generalspeaking

The Sinaloa Cartel Governing Mexico

"The personnel fired back and took control of the house, in which they found four occupants."
"During that action, one of them was identified as Ovidio Guzman Lopez. This resulted in various groups of organized crime groups who surrounded the house with a greater firepower than that of the patrol."
"In addition, other groups carried out violent actions against residents in various parts of the city, creating panic."
Alfonso Durazo, Mexican secretary of public security

"In my 21 years of covering crime at the heart of the drug world, this has been the worst shootout and the most horrible situation I have ever encountered."
"The sound of the bullets was so strong, I could almost smell the gunpowder."
Ernesto Martinez, local crime reporter

"[Mexico resembles a nation in] the throes of war."
"What is incontrovertible is that the Sinaloa Cartel won yesterday's battle."
"Not only did they get the government to release Ovidio, they demonstrated to the citizens of Culiacan as well as the rest of Mexico who is in control."
Gladys McCormick, security analyst, Syracuse University

The authorities say they are working to restore order in the city  Reuters

Theee was raw terror in the Mexican city of Culiacan on Thursday after soldiers and police launched a raid with the intention of bringing in one of the sons of jailed Mexican drug kingpin Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, now serving prison time for life in a high-security U.S. lock-up. While state forces advanced toward their target in Culiacan, a city of a million people, they met with resistance from the Sinaloa Cartel hoisting an array of military-type weapons, and it wasn't the Mexican military that came out smelling like roses.

Ovidio Guzman

They did manage to hold Ovidio Guzman, one of El Chapo's sons, reputed to have taken over the lead after his father's 2016 arrest, but only briefly. Before the shootout between the two forces, the cartel freed dozens of prisoners from a local city jail, torched a number of vehicles and transformed Culiacan into an incendiary shooting gallery. The obvious threat to peace and good order convinced Mexican authorities to swallow their pride and release Guzman -- with the objective, according to Security Minister Alfonso Durazo, of protecting civilian lives.

Although the government denied them, there were reports that the cartel had taken government soldiers hostage. Their lives for Guzman's release. In the violence that ensued, eight people were reported killed, among them five suspected gang members. The government of Mexico under its new President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, was forced to free from immediate custody a drug trafficker indicted by the U.S. Justice System. Putting on full display the power of the Sinaloa Cartel.

The initial description of the scene were agents on a routine patrol came under attack by armed men from a house in Culiacan and that state forces were overwhelmed, has since been retracted. "My suspicion is that they went after him (Guzman) and they lost", scoffed Eduardo Guerrero, a security analyst in Mexico City. Which helped lead President Obrador to the admission the event was no random incident, but a raid by security forces attempting to capture Guzman for whom a judge had issued an arrest warrant for extradition to the U.S.

The Sinaloa state government told residents to stay off the streets   EPA

"The officials who took this decision (to release Guzman) did well", President Obrador insisted. "We're doing really well in our strategy. Capturing a criminal can't be worth more than people's lives", he stressed, referring to his election promise to pacify the country after a decade of gang violence. His strategy is to turn police away from their aggressive military-type strategy, rejecting the critics that his government had behaved out of weakness, insisting that his predecessors' tactics had turned Mexico into a "graveyard".

"It was done hastily, the consequences were not considered, the riskiest part was taken into account", countered Defence Minister Luis Cresencio Sandoval of the bungled capture operation. The carnage that had ensued with the ill-planned arrest of Guzman had its shock value. Images on social media reflected the mayhem that ensued on the streets of Culiacan with videos showing heavily armed civilians firing machine guns mounted on pickup trucks, a cartel man lying on the road firing a 50 calibre machine gun on a tripod.

Sinaloa public security director Cristobal Castafieda spoke of between 20 and 30 prisoners escaping a local jail. The cartel constructed improvised roadblocks, set vehicles afire, and people sprinted through the streets grasping children trying to move speedily for safety from one building to another, hoping to avoid the gunfire. It all began around 3:30 p.m. and was still going strong when 9:00 p.m. agonizingly arrived.

At least eight people were killed Thursday as Sinaloa cartel gunmen and federal forces fought in Culiacan, one of Mexico’s largest cities. (EPA-EFE/REX)

Labels: Drug Cartels, Government, Mexco, Sinaloa

posted by Pieface @ Monday, October 21, 2019