “Menores,” a faction of the Sinaloa cartel. He is best known for “Chapitos”, a nickname given to the four sons of “Chapo”, including Joaquin, Ivan Archivaldo and Jesus Alfredo.
In a song in his honor released in 2021, “Soya el Radon” (I am the mouse), he is described as “with a lot of brains”, “hot-blooded” and fond of luxury cars.
Until he was extradited, he was incarcerated in Altiplano prison in the central state of Mexico on charges of assault and possession of firearms. He is under investigation in Mexico for other crimes related to organized crime.
In October 2019, “El Radon” was briefly arrested and later released on the orders of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador after a violent uprising in Culiacán following his arrest. Mr. Obrador justified this critical decision, arguing that bloodshed had been avoided.
The US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) is on a war footing against the Sinaloa cartel, a major player in fentanyl trafficking.
This particularly potent synthetic opiate, 50 times more potent than heroin, causes tens of thousands of deaths in the United States each year.
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