MEXICO CITY — Mexico extradited Ovidio Guzmán López, a son of former Sinaloa cartel chief Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzmán, to the United States on Friday to face drug trafficking prices, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland stated in an announcement.

“This action is the most recent step in the Justice Department’s effort to attack every aspect of the cartel’s operations,” Garland stated.

The Mexican authorities didn't instantly reply to requests for remark.

Mexican safety forces captured Guzmán López, alias “the Mouse,” in January in Culiacan, capital of Sinaloa state, the cartel’s namesake.

Three years earlier, the federal government had tried to seize him, however aborted the operation after his cartel allies set off a wave of violence in Culiacan.

January’s arrest set off related violence that killed 30 individuals in Culiacan, together with 10 navy personnel.

The military used Black Hawk helicopter gunships towards the cartel’s truck-mounted .50-caliber machine weapons. Cartel gunmen hit two navy plane forcing them to land and despatched gunmen to the town’s airport the place navy and civilian plane have been hit by gunfire.

The seize got here simply days earlier than U.S. President Joe Biden visited Mexico for bilateral talks adopted by the North American Leaders’ Summit.

In April, U.S. prosecutors unsealed sprawling indictments towards Guzmán and his brothers, identified collectively because the “Chapitos.” They specified by element how following their father’s extradition and eventual life sentence within the U.S., the brothers steered the cartel more and more into artificial medication like methamphetamine and the highly effective artificial opioid fentanyl.

The indictment unsealed in Manhattan stated their objective was to supply big portions of fentanyl and promote it on the lowest value. Fentanyl is so low-cost to make that the cartel reaps immense income even wholesaling the drug at 50 cents per capsule, prosecutors stated.

The Chapitos turned identified for grotesque violence that appeared to surpass any notions of restraint proven by earlier generations of cartel leaders.

Fentanyl has change into a high precedence within the bilateral safety relationship. But Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has denied assertions by the U.S. authorities and his personal navy about fentanyl manufacturing in Mexico, as a substitute describing the nation as a transit level for precursors coming from China and sure for the U.S.

López Obrador blames a deterioration of household values within the U.S. for the excessive ranges of drug habit in that nation.

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